der meister

Where goals?

Wow. Lost to Charles Cheese, Esquire.

1 - stay the course 2 - no idea. The batman who laughs? 3 - super important. Causing puck separation is huge 4 - I'm a sabres fan. The playoffs haven't been an option since November. 5 - stupid big. Like 4 rounds deep of viable players. Stock up. 6 - putting on velcro shoes

I'm going to preface this week's article with the following statement: I frequently find Theme Week to be unsufferable. That's not an indictment on those who organize this league that we all love so much, or a criticism of whoever made the original suggestion. I just don't care for Theme Weeks because I find them so constrictive. That said, I'm going to do my best with this article, and as I'm writing this before the actual article, I hope to learn something interesting while writing it. ------------------------------------------ This may feel like a copout to some, but I am interested in finding out a ranking of which of my players I'd consider the most Tough Guy-esque. The irony here is that the two toughest players I had are both too old to be in the portal, so pour one out for the legends Till Lindemann and Christoph Klose. 1 - The oldest player I have in the Portal archives is center Essian Ravenwing. Ravenwing was absolutely not intended to be anything other than a cerebral playmaker, and his stats would reflect that pretty nicely. Across 576 VHL games, Ravenwing amassed 685 points, with his highest total being a 127 point campaign for Riga, helping the Reign to a Victory Cup. In the Hits category, the Welshman put up a murderous 187 in his career, which equals out to an average of 32 hits per season, or less than half a hit per game. He also spent 71 minutes in the box, which averages out to 12.5 per season. 2 - The next oldest player in the Portal is defenseman Casey Jones. Jones was a weird one for me, because even though he finished his career with 580 points in 576 games, his best season was his rookie campaign where he put up 26 goals and 74 assists for 100 points and a Christian Stolzschweiger Trophy for Rookie of the Year. He also won the Sterling Labatte for the league's best defenseman, and a Grimm Jonsson Trophy for the league's top leader. Why he never replicated or built on his rookie success remains a mystery to me. His best individual totals in Assists, Points, Shots, Hits, Blocked Shots, and Penalty Minutes all happened as a rookie. His 410 hits average out to 71 a season, and his Sin Bin total equals an average of 41 minutes a season. 3 - Next we have The Terrible Trivium, a character straight out of The Phantom Tollbooth. Triv was the sniping winger we all love to create so often. Offensively, he definitely fell behind Ravenwing, finishing his career with 619 points in 576 games, or 93 points a season. But this is a theme week about toughness, and Trivium was not that. With just 60 penalty minutes in his career, he averaged just under 10.5 minutes in the box a season. Interestingly, however, in his final season he had 5 minutes for fighting, his only penalty all year. Two years prior, he racked up an enormous 17 minutes of penalties, with yet another fighting major. Finally, he averaged 28 hits a season, with a career high of 36 in his sophomore season. 4 - Back to the blueline with Ryuji Sakamoto. This was a player who was designed to be 1) fast, and 2) angry. I really wanted to capture the spirit of the character from the Persona 5 universe, and I think I did a pretty good job of that. His 424 points in 576 games is not bad, especially considering how many times he was traded. Offensively, his two best seasons were his final two, both with the DC Dragons, where he put up 153 points in 144 games. Sakamoto spent so much time in the box he had the official's number and the two would occasionally get lunch on the offseason. Sakamoto ended his career with 1,115 penalty minutes and 1,438 hits, along with 1,293 blocked shots. Having written all of this, I think the ranking of toughness is pretty obvious. From Buttery Soft to Chewing Nails: 1 - The Terrible Trivium 2 - Essian Ravenwing 3 - Casey Jones 4 - Ryuji Sakamoto

Yuck

Hey, VHL. I'm so glad it's Thursday. Nothing quite like approaching the end of another shitty week at work. As you may have seen in the status section, I am starting my own business, doing IT consulting in my area. I ordered business cards last night, built the site over the weekend, and am shopping around for business insurance. I really hope it takes off because I can't keep doing what I'm doing. Too much stress and mental health damage. Speaking of mental health damage, thanks a lot, Simon. We were doing so well and now we can't even string 2 wins together. Shevchenko moved to center and has generated a lot of shots, but the shooting percentage is awful this year. Not really sure how to improve on that, but it's very frustrating. The curse of balanced scoring, I guess. I'm happy we're where we are in the standings, don't get me wrong. I had just hoped for more individually at this point in the season. 45 points in 44 games is good, not great, and I want Shev to be great. In the end, though, team success is what really matters. It's a virtual team sport, after all.

Man...even scoring a goal brought Shevchenko's shooting percentage down. 1 goal on 17 shots is terrible, my dude.

Nope. Do over.

Shev enjoying some press box snacks or what? Jesus.

American Gretzky

2 wins, 3 apples. Good enough.

Could have been worse

See qripll's post

Well one monkey off the back at least