Rin

In a rather unexpected turn of events, Rin Kagamine will eventually be heading to one of the most American cities of all- New York- to play with the aptly name Americans.
 
Heading into this draft, I was entirely unsure of where I would end up. As a returning player who hasn't been entirely active, and already left once, I could see arguments for either end of my draft stock to be emphasized. Truthfully, I didn't expect to have a player taken in the first round, though I'll also admit that I forgot just how big draft rounds are these days. I was contacted by a fair number of teams with picks right around the middle of the first round, but was a little surprised to see that none of them ended up reaching with their picks. In the end, I was drafted by a team that I hadn't even spoken to before the draft; much to the surprise of our GM @thadthrasher as well, who assumed I would be off the board by then.
 
I certainly haven't been keeping up with the highest-tier TPE earners, but I feel like I've also been fairly consistent with what I've set out to do, and that's really the biggest key over the course of a career.
 
On that note, though, the floodgates have certainly opened for my VHL to-do list. I can now submit two different career PTs, I'll need to make at least one new signature (one for the VHL and one for the E I suppose), and I need to solidify a plan for builds going forward.
 
 

In a rather unexpected turn of events, Rin Kagamine will eventually be heading to one of the most American cities of all- New York- to play with the aptly name Americans.
 
Heading into this draft, I was entirely unsure of where I would end up. As a returning player who hasn't been entirely active, and already left once, I could see arguments for either end of my draft stock to be emphasized. Truthfully, I didn't expect to have a player taken in the first round, though I'll also admit that I forgot just how big draft rounds are these days. I was contacted by a fair number of teams with picks right around the middle of the first round, but was a little surprised to see that none of them ended up reaching with their picks. In the end, I was drafted by a team that I hadn't even spoken to before the draft; much to the surprise of our GM @thadthrasher as well, who assumed I would be off the board by then.
 
I certainly haven't been keeping up with the highest-tier TPE earners, but I feel like I've also been fairly consistent with what I've set out to do, and that's really the biggest key over the course of a career.
 
On that note, though, the floodgates have certainly opened for my VHL to-do list. I can now submit two different career PTs, I'll need to make at least one new signature (one for the VHL and one for the E I suppose), and I need to solidify a plan for builds going forward.
 
 

That's a badass logo for Asia.

That's a badass logo for Asia.

Some of the initial draft interviews are starting to come through, which means it's almost time for the double draft offseason! Kind of weird to be drafted not only twice in one offseason to two different leagues, but three times overall throughout the course of a career. It was kind of a quiet season in Saskatoon despite a fairly dominant stretch of play, so hopefully one of my two new squads will be able to pick up where we left off and get Rin over the finish line- both in terms of build and results.
 
I'm honestly still not thrilled about the detour in the VHLE. I know it's a solution for the issue of coming up into the majors when TPE differentials are still so massive, but I feel like I'm just going through the motions in a second league whose purpose is to maintain balance in the league rather than provide meaningful career achievements or accolades. Almost like inactivity gatekeeping, part 2.
 
Another smaller thing I've started to think about is earning- I knw I used to be one of these people, but it's wild to see how much TPE people are able to accrue so quickly. There's almost an insecurity that comes with NOT being at the top of that list within your draft class, but I've opted to keep reminding myself that it's a marathon and not a sprint. The last thing I want to do is burn out from something I'm enjoying passively. Being a bit more under the radar does still come with benefits, though- the last time I was drafted into the VHL everything felt like more of a formality. It was obvious that I would go 2nd along with @McWolf to Davos, and while it was an awesome experience, it did remove a little bit of the mystique and mystery that comes with the draft. I truly have no idea where Rin is going to end up, and that beings a fun excitement to draft day that I haven't experienced yet.
 
 

Some of the initial draft interviews are starting to come through, which means it's almost time for the double draft offseason! Kind of weird to be drafted not only twice in one offseason to two different leagues, but three times overall throughout the course of a career. It was kind of a quiet season in Saskatoon despite a fairly dominant stretch of play, so hopefully one of my two new squads will be able to pick up where we left off and get Rin over the finish line- both in terms of build and results.
 
