diamond_ace

I never really thought about the weird early retirement stuff but I definitely thought about just not coming back, making a clean break of it. If I'm a mid-level guy, but I'm not around to see that I'm a mid-level guy, do I make a sound? In an ideal world, I want to fully come back, and if I bothered to manage out my time in advance I could probably do it, but I know I'm never going to be that organized. If my options are fully come back and give up what I've gained, or keep things as they are, I think the choice is clear, as much as I've always been the guy who said I'd be here and fully active until I was 50. Couldn't even make it to 30 (turned 30 in October and I was definitely well into my decline by then). Ultimately I think I'll be able to wedge in a little more activity (my new job, while a much better opportunity than my last one, is also half the hours) but I think my cap is going to be about 600 now, and I'm going to have to be fine with that.

FF8? Really? That's my least of the main numbered sequence outside of 13.

I have to make something deep like this, I don't really know enough about what's going on in the league at the moment to be able to write something about that without spending a bunch of time researching. A deep post is essentially just a stream of consciousness, turned into sentences and paragraphs. Takes half the time to write.

Now you know how I felt leaving Calgary for good. Still though, best of luck to you, of course

For doubles

It’s been a weird year. July 17 was the last time I updated more than 30 TPE in a month. I posted some big ones Dec 5, Jan 25, and May 30, but each of those were only big because they had plenty of time to accumulate. All in all, I’m not entirely inactive, but I’m not entirely active either. Some might say I’m a shadow of my former self – with the included reference to one of my players in another league – but on the whole, these type of players have been around the league for years and have been the key pieces in establishing depth for several playoff teams and even cup winners. The sad part is that I didn’t used to think this way. For those of you who are new to the site, I used to be a GM. I ran Calgary for a longer period of time than any other GM in league history, in fact. I also bookended that with two runs as VHLM GM, the first with Ottawa and the second with Oslo, and won cups with both Calgary and Ottawa during my time in charge of each. As both a player and a GM, I always thought that the only truly valuable players were those like I was, players who would get 800 or more TPE in a career, players who went all out the vast majority of the time. For the first few seasons after my decline, I didn’t want to come back because I considered myself no longer valuable to a team. I knew I had missed time, and while Kerkko Hyvarinen had already earned a few seasons’ worth of high TPE, I didn’t want to become another Brooks/B Ran/Scotty/Jeff. I didn’t want to be the guy who pops in periodically and gets active for a few weeks, looking like a return, then goes back to inactive. There are plenty of guys who have a lot of value to the league and their players tend to fall in the 300-600 range. As a GM, I would acquire these guys when they were cheap, and only when they were cheap. I’d end up backing into a few from guys who looked more active initially and fell off, but any GM will experience some of those during his tenure, regardless of GMing skill. It’s a hazard of the job. As a player only, and a moderately active one at that, I’ve found a new respect for those who only ever strive for supposed “mediocrity” as I might have called it in the past. They’re cheaper on the cap, while still providing a guy to talk to in the locker rooms and keep the active guys interested. A team can’t possibly be filled with nothing but 1000 TPE guys, the cap wouldn’t fit them unless some team spent several seasons acquiring nothing but picks and shipped them all off at the deadline for a full roster of guys at just over half price. Even that solution would require the team to trade off many of them going into the next season because their cap hit would end up at 55 million or so. No one wants to sell the farm for one season and then have to trade off half the guys they just got. It’s the players like me now, the StevenStamkos or Munk type guys, even a Duddy or two, that really make a cup run. Sure, if you don’t have a Draper or a Victor, you don’t have a chance, but every contending team finds a way to land their franchise guy. Not every contending team finds a way to land the PK specialist, or the second-line center, or the passer to accompany that top goal scorer. I’m still not fully at peace with my new role in the league. I’d still prefer to be more active. However, if I can trade some VHL activity for a girlfriend I’ve been with for nearly a year now and will likely become quite a bit more than that in time? For a job that’s finally out of retail and is also within a company that’s massive and actively tries to promote from within? For the opportunity to break into the world of ultramarathons with a long term view toward the legendary Western States? I may not have won every trade I had as a GM, but this is a trade I’ve absolutely won and would do again.

