der meister

It's the one trickle down effect of his term that actually worked. Within a year, Rush Limbaugh had a coast to coast AM radio show that started poisoning minds with racist conspiracy theories. The line from that to the Alex Jones-types is plain.

A lot of things, but chiefly in this case is his handling of The Fairness Doctrine

Random thoughts, November 5th edition: - My player doesn't suck, at least I don't think that yet. I'm happy with the developmental path, and Shevchenko is one point shy of his rookie total, with 31 fewer games played. Progress, right? But I think on a team that's not at the bottom of the standings and not lacking depth, he could be looking at 45 points right now instead of barely over 30. - It's Election Night here in the U.S., and I hate it. I've watched coverage for each of the last 4 presidential elections and I just can't stand it anymore. Politically, the U.S. has lost the plot. I'm passionate about politics and history, and really missed my calling by not being a History professor, I think, but the level of visceral hatred here is so stark that I'm strongly considering looking for a job in a different country regardless of the victor. But if you want to know who I blame for all of this, it's Ronald Reagan. - I haven't the foggiest idea what to do for theme week this time around. VHL Lore? I feel like I wasn't around during the best Lore years, which would be the early ones, and I'm not on Discord so I don't know any modern lore. I'm open to suggestions.

1 - Moscow is the obvious pick, but I also think Riga has a shot, for whatever reason. Just a gut thing, I guess. 2 - Hot sauce, cayenne-based 3 - Relegation! Yes, I will keep beating the drum, all by myself. Q1 - How's your favorite NHL team doing this year? Q2 - Do you know what your next VHL player is going to be? Q3 - Do you prefer 3 days weekends to go Fri-Sun or Sat-Mon?

How tf we get shutout 6-0 to Warsaw?!

Nice comeback against Chicago

1) i am and I have no idea. I like to be surprised at the end of the year. 2) Uh....feels like the easy answer is scotty Campbell 3) Katsushika Hokusai's "The Wave" painting because it always fills me with awe. Q1) What do you do when you're tired but don't want to go to sleep yet? Q2) You've been traded! The catch is you get to pick what team you go to. Where do you go? Q3) Favorite music style?

Wow. Waited all day for 1 game where we score 1 goal and it's all CPUs on it

I'm trying to not be a goddamn slacker this week, at least when it comes to my .com submission. - This is not a complaint, but I'm really looking forward to playing on a competitive team. I'm happy to see my player's continued development paying off with points - 30 in 32 games on the third worst offensive team [61 goals scored] - but man is it a bummer to look at the sims every day and see us get shut out half the time. We have, for all intents and purposes, zero depth on the roster in D.C. I wonder how soon we can make a push toward competitive. Adding some of our top prospects next year will really help, but we need more than just them. - Work took a turn for the WTF yesterday, when my boss told me he wants to demote me and cut my pay by 15k. It's a long story, but basically he doesn't understand what I do, though after 7 years working together he is starting to, but he thought I did something else and is disappointed that the job I agreed to do was not the same as the job he thought I agreed to do. So that's fun. Way to promote me to manager, downsize my department by 60%, and not listen to what I tell you. Cheers, buddy. smh

Lol sorry about that.

Poor results but 4 points in 2 games is solid for Shev. Progress.

3 to 5 tanking teams seems like a lot, though

For what it's worth, I agree we aren't there yet. But I don't think we're that far from it. Are teams really tanking, or is there simply not enough talent to go around?

Hell yeah, nice game against Malmo. I like how Allard and Shev combined for 65% of DC's shots

Contraction.