I'm honestly still not thrilled about the detour in the VHLE. I know it's a solution for the issue of coming up into the majors when TPE differentials are still so massive, but I feel like I'm just going through the motions in a second league whose purpose is to maintain balance in the league rather than provide meaningful career achievements or accolades. Almost like inactivity gatekeeping, part 2.
 
Another smaller thing I've started to think about is earning- I knw I used to be one of these people, but it's wild to see how much TPE people are able to accrue so quickly. There's almost an insecurity that comes with NOT being at the top of that list within your draft class, but I've opted to keep reminding myself that it's a marathon and not a sprint. The last thing I want to do is burn out from something I'm enjoying passively. Being a bit more under the radar does still come with benefits, though- the last time I was drafted into the VHL everything felt like more of a formality. It was obvious that I would go 2nd along with @McWolf to Davos, and while it was an awesome experience, it did remove a little bit of the mystique and mystery that comes with the draft. I truly have no idea where Rin is going to end up, and that beings a fun excitement to draft day that I haven't experienced yet.
 
 

Helsinki Titans
Season 1 - Present
 

1) I'm doing this a liiiiittle late, but I'm going to say yes~
2) Not really what I'd hoped for on a personal level, but she's no doubt been a key piece on a top tier team. Hard to complain.
3) No, but my expectations were high. I was hoping to see her closer to the top of the point leaderboards.
4) The Wild as a whole definitely did. We were off to a bit of a slow start, but we've been an absolute powerhouse ever since. With a talent lineup like we have, that was definitely to be expected.
5) Hot chicken/chicken sandwiches, or a good pizza. Can never go wrong.
6) Eating healthy is boring as hell, but there's so much you can do with salad that it's hard not to give it props.

1) Fuck Gustav
2) Any games against San Diego-- as of now we're 2nd in the league, and it's only them above us. If you wanna be the best, you gotta beat the best.
3) Surprisingly, Rin. She's been on a great run as of late, finding the back of the net on her own while also contributing a number of helpers. Definitely has been improving the offensive side of her game.
4) It's hard to catch San Diego, but given the heater we've been on, I'm going to have to say 2nd.
5) Probably Better Call Saul, RARE for a sequel to surpass the original but I truly believe this is one of those cases.
6) I mean...c'mon
In actuality though, I don't think that's a fair question. They're both mediums/methods of telling stories, I don't think one is inherently better just because it's live action or animated. Animation gives you the freedom to expand your idea of what's possible while still being able to suspend disbelief, while live action is far better at being able to portray subtleties-- facial expressions especially, like in a drama akin to Better Call Saul. They each have their own strengths and weaknesses, which is why I think it's impossible to try and say one is inherently "better."

1) Fuck Gustav
2) Any games against San Diego-- as of now we're 2nd in the league, and it's only them above us. If you wanna be the best, you gotta beat the best.
3) Surprisingly, Rin. She's been on a great run as of late, finding the back of the net on her own while also contributing a number of helpers. Definitely has been improving the offensive side of her game.
4) It's hard to catch San Diego, but given the heater we've been on, I'm going to have to say 2nd.
5) Probably Better Call Saul, RARE for a sequel to surpass the original but I truly believe this is one of those cases.
6) I mean...c'mon
In actuality though, I don't think that's a fair question. They're both mediums/methods of telling stories, I don't think one is inherently better just because it's live action or animated. Animation gives you the freedom to expand your idea of what's possible while still being able to suspend disbelief, while live action is far better at being able to portray subtleties-- facial expressions especially, like in a drama akin to Better Call Saul. They each have their own strengths and weaknesses, which is why I think it's impossible to try and say one is inherently "better."