The three way trade with NY (Streetlight) and HSK (Boragina) made it on a few lists! Also, I'm on several, and hold a few records, which is not surprising.

This in the short term (the 50k option) maaaaaybe... this in the long term (the 100k option)

https://youtu.be/bXHuC84WniI

Now we'll know how it felt to be South Africa in 2010 - top seeded by virtue of hosting, but completely outclassed by not only the rest of the top seeds, but three of the second seeds as well (Chile/Uruguay/Colombia). Ecuador aren't that great when they're not at altitude, unfortunately we couldn't draw them. As for our group, Colombia will finish top so all we need to do is beat Costa Rica and Paraguay (or a win and a draw should be enough if Colombia get all 9) to advance. Then, we face Brazil in the quarters... then we lose to Brazil in the quarters. I think that's about the cap of it. Unless somehow Brazil manages to finish second in B?

I have them as 4th best, but Italy, England, or Portugal could be better. I also kind of see Poland as a dark horse, probably not deep enough but the top few guys are there. As for Turkey/Czech, if they were in different groups they'd probably be 3rds with enough points to advance (a win over the 4th place side for each with the possibility of stealing a draw elsewhere) but since they're in each other's group, and Spain should get 3 wins from 3, it's probably one one other team out of that group and I have it as Croatia. If either of them can get a win over Croatia, they'll advance as the second place side and that's entirely possible for either one. I break that group down as a clear first place team, a 2 1/2 place team (Croatia is a weak 2 or a strong 3) and two 3rd place teams that can't both get 3rd and suffer from being in each other's group

A: France 7 pts, Switz 5, Alb 2, Romania 1 B: England 7, Russia 4, Wales 4, Slovakia 1 C: Germany 9, Poland 4, Ukraine 4, N. Ireland 0 D: Spain 9, Croatia 4, Turkey 2, Czech 1 E: Belgium 7, Italy 6, Sweden 4, Ireland 0 F: Portugal 7, Austria 5, Iceland 4, Hungary 0 Poland>Switz Spain>Iceland Spain> Poland England>Ukraine Italy>Portugal Italy>England Germany>Wales Belgium>Croatia Belgium>Germany France>Sweden Russia>Austria France>Russia Spain>Italy Belgium>France Belgium>Spain (I'm a little annoyed that Germany and Belgium look likely to be in the same quadrant of the knockout phase - Belgium might actually be better off trying to be 2nd in their group, get into quadrant 2 instead of Italy, then the semis would be Spain/Belgium/Germany/France, the actual best four teams)

Eidur Gudjohnsen too, although that's more the nostalgia side of my brain kicking in again

The guy that knows trivia exists, but is more likely to come back and do a full player with PT every week than to do it: Who is Kerkko Hyvarinen

Belgium. That is all.

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User Name: diamond_ace THE FINALS San Jose vs Pittsburgh Winner: PENS!!!! # of Games: 7

the fuck is a GOMHL

User Name: EASTERN CONFERENCE (A2) Tampa Bay vs (M2) Pittsburgh Winner: Pittsburgh # of Games: 7 WESTERN CONFERENCE (C2) St. Louis vs (P3) San Jose Winner: St Louis # of Games: 5

SCANDY GONNA SCAN

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On behalf of the city of Pittsburgh and all Pittsburgh Riverhounds fans (all 50 or so): I apologize for the team ever employing Romeo Parkes and I'm proud that we terminated his contract after that game. For anyone who hasn't seen it yet, there was a USL match between Pittsburgh Riverhounds and NY Red Bulls 2. In the 85th minute, Red Bulls 2 player Karl Ouimette got sent off and was walking away, otherwise a dead ball, when Parkes walked up behind him and just kicked him square in the back. He was taken to the hospital just as a precaution and ended up being fine, but there's absolutely no need for that. It's one of the most classless things I've ever seen, and I'm ashamed that he was representing this city at the time. For something as small as USL, I've been seeing the clip all over facebook and even goal.com got hold of it (although they mislabeled it as MLS).

Worst part is that I have a bracket on nhl.com that's full all the way through (you had to do the entire bracket before the games started) and I'm in the 98th percentile site-wide, so I know exactly who I'd have picked too. Just for whatever reason, I didn't happen to come on here during that couple of day span.