diamond_ace

Actually you know what, I know it was at least the beginning of July, I'm fairly sure it was earlier than that but if it's too much to dig it back up, I can just claim back to the first week in July and give everything older a miss.

Haven't done a bio since Brookside, if not earlier, but I can't very well run a VHLM team and teach the noobs how to best get into the league if I don't lead by example.

So it's not quite as iconic a phrase as "Bond, James Bond" but you don't typically hear the name Evan R. Lawson without its accompanying title, CFO of Hank Med. He's a hockey player, you say, so how can he be a CFO, especially of something medical related? He's not, currently, but it's a long story... about 1000 words. Evan was born in the Hamptons to Eddie and Catherine Lawson, along with his brother Hank. Growing up, neither Evan nor Hank had anything to do with hockey. Evan went to school for finance, eventually becoming an accountant, and Hank was one of the most successful doctors in New York City. Evan always looked up to Hank's success, although he did fairly well himself, and while the brothers had a bit of a good natured rivalry, they were always there for each other when needed. One day, Hank was fired - he treated a poor guy first because his case was medically more dire, and while he was treating the poor guy, a rich guy who was on the hospital's board of trustees died from something that should have been fine. The next few weeks for Hank were miserable, moping around in his apartment, being dumped by his girlfriend, until he received a call from Evan. He wanted to treat his brother to a party back in the Hamptons, where Evan still resided. Hank reluctantly came along, and ended up enjoying himself. As luck would have it, a party guest collapsed and Hank saved her, leading to the owner of the mansion where the party was being held hiring him on as his personal doctor. Hank had earned himself a job and a stay at the guest house of Boris Kuester von Jurgens-Ratenicz, a German noble worth more than most cities. Eventually, Hank turned that into a concierge medicine practice based out of said guest house, at which time Evan became his CFO, since he had a financial background. So that explains why Evan has the title CFO of Hank Med, but why hockey? Well, for most of the early years of the Hank Med practice, Evan was your typical 20-something male, chasing women everywhere he went. He ultimately settled down and married Paige Lawson (nee Collins), daughter of a senator, but one of his earlier flings stuck with him in his memory - not necessarily for something particularly intriguing about her as a person, but because she played hockey. He'd obviously seen an average amount of hockey before, through televised games when he was out at a bar or so, but had never played it nor had any interest in playing it until then. He gave it a try mostly to get into her pants. He liked it more than he initially wanted to admit, but it did come easy not to have to fake being interested in it and instead being actually interested. With that on hold for several years while he helped Hank get Hank Med up and running, he'd always kept it in the back of his mind. He had a brief run as a city councilman, since he was still staying in the Hamptons to be around the Hank Med base of operations, but once Hank accepted a new position and left the business in the hands of close friend and associate Jeremiah Sacani, Evan had the opportunity to move wherever he liked, so he decided this would finally be the time to give hockey a shot. At first, Evan just found a role on a local pickup team, no pressure and no real skill required. He picked it up quickly though, and soon outpaced most of his fellow league members. A scout came to a game once, just because his uncle owned the opposing team, and he watched Evan skate circles around everyone else on the ice. The scout was at that time one of the Buffalo Sabres' scouts, and he knew that no matter how good Evan looked, there was no role for a guy that late in life just learning hockey on an NHL or even AHL roster. However, he had a tie in to another league. The scout had previously been employed by the Bratislava Watchmen of the VHLM. The team ceased operations several years earlier, which is why he had needed to take on a new role with the Sabres, but the VHLM - along with its parent organization, the VHL - had been known for its willingness to take on players at different stages of life, with odd hockey origins, and let them at least see if they had what it took to go pro. Evan and the scout took a trip downstate to the facilities of the New York Americans, and talked to three key figures in getting his start - former star center Clark Marcellin, agent diamond_ace, and the man who was at that time, one of the oddest stories in the VHL, Vaclav Hrdina. Hrdina played at that time for New York so Marcellin was in the area as his personal skills trainer and almost life coach, in a way. These three talked to Evan about the league, the process of getting his start, and the teams they'd each been affiliated with throughout different points in their careers. Marcellin especially had nothing but praise for the Calgary Wranglers, where he spent nearly his whole career. Finally, he decided to apply for the VHLM, and was able to sign on with the Las Vegas Aces, the same team he'd be drafted to in the following season. The season after that, like so many other players in the history of the diamond_ace agency, he was drafted into the VHL by the Calgary Wranglers, where he still plays to this day. Still at a relatively early stage of his career, he's developed at a decent pace and while he likely won't become a star of the VHL, there's definitely work for him and he's carved out a pretty solid role on a cup contending team. This is how Evan R. Lawson, CFO of Hank Med became Evan R. Lawson, LW of Calgary Wranglers. 1023 words