1) Not great, not terrible. Seems like Rin's been better on the defensive side of things, since we don't tend to allow a ton of goals, but that's a hard thing to qualify statistically.
2) It feels like our clutch factor has been fairly high- seems like we win a lot of close games, which is exactly the kind of thing you'd like as we approach the playoffs.
3) Just finished it, though it wasn't the most fantastic time.
4) With cream and only cream. Definitely required, I love the flavor of coffee but hate the bitterness. Taking the edge off turns it into a dessert, almost.
5) I think I'll always be partial to cookies and cream, but I've had a caramel pecan turtle flavor before that goes incredibly hard. Peanut butter cup, too...it's impossible to pick only one.
6) Unironically toward the bottom of my list, despite me saying it was hard to pick one

@Beketov

At least I’m not the only one to realize it.

While hardly a topic even worth bringing up, the discussion behind Alexander Pepper's Hall of Fame candidacy is one that's at least close to me. He was my first ever player, the one I definitely put the most time and effort into since I was a non-jaded first gen. I'm also really big on goaltending as a whole; I could honestly play nothing but goalie and probably never get bored.
 
While Pepper's career was certainly successful, his ultimate legacy goes down as the answer to a trivia question. Unless something's changed (and I highly doubt it has), he's the only goalie in VHL history to hit the elusive 300 win mark and miss out on the Hall of Fame.
 

 
And why is that? Well, even just looking at these numbers tells quite the story. A .917 save percentage is the posterchild for "mid" when discussing all-time great goaltenders, and a lackluster 30 shutouts doesn't help any arguments either. Hell, the 3rd winningest goaltender in Helsinki history, Astrid Moon, recorded a whopping 75 shutouts in about 150 fewer games played. Pepper was certainly not a statistical darling, and even in an era where all goalies struggled to put up meaningful performances, he didn't particularly stand out among the crowd. Especially not against Kallis Kriketers, the goalie for the Riga Reign at the time who consistently set the bar for the era.
 

 
While Kallis didn't hit the 300 win mark, his numbers were drastically better in almost every other category- especially when it came to GAA and shutouts.
 
Stats aren't everything, though, and Pepper certainly did rack up a few awards. However...
 

 
...a few things stick out when you take a peek at Pepper's trophy cabinet. Every VHL level award was given to him in season 66, which ended up being his absolute peak as a player. This Helsinki team, though, was just destined to win after getting so close so many times; nothing was going to stop an absolute all-star roster from finishing the job.
 
I'd always said that my #1 goal as a player was to bring the first Shaw to Helsinki in however many seasons it was at the time. And while that did end up happening, it wasn't without controversy. This was back when there was a chosen "awards committee," in which various members would vote on specific awards instead of the BoG. This was an issue for a few reasons, and honestly, it was a direct contributor to Pepper being granted this award. I was on the panel at the time, and I was adamant that I wouldn't provide a vote for awards in which my player was a reasonable consideration. I didn't want to bring a bias to what would become VHL history, especially in an era of the site where people were ready to rip you apart with accusations of rigging, fixing, or "abusing power." My abstinence, however, resulted in an exact tie for the voting of that award- Kallis being the other contender, of course. As a result of that voting, the award was shared between Pepper and Kriketers in what was an awkward award ceremony. Looking back, I probably should have just voted for Kallis in that race; I don't really think Pepper deserved to win now, but at the time I was way too afraid of over-biasing one way or the other. At the end of the day, though, I think splitting the award is even more embarrassing than not winning one- Pepper couldn't do a single goddamn thing to get above Kallis at any point.
 
The last elephant in the room is the Kanou win, which was honestly another casualty of the flawed award committee system. A stacked Helsinki roster was causing quite the stir in those voting threads, since the cup-winning team didn't have a clear standout player. I practiced the same mindset I'd applied to the earlier Shaw voting, choosing to abstain and instead let the rest of the group decide Pepper was worthy of the nod or not. However, the majority of the group refused to simply vote for one player, and so a compromise was created- each member would rank their top 4 candidates on a scale of 1-4, and each vote would be worth a weighted number of points. Feeling more confident about being able to vote with the new system in place, I submitted a ballot that was true to how I felt- I put @Beketov's Matt Thompson down for 1st, and Pepper down for 2nd. Pepper ended up claiming the most points once all ballots were submitted, but only by a tiny margin. When the full ballots were posted for us to see, it immediately became clear that Pepper had only won because one member placed Thompson as low as fourth, which was objectively a dogshit waste of a vote. Thus, the REAL biggest snub of Pepper's career was the fact that he took home a Kanou instead of Thompson; fitting for a player who was always comfortably in second place.
 
