scotty

Helsinki is on the clock VHL.com | Filed under: Helsinki Titans The S45 VHL Entry Draft is fast approaching, and with it, one of the most intriguing draft crops in recent memory will set their course towards VHL glory. It’s not just the prospects that will make headlines, however, as VHL organizations have long been anticipating this draft and jostled to acquire assets accordingly. Look no further than the lowly Helsinki Titans, the Finnish side with only 18 points to their name through 51 games played. While this season has long been considered a write-off for the Titans, fans and management alike have clung to hope in the form of the team’s eight picks in the top 20, including four in the first round alone. For a team with holes everywhere you look, it would be nothing less than a gross understatement to say that the S45 draft will make or break the franchise moving forward. Help for the Titans could come in the form of a slew of new players at a number of positions. The team will hope the lottery balls fall their way to earn the right to select high-profile defenseman Phil Hamilton, because after that, a whack of goaltenders saturate the list of best available players. Luckily for the Titans, goaltender just happens to be a major position of need. At this point, Greg Clegane looks like the consensus top goaltender in the draft and will be a likely target for the team with their second first round pick, by way of Toronto. If the team misses out on Clegane, fans can rest easy knowing that Ariel Weinstein and Sandro Clegane are both excellent ‘backup’ plans who also figure to find a home well inside the first round. For a draft that could be generational when it comes to netminders, a lack of firepower could be a telling narrative with the S45 crop. Only one forward, Kazakhstan native Evgeny Nezhmetdinov is ranked inside of the top 10, joining a quartet of defensemen. Moving into the next rung of prospects, Jace Hines could be a promising prospect but is at least a season away from contributing at the VHL level. Beyond Hines, there is little to look forward to in terms of sure-fire prospects up front. Could it be in the best interest of the Titans to consider moving picks to re-stock their cupboard for S46? It’s a question worth asking. The team is without a S46 first round pick which could be a major concern for a team that figures to be in the lottery once again next season. While they figure to address a number of needs with their picks in the S45 draft, there’s legitimate concern that they’ll be unable to find meaningful forward help. Roster incumbents Thomas Duddy, Souryuu Kaminogi, and Wolfgang Strauss are all solid pieces to build around, but is it enough? One thing is for certain. The Titans have some serious work to do. General Manager William Shaw holds some valuable chips heading into the VHL’s off-season and with some decent young assets in the fold already, pressure will be sky-high for Shaw to make the most of the off-season. If he’s unsuccessful, it could be the beginning of the end for Shaw, and the beginning of an even longer period of drought for the Titans.

Deschamps is coming for Round 2. LOOK OUT

Perron makes his mark in Brampton VHL.com | Brampton Blades BRAMPTON, ONT. -- There's been no sophomore slump for Maxime Perron in the VHLM this season. The seventh overall pick in the VHL's S44 Entry Draft has taken a victory lap in the league's minor league circuit in stride, and then some, tearing the league up to the tune of 43 goals and 82 points in only 50 games. With expectations sky-high for Perron this season, the Frenchman has responded by carrying his squad into the playoffs with little help from his supporting class. Perron's 82 points already eclipse the 74 he put up in S44 and he is already 30 points clear of the team's next leading scorer, Franklin Romanowski. Perron's big season has played a large role in helping the Blades qualify for the VHLM's playoffs, but with 22 games still remaining on the team's schedule, the work is by no means done here. His big league club in Helsinki will be keeping close tabs on their first-round investment, desperately hoping the 6-foot-1 centre can develop into a player capable of playing a regular role in the VHL next year. Early indications show that Perron has clearly outgrown the VHLM, but if he wants to make an impact at the next level, question marks remain just yet.

Yeah, the Thunderdome here doesn't hold a candle to the MSFL. Appreciate it, though!

Interesting notion, and probably a good one. The 'old' SHL was essentially the anti-VHL in terms of PT's etc. It seems from a glimpse that the league is gravitating closer and closer to the VHL model, and with that in mind, it would be interesting to see if there's an opportunity to amalgamate the two. Selfishly, I would say the VHL should stay as the branding, though ;-) Ah yes, poor Mike. He got screwed pretty good there, haha. If anyone EVER thinks this league has drama, it's nowhere near what the MSFL had at times. What a place.

Nice! Yeah, they were cool for sure as player builds panned out a little more (Size to Attributes, etc.)

VHL 8.0 - Part 1 http://www.vhlforum.com/index.php?/topic/22414-vhl-80-part-1-remembering-what-was/