This. The bio has to be longer than most things. https://vhlforum.com/topic/15244-biography-guidelines/ will show you how the bio is supposed to go. Still though, great initiative to be working on the bio this quick! Definitely something I'll keep in mind, as a VHLM GM, ahead of the draft coming up.

Yeah sorry that this is so much after the fact @Beketov but what is the latest week I added VHLM GM pay for, prior to the change in update system?

Intranquilo should still have done something. Like I get I was never going to be the top goals guy, that was kind of the point, but there were better players at the actual defensive stats, despite me 1. having more TPE and 2. devoting my entire build to it. If things played out as the build would indicate, the Wylde would possibly be called the Intranquilo.

A player has 989 TPE, that's awesome! But where is it allocated? If he has a seemingly logical defensive D build, but has jack shit in scoring, even though the build should reasonably do as intended, it won't do as intended and he will become one of the historically worst TPE-for-performance players in the history of the league.

@Spade18

CORRECTION to the article: Since Yukon lost I assume I have 3rd and 4th not 3rd and 5th

I have 3 and 5. I'm nice the rest of the year, but at the draft I will cut people. EDIT: 3 and 4. Yukon somehow lost

Von Moltke's not even supposed to be a center, I'm just playing him there because him, Davis, and DiMirio (my three active forwards) are all wingers and I wanted to stack them on a line. The fact that he's above 50% faceoff is surprising

How about no. Most other food, fine. Balut, not so much

I wasn't planning on it but I could, depends on if I remember to go on at home on Monday (or if we're dead enough at work Wednesday or Friday of next week to be able to write one at work, like I did here)

Probably true, but in games that had the proper lines, that series was 1-1. You guys probably would have taken it still but it would have a much better shot at going 7, and a decent shot (20% or so) of us coming out of it.

It's currently the finals in both the VHL and the VHLM (minors). You will be in the VHLM draft this offseason (week or 2) and the VHL draft the offseason after. I'm one of the VHLM GMs, so you might be on my team soon, the Ottawa Lynx. Yes, you get 8 seasons from the point when you're in the VHL draft. The season you're in the VHLM before the VHL draft is not part of the 8.

So I'd like to clarify what happened with the lines in the Oslo-Ottawa series, since I'm the only one who would really know. I'd been having trouble getting the client file to load at all (as evidenced by the screenshot in the S61 Index, where it just loaded a bunch of wingdings). Finally I'd managed to get it to load, and put it into the client, and did the lines. The problem then was that the "copy to all days" button was grayed out and unable to be selected (anyone who has been a GM in this league knows what this button does and how it works - basically it's the button that saves the lines beyond the upcoming game). When I emailed the new lines to vhlsim, I mentioned this in the email, and noted that it may not carry over (and also, that I wanted to play the backup in the third game, the importance of which will appear in a minute). The lines did not carry over, not surprised really, as that's how STHS works. The backup was correctly put into the third game, so I know the rest of the message was received. However, it's not entirely reasonable to expect the lines to be put in manually to copy what I'd put in for game 1, so it's just a weird situation where no one is really at fault except perhaps STHS itself. Ultimately, the only thing I'm bothered about is that it sucks for my guys to lose a series where they won game 1 with proper lines. I still think we ultimately would have lost, but it would have given my guys an exciting and close series to be a part of, and potentially to push through to the finals if we'd managed to spring the upset. Plus Fong's guy barely got to play, although if that was going to happen to someone, it's better that it was an established member than a guy where those were his first games in the league. Generally it's fine though, just STHS being STHS.