Claim week 1 of 3

I'm probably going to regret this but I had the idea and now it won't get out of my head, so this week we're going to look at one thing each franchise has that should give "fans" of the team hope. For arbitrary reasons, I'll do this in the order of the standings. Find something to smile about 1 Moscow Menace With the league's best record (21-1-2) and by far the VHL's best points percentage, 0.917, fans of the Moscow Menace should be optimistic that the squad is able to bring the Continental Cup back to Mother Russia for the second time in three seasons. They're firing on all cylinders and show no signs of slowing down. This is the ultimate Win Now team, which has to get the fans excited to show up, loud and proud. 2 Chicago Phoenix It's been 20 years since Chicago won the Victory Cup, but they are the top of the North American Class, and fans in the Windy City should be thrilled with their performance so far. The Conference is remarkably tight, but the Phoenix have 2 of the league's top scorers in Joshua Schwarzer and Spanish Moon Moth, who are both tied for 3rd in the VHL. Goaltender Ryan Artyomov also leads the league in shutouts with 4 in 21 games. 3 Riga Reign There's the obviously monstrous obstacle of the Moscow Menace to deal with, but fans in Latvia should be excited about the chemistry and offensive prowess of their top players. Six skaters are above a point-per-game pace, and Severus Targaryen is tied for second in goals leaguewide. Riga also has the league's second-stingiest goals against number, allowing just 51 goals against in 23 games. 4 Vancouver Wolves Another team built to win now, Vancouver has a plethora of players in their prime. Alliteration notwithstanding, their depth is excellent, especially on the blue line. It seems like regardless of which pair is on the ice, there is a balance. No one on the defense is stellar, but they have a win by committee philosophy that is paying dividends, and giving opposing teams fits when it comes to matchups. 5 HC Davos Dynamo Despite being losers of their last 2, HC Davos Dynamo boasts an impressively physical duo: Owen Lazaro and Grimgor Ironhide. Lazaro is second in the league in hits with 120 in 24 games, and Ironhide is fifth with 103. Whenever either of these players is on the ice, they're looking to hit to hurt, and that style pays massive dividends in the playoffs. 6 Malmo Nighthawks The Nighthawks have the league's second most potent offense with 87 goals in 23 games, trailing only Moscow's 96 in 24, and Phillip Rave is a huge reason for that. Leading the league with 20 goals and 41 points, Rave has been on fire since the first drop of the puck. He's on pace to demolish his previous best season, which was last season's 89 points in 72 games. Malmo better be careful, however, as he is a pending Unrestricted Free Agent. 7 Calgary Wranglers Calgary's a fun one to write about, because there are two different things to highlight. First is the play of rookie Phil Sakic, who has 11 points in 24 games, putting him amongst the league's best in that category. Second is the Wranglers ability to turn a Penalty Kill into a Power Kill, as Keegan Gamble already has 2 short-handed goals on the season, and Raimo Tuominen has added another. 8 Seattle Bears Seattle's had an up and down start to their season but still find themselves in the top half of the North American standings, largely due to their forward depth and commitment to an all-around game. Like Riga, they have 6 skaters above a point-per-game pace, and 5 of those 6 are above the 40 hit mark. 9 New York Americans Despite being one point behind Seattle, there's a clear line of demarcation between the Americans and the Bears. Still, New York is a lot like HC Davos Dynamo, in that their biggest strength is quite literally their strength. The Americans have 3 skaters in the top 8 of body checks, with Toby Kodachi leading the charge with 108. This is a team that can and will fight and claw for everything they earn, and trust me when I say they earn it. 10 Los Angeles Stars Despite having a -10 goal differential, the Stars are still able to find a way to eek out some victories this season and have an 11-11-2 record. Rookie defenseman Samsayz I-Smell is second in the rookie scoring race with 14 points, and young goaltender Roger Eagles is going to be a star in the VHL for years to come. Eagles will look to bring success back to L.A. 11 Toronto Legion Toronto has 4 players north of 1,000 TPE, including their goaltender. While it's tough to look at the standings and be optimistic, the talent is there to make a serious move as the year continues. I'm not sure if they're just snakebitten, but this is a team that is underperforming and has a good chance to self-correct. If they don't, they might be able to move some of their older veterans like Harry Callahan and Diego Machado for massive hauls at the trade deadline. 12 Warsaw Predators Don't look now, but the Predators are on a 4 game winning streak in what will be goaltender Olober Syko's last hurrah before his already-announced retirement. Warsaw might be the single most interesting team in the list, as literally every player on their current roster is either a pending UFA, or pending retiree. This will possibly be an entirely new roster next season, headed up by Slava Kovalenko, a massive defenseman with a heavy shot. The chances of Warsaw jettisoning some veterans for picks and prospects is high, and under careful leadership, this could be a rapid turnaround. 13 Helsinki Titans The answer here is simple: the Titans pipeline is unbelievably deep. They legitimately might have more prospects than the top half of the VHL standings combined. They won't all hit, of course, but if even a quarter of them do, the Titans are going to be a force to be reckoned with. On the current roster, defenseman Tommy Sleeves leads the league in hits with 124 in 24 games. Sleeves is a throwback to a bygone era, as he is already north of the 100 border in the Penalty Minute category, and it's just a matter of time before he does the same in blocked shots [currently 83]. 14 D.C. Dragons The North American cellar-dwellers once again, the Dragons also boast a plethora of prospects, highlighted by center Brandon Petan Jr and winger YNF Retiring. Petan is currently second in VHLM scoring with 35 points in 24 games, and YNF is not far behind with 27, good enough for 6th place. Goaltender Herald Benson is just hitting his prime, as well, and could help the Dragons turn it around sooner rather than later. 15 Prague Phantoms Two words: Pan Dafflack. Last year's first overall selection, the 6'8" defenseman jumped right to the big time and is showing the snarl that led him to being the top pick. With 78 hits, 60 blocked shots, and 56 penalty minutes, he's the kind of rock you build a franchise around. 16 London United It's hard to be optimistic about a team with 1 win in 24 games, but the London United have several positives going for them. First, as you'd expect from a bottom team, are some promising prospects in the form of defenseman Alagsantere Groenvold, forward Drosmis Sarkanis, and goaltender Chazz Michael Michaels. Second, defenseman Zyn Westwood leads the team in scoring while also contributing over 80 blocked shots. He's a pending UFA and could fetch a hefty sum on the trade deadline market. This is a team in desperate need of a 1st overall selection, which has two defensemen in Hugh Neutron and Taavetti Jokinen competing for the top spot. Either of those players could prove to be London's version of Dafflack. Adding in the aforementioned forward prospects, and the United could be boasting the most blue chippers in the VHL. *************** Having written all of this, I'm not really sure what to make of it. Moscow is clearly the favorite to win it all, and barring something wildly unforeseen, London should have the best odds at the first overall pick. Honestly I think London could bounce back quicker than some of the other teams ahead of them, simply because of the prospects I mentioned, plus likely adding a top end D in the Draft. From a homer perspective, I want D.C. to do well, but I think it's still a bit of a long road ahead of us. Warsaw's roster situation genuinely shocked me, and this made me excited to see what their management decides to do. I'm not going to tag every player listed in this article, because that sounds like a tremendous amount of time and energy I simply do not have these days. But if you enjoyed this (written before the sim on 10/28/24), let me know. I hope it was fun to read.