So at the end of the day, Alexander Pepper is a player with great franchise-level accolades to his name to go with a trophy cabinet filled with awards he didn't even really deserve. He was the definition of mid, kind of like the VHL equivalent to Corey Crawford. Wildly successful as far as his teammates, organization, and fans are concerned, but ultimately not someone worth remembering if they're not wearing the home team's colors. Alexander Pepper was not FISTED ANALLY BY A CIRCUS MONKEY, he unfortunately has a very fitting role of being trivia question fodder for the rest of time.

Math ruins a lot of ideas. This is one of them. 

It won't be an award, simply because no one is going to 1. dig through every teams history to see which duo or trio played together the full season (which isn't even common, usually some degree of change is expected), and 2. it'll likely just be a top player dragging on two teammates to get an award and bonus TPE. Or it's some consolation prize for two teammates who both scored well that neither could take the number one spot. All in all I don't think it's feasible or logical to officially implement.

In all honesty, I see that being a borderline impossible thing to discuss and award efficiently. The number of possible combinations of duos and trios is exhausting to think about, I can't see consensus ever being reached to definitively award something like that.
 
Though if you want to turn it into a Media Spot or Graphic kind of thing where you find a group of players particularly interesting to hone in on/recognize, absolutely go for it. It doesnt have to be an official award for it to be a cool idea.

In all honesty, I see that being a borderline impossible thing to discuss and award efficiently. The number of possible combinations of duos and trios is exhausting to think about, I can't see consensus ever being reached to definitively award something like that.
 
Though if you want to turn it into a Media Spot or Graphic kind of thing where you find a group of players particularly interesting to hone in on/recognize, absolutely go for it. It doesnt have to be an official award for it to be a cool idea.

Honestly tho, if no one says it will become an award then i will just do it. Regular season and just take screenshots of the players in each level so that I can make the Article for the VHL Awards week

In all honesty, I see that being a borderline impossible thing to discuss and award efficiently. The number of possible combinations of duos and trios is exhausting to think about, I can't see consensus ever being reached to definitively award something like that.
 
Though if you want to turn it into a Media Spot or Graphic kind of thing where you find a group of players particularly interesting to hone in on/recognize, absolutely go for it. It doesnt have to be an official award for it to be a cool idea.

1) Not at all, we were bound for some kind of a bounceback after a disappointing start to the season.
 
2) A few small trades and a little shuffle of the lines was definitely the recipe for success here, we needed to change up a little something for things to start gelling.
 
3) I have! The race is looking pretty tight, it'll be interesting to see what happens.
 
4) Apparently, defense. It makes sense, given that it's the stat I've worked on most, but seeing Rin end the night with a minus on her scorecard has been a rare occasion. Of course, she's not making enough happen offensively to flirt with the league leaders in that category, but she's been playing well enough I suppose.
 
5) Objectively I have to go with McDonalds, but I regularly go to bat for Burger King because I truly believe it's not nearly as bad as everyone makes it out to be. McDonalds, though, really is the baseline for fast food- you can never really go wrong.
 
6) Winter, always. Texas hasn't seen temps under 100 in MONTHS, and it's regularly been 105-106 throughout all of August and into September. This shit is sweltering and can easily overwhelm you if you're not being careful, I'm desperate to get back into some colder weather.

Why not just make the edges transparent instead of white? Then the cutout effect would work on either one.

Graphic courtesy of Leandrofg
 
The Saskatoon Wild have played 36 games and show a 22-10-4 record for their efforts. This is good enough for third place in the Western Conference and fifth in the league. For a stretch of ten games the Wild were unbeatable, however the last couple of games were a mixed bag, with losses following wins and vice versa.
 
Janser has developed into a defensive Behemoth, being in the top three for checking and time spent in the penalty box alike. We will look into the last game Saskatoon played.
 