I did lines in the client file and the "copy to all days" button was grayed out. I mentioned that in the email where I sent the lines, saying that I wasn't sure it would carry over, but if it did, I wanted the backup to play game 3. It didn't carry over. The backup played game 3, so I know the message was received, but it's probably unreasonable to expect them to put in my lines to match what I sent if STHS didn't carry them over appropriately. So it's not really anyone's "fault" per se, but just STHS being weird. It sucks for my guys, they deserved a full series (especially Fong, who just got into the team right before playoffs started) but there isn't really someone to blame for the matter, just a weird quirk of technology. As far as "what the big deal is" I assume that part was just you as the character, and you actually get why it's a big deal that one of my best players barely played. Still though, not blaming anyone, just weird is all.

@Beaviss I know you like VHLM articles

With the upcoming VHLM expansion draft, the top of the talent pool will be even more spread out than usual, while the mid tier and new guys will be able to contribute more heavily. So if there was ever a year to have enough picks early on that even the expansion draft can't touch most of it, this is the year. The Ottawa Lynx have all Yukon Rush picks through the 4th round, plus Oslo's 2nd, so only the Yukon 2nd is likely to be taken in expansion. However, here is the primary concern: Ottawa ONLY has the draft. The only two pieces from this season that weren't waiver picks, Arbin Asipi and Paul DiMirio, don't carry over to next season. DiMirio has been a free agent for a few seasons now and has continued to choose Ottawa (and hopefully will choose Ottawa for a deep playoff run next season, but can't be guaranteed as a piece) and Asipi's post-draft rights years expire, so he will be entering the free agency pool as well. Since VHLM teams can only sign one active FA, there will have to be a choice, both Asipi and DiMirio can't come back and we can only sign one (unless Asipi is officially considered inactive now, which would mean he can't be signed by anyone, making the choice easy). Given that FA comes after the draft, I'll have to decide whether to take a goalie in the draft before knowing the full deal on Asipi. It might be easier just to take one, then go after DiMirio, as multiple forwards can be put into the lines and the goalie position is much more limited. This is something I'll have to work out a plan on before the draft. Two 1sts will give an opportunity to grab two carryover players, or a new guy who's been active throughout the season but was signed on waivers last year. Since the picks will be third and likely fifth, the position selections will likely be made for me by whoever is left, but it's still a great opportunity to add two true top tier guys. As of right now, Ottawa also has three 2nds - it's likely that the Yukon 2nd will be taken in expansion, but it's technically possible they could select one of my draftees from last year - so that will be another opportunity to add some good pieces, even if they're pieces with some minor questions with them. Two 3rds and two 4ths, in the post-youtube era, should still be decent depth pieces (even if some of these guys go inactive before they get to the VHL, they're still useful to the VHLM). Anything beyond that, who knows - the era of Higgins in the 3rd round is long gone, and for the most part the draft tends to play out as it should, but it's possible a steal could yet happen and it would be big if that steal went to a team who already has a ton of good value picks. Reasonably, there should be 8 pieces at minimum from the draft from which to build the team, although it'll be built from nothing as none of my draftees from last year panned out more than the initial 30 TPE. Lando Baxter, Jake Davis, and Tzuyu were great pieces for me this year but all were waiver guys and will be in the draft again. 571 words, and Doubles

*Standard hockey answer* Next year is Ottawa's year! Probably true though, I have a lot of early picks

I had the opposite reaction prior to finding out it was a mass tag - I was like why tf are people tagging me in graphics stuff

I've learned from prior seasons, never trust the Hazard to Real Madrid rumors that inevitably come up. So many false stories around, until he's sold he's a Blue.

From the link you just posted as well