Yet another another hectic week in the Der Meister household. Duplicate word intended. It's almost 11pm on Sunday and I'm just getting to this now, to put it in perspective. I'm happy my player is starting to contribute more regularly. It seemed to get more consistent once I passed the 600 TPE threshold, which is both interesting and meaningless, as Simon don't give a SHIT about VHL TPE. Still, happy to be seeing hits and points, even in losing efforts. Man I hate the autocorrect on my new phone. It's really awful. Apologies for typos but like I said, it's late. I can't believe there are multiple teams worse than D.C. this season. One? Sure. But the fact that there are several teams below us really goes a long way to demonstrating how lopsided the talent pool is here, how poorly distributed. The forced retirement kind of helps with that in the long run, but honestly I'm wondering more and more frequently if there aren't 2 or even 4 teams too many. All these years later and I'm still really interested to see how a league like ours would look if we had a relegation system. No VHLM and VHL segregation of franchises, just one league where teams move up and down through them. The draft could be a round of the bottom (VHLM) teams, then loops back to them again before adding the VHL teams. So the worst team in the M might pick 1st overall and 9th overall, if there were 8 teams, and the worst VHL team would pick 17th overall. Though with our recruitment pool, that might be too harsh. Maybe just the bottom 4 M teams get 2 picks.

Hey we did a good!