VHL 8.0 | Part 1: Remembering what was For those who know the VHL to be what it is today, know that the league can attribute its success largely to the harsh lessons learned from its sim-league ancestors. Yes, it’s true, before 44 seasons and eight calendar years’ worth of VHL hockey, sim leagues were marred by largely unsuccessful, if not uninspiring tenures. With the promise of each new league came to the expected disappointment when it faltered. Unbeknownst to most, if not all, at the time, this disappointment would lead to something great. Something we now know today as the greatest sim league of all-time, the VHL. This story does not begin in 2015, however. This story dates back to the summer 2006 when I unknowingly found my way to a forum based on a radical idea, the notion of fantasy hockey where you aren’t managing a fantasy roster of NHL players but instead stepping into the shoes of being one of those players yourself. This radical idea in my experience was pioneered by one known by the username ‘Champion’. His league was known as the Extreme Simulation Hockey League, or ESHL for short. Terrible name aside, this is where my sim league experience came to fruition. After spending a brief amount of time getting my bearings in the league and figuring out precisely what the hell was going on, things escalated quickly. The league had a solid foundation in place with a group of core members, the initial framework of the same point tasks you know in the VHL today, and a tiered system with a professional, minor, and eventually short-lived junior league. The ESHL originated with four teams, including the ever-popular Carribean Pirates moniker, and would ultimately expand to six by its fifth season with additions in Halifax and Salt Lake City. All of the pieces were in place for the ESHL to be successful, and in many ways, it was. When Champion left his league in the most volatile of states, the same David Knight you all know and love today was one of the successors to get the league back on stable ground. Shortly after that’s where I came in, primarily as a ‘simmer’. Of course ‘simmers’ was a hell of a lot different than what the same phrase means today. Before the time of STHS or even Eastside Hockey Manager, there was NHL 06, the lifeblood of sim leagues. What did it mean? Monotonous updating, manually entering statistics into an Excel spreadsheet after a game, and sometimes painfully watching games play out between two computer aliases on your PlayStation 2. While watching some of the high-profile ESHL games play out in real-time was relatively entertaining at times, I must say that watching the ESHM(inors) games could invoke a desire to turn the game off at times as a result of the futility of 50 overall players attempting to play a game. Anecdote aside, the ESHL was essentially the historical standard of what a successful sim league could look like. After serving as the league’s ‘simmer’ for some time, I found that my role within the league was quickly evolving. So quick, in fact, that I found myself on the Commissioner team alongside Knight and former sim-league stalwart Dylan McLaren; (there’s a blast from the past). As a Commissioner, conflict resolution becomes a paramount skill you need to possess. Luckily, the ESHL was still fairly small by VHL standards, but make no mistake, there was still no shortage of drama to be hand around the league. As it stood, the league members always found a way to rise above it, but we were certainly entering new territory as our ESHL made it through two, three, and four seasons of play. The ESHL saw no fewer than two expansion drafts, the introduction of a well-intentioned ‘Junior’ league to supplement its ‘Minor’ league, and even an inaugural Hall of Fame crop. In my opinion, this league is and always will be where the point-task sim league came to age. Which brings me to competition. I quickly discovered that the ESHL wasn’t the only alternate version of fantasy hockey out there. While the leagues remained few, the Simulation Hockey League (SHL) chiefly would be the league’s biggest competitor in the same way it still presently exists with the VHL today. Unlike today, however, the ESHL/SHL rivalry was at a much different level. While the two leagues were amicable, to see a member with players in both leagues were almost unheard of. This was sim hockey’s version of European empire history. Two leagues with considerably different philosophies vying to position themselves as the best. This old SHL is not like the one you may know today, though. While today’s SHL has adopted the notion of TPE and limited point tasks, the initial editions were considerably more arbitrary in how players could rise to success. Differences aside, both leagues would ultimately heed to their Achilles Heel’s. Simulating. STHS may be time-consuming today, but it’s all but a fraction of what we used to see with NHL 06. Updating, statistics, game times and the lot was a challenge that would ultimately see the downfall of both leagues. While we tried to combat it in the ESHL with the addition of multiple simmers, it was only a matter of time before the league’s fundamental model would prove unsustainable. Shortly into Season Five, we reached that point. Myself, Knight, and Brett Noiles made the decision that the league would have to come to an end. Our simming resources were stretched beyond capacity and rather than watch the league crumble slowly, we made the difficult decision that we would bring things out while the league was still on a high note. After starting in the summer of 2006, the ESHL would see its end in May 2007. Had STHS existed in 2006, we would likely see a much different history of the ESHL. Hell, this article today would probably be written on a different league forum as the VHL may never have come to be. Revisionist mindset aside, the lessons learned from the ESHL would lead to a period of flux which would leave the sim-league community in a state of uncertainty. But before we address that uncertainty, let us first remember the first great sim hockey league that was. The ESHL, in all its dated glory: http://z7.invisionfree.com/ASHL/ar/

4th, imo.

Deschamps ranked 25th by VHL Scouting Center BRAMPTON, ONT. -- Brampton Blades centre Maxime Deschamps was rated 25th overall in the most recent edition of VHL Scouting rankings, a list profiling prospects eligible for the league's S45 Entry Draft. Deschamps was recently acquired by the Blades through the VHLM's waiver process and has notched four goals and five points in 11 games with the team thus far. Playing out of position on the wing, Deschamps is known more for his skating and defensive acumen. The 18-year-old Frenchman was asked about his ranking after the team's 3-0 win over Bern. "It's nice to be recognized, but at this point I'm really not going to get too tied up thinking about it," the bilingual Deschamps said. "There's still a lot of hockey left this season and I know every game is an opportunity to prove myself. There's a lot of talent in this draft class and I want to ensure that scouts know I can play with anyone out there." Topping the rankings was English defenseman Phil Hamilton, followed by goaltender Greg Clegane and defenseman Biggu Kyanon.

our offense cannot be contained!

Does this mean Brampton will now win? If not, I disapprove.

This is a sensitive subject.

Right now MLS is probably on par with the Swiss league, which puts it around 11-13 internationally. So yeah, lots of work ahead before it's anywhere close to the big boys.

Are we hiring for such a column?

Nice job on this. I'm sure it's just wonderful fun doing it, but it's a nice touch, for sure.

...now that I have your attention. I was thinking about putting together a sequence of media spots that would follow a similar theme of Zero's 20 for 20 way back in the day. Before I do so, I figured I should ask, have there been any MS's of a similar theme of late? I'll likely be retouching on a number of old VHL tales but I want to make sure I'm not rehasing something that's been done recently.

Welp, I'm sold. Oh, I would make Sharpe the recruiter of previous members, though. ;-)

VHL muscle hampster

I'd say within 10-15 years we'll see MLS become a top 6-7 league in the world with increasing resources, popularity, and infrastructure. As is, the league has improved considerably over the past 5+ seasons.

Phil is special.

Good luck, sir!

We need an MLS thread.

Deschamps, imo.