2-4
 In a clash for the second place in the Western Conference, the Saskatoon Wild met the Las Vegas Aces. The Saskatchewan franchise bested the Nevada based team 2-4. Neelson with a double-take won the first period for the Wild. Jec then raised the stakes with his marker for the 3-0 lead. Eight seconds later, the Aces cut down the advantage to two goals again. In the final period, Las Vegas scored a goal early on and were looking for the equalizer, before Schwarzer (who has been phenomenal since their trade to the Wild) delivered the dagger with less than two minutes to play. Not enough time for the US equipe to turn the tides again. The three stars were awarded to Neelson (2g/1a), DingDong (0g/2a) and Janser (0g/1a). In Saskatoon's crease, Reed (.905) showed Vidarsson (.862) how it is done. The Saskatoon's rather meagre eploit on the power play (0/2) was backed up by an immaculate performance of the penalty kill units (5/5).
Callum left the ice with a 0g, 1a, +1, 4 hits and 3sb
 
Our correspondent Jean-Luc Lieuxperroux was able to meet with the Calgary native after the match for some comments.
 
JLL: 'Callum, half a season is through and Saskatoon is holding on to a playoff spot. Are you happy with the standing?'
CGY: 'Well, it is certainly a good thing to be in the race for the post-season. But we are not where we wanted to be yet. We expected to be ahead of Miami at least, due to their stretched out defence, however somehow they manage to win games. We also have to look at our own game. Our special units are not cutting it, power play as well as box play is eighth of the league, which does not match our standards.'
JLL: 'But that does mean that most of your goals come from even strength which is the majority of time spent in a game.'
CGY: 'You are not wrong there. However, if you are given a chance to act with one player more, you need to convert about 25% of those chances. This could tip the scales in your favour in a tight match. The same is true for the penalty killing, just inverse. One should be able to kill off 80% of the opposition's power play, if you want to see long term success. Otherwise you will end up losing games, which you would normally tie or even win, when you take some penalties. Having said that our PK is at 82.95%, which would normally be decent. Alas this season seven teams are even better than that, with Mississauga at the top with almost a 9/10 success rate on the short handed play. On the flip side, Miami has the strongest power play, converting one out of five opportunities, whereas we managed only a success rate of 15.15% on the man advantage.'
JLL: 'So it seems everyone is very close on those metrics.'
CGY: 'That is indeed the case. It is details which win you matches and/or Cups, though.'
JLL: 'Are you happy with your individual performance so far?'
CGY: 'I could do with taking less penalties, but I suppose my physical play style is detrimental to the statistics. On the other hand, my production is better than I anticipated and Rin and I close the door most of the times. So overall I am not unhappy with my first full season, but there are a lot of areas where I need to improve. Take my skating for example. It will not stand the test in any higher league and is certainly something I will work on.'
JLL: 'Thanks for these insights, and good luck for the rest of the season.'
CGY: 'Thanks for having me.'
 
Here are Callum's stats for the season:
36gp, 6g, 15a, 21pts, +14, 54 PIM, 122 hits, 50sb, 1gwg, 1ppg, 2 First Stars distinctions
 
We will revert with news on the Swiss back in due course. In the meantime, why not reading some of the previous articles linked below?
 
 
https://vhlforum.com/topic/137991-cgy-janser-scouting-report/
https://vhlforum.com/topic/137981-callum-gareth-gary-yannick-jansers-rocky-road-to-professional-icehockey-a-biography/
https://vhlforum.com/topic/139981-the-cgy-janser-story-part-i-draft-day-first-matches/
https://vhlforum.com/topic/140256-cgy-janser-finding-a-new-home/
https://vhlforum.com/topic/140297-the-cgy-janser-story-part-ii-one-fourth-over-a-fellow-draftee-analysis/
https://vhlforum.com/topic/140374-cgy-janser-putting-in-the-elbow-grease/
GM 170: Las Vegas Aces vs. Saskatoon Wild (vhlportal.com)
 
 

I did not expect so much support thank you so much this is outstanding when I make and upload the shirts/Jerseys then maybe I will give certain players jerseys if I feel like it or maybe the teams GM can reach out with a retired jersey number and player 👀