Obviously the D.C. Dragons are not off to a great start. With only 4 wins in 18 games, they're certainly well in line to repeat last season's forgettable performance. Their 8 points are almost doubled up by the second-to-last place Los Angeles Stars in the North American Conference. Perhaps the Dragons should be grateful that Europe is even more lopsided, with both the Prague Phantoms and London United somehow managing fewer points so far in this young season. Prague has but 2 victories and 3 overtime/shootout losses for 7 points, while London is rocking an absolutely dreadful 1-15-1 record. It should also be noted that the Warsaw Predators are a single point ahead of D.C. in the standings with a 4-13-1 record. Perhaps most interesting, however, is the Helsinki Titans, who at 6-10-2 for 14 points find themselves 5th in Europe, whereas they would be 8th in the North America. The imbalance between the Conferences is stark; the European Conference playoff picture is all but set, with Moscow leading the charge with a 15-1-2 record. Behind them, H.C. Davos Dynamo, the Malmo Nighthawks, and the Riga Reign are separated by 2 points. And as already mentioned, Helsinki is at 14 points on the season, a full 10 points out of 4th place. On the North American side of the pond, the picture is considerably muddier, and that makes for excitement. The separation from 1st to 6th in North America is 8 points, with a remarkable three franchises tied for first with 26 points. Chicago has the top spot by virtue of having played only 17 games versus Vancouver and Calgary's 18. The Seattle Bears sit in 4th in the Conference, a single point out of 1st place, and the New York Americans are but 2 points behind Seattle. Toronto finds themselves as the "best of the worst" with an 8-8-2 record, good for 18 points, or 5 points behind New York. Back to D.C. and the Dragons, first year General Manager Qripll and his Assistant, PacifistKit17, are clearly just waiting for prospects to develop into stars. Center Theo Allard leads the team in scoring with 16 points in 18 games. Trailing him is second-year forward Konstyantyn Shevchenko, who has 12 points. DB IV and Eurydyka Sklodowska Dudzinska both have 11 points to share the lead in defensive scoring, and netminder Herald Benson has a 4-6 record with a 0.921 save percentage, clearly the highlight of the squad so far. When asked what can be done to improve the Dragons' fortunes this season, Shevchenko did not mince words, and it's clear his grasp of the English language has grown significantly since we last heard from him. "I know I need to be better, and I need to produce more. But all of us in the locker room know that we're not ready to compete yet. This is another development year, and I think some of the guys in here expect to finish this season with a different sweater on their chests." Who will be left wearing a Dragons' crest remains to be seen, but it's hard to not see what Shevchenko sees coming out of the nation's capitol. Hard work and a talent showcase could lead to a change of scenery for some Dragons

Well at least we got a lopsided win

1) Moscow or Riga are my pick. 2) offseason was really good. Just wish there were results that came with the work. 3) Hopefully much better. Need a lot more depth, and a lot of development from our prospects 5) Deep. 800+ TPE players at every position. 6) I'd move Toronto to a real hockey city like Buffalo 8 - Through the Fire and the Flames

Gross

It's Sunday again, so it's time for thoughts and stuff or whatever. 1) I'm writing this to a podcast recorded 5 years ago and the whole cast just randomly starting singing The Graduation Song by Vitamin C and it's weird to work on this while hearing that. 2) Somehow the D.C. Dragons are even worse than last season, starting 0-8, scoring only 10 goals while conceding 37. London United is the only other team without a win, but they have a loser point, giving them an 0-7-1 record. Incidentally, London has scored 12 goals and given up 34, so by all metrics a step above D.C. so far. 3) On the flip side, the Moscow Menace are the league's only 8-0 squad, and their goal numbers are almost directly opposite London's, with 35 goals scored and 13 conceded. They have 6 players that are at or above a point-per-game pace, with Jarmo Ruutu leading the charge at a full 2.0 points per game. 4) Ruttu is one of 4 players rocking that level of production. Joining him are Adi Dassler of the Calgary Wranglers, Owen Lazaro of HC Davos Dynamo, and the league's leading scorer with 17 points in 8 games, Severus Targaryan of The Riga Reign.