dear diary (round 3)

[fishy 1,757]

Dear diary,

 

I just submitted my final paper for school. I am done with college now. It’s a really weird feeling, knowing that I’m not going to have to figure out my school schedule on top of practice and games. It’s a huge weight lifted off my shoulders, and I couldn’t have imagined how good this was going to feel.

 

Wildly enough, it’s also the end of the season. Chicago got knocked out of the playoffs after getting swept by the LA Stars. My teammates were pretty disappointed, and I, for obvious reasons, can’t blame them. It would’ve been absolutely incredible to win the cup two seasons in a row with a group of really great friends. I also maintain that Chicago was the strongest team in the league this season based solely on TPE, but we all know that STHS doesn’t care. Chicago learned that in season 75 when we accidentally were very successful.

 

Having said that, I can’t say that I expected to make it to the finals. I’m sure that’s disappointing for people like Elsby and Jungkok to hear, as they weren’t around to hoist the cup last season. Sucks for them, I guess. Having wild success two seasons in a row would’ve been, in my opinion, somewhat detrimental to the league. It gets dull when the same people/teams are winning everything all the time. That’s how I’ve felt about Adrienne and Lahtinen (in recent memory, at least) - predictions weren’t too difficult since you knew that there was only a small handful of players that were going to win awards. The same can be said for franchises that consistently perform really well - it’s boring. We need some spice, some rotation in top contenders.

 

I’m somewhat glad that LA was the team to knock us out. This is really their first season actually getting to play the game after sitting at the bottom of the standings for seasons straight. They deserve something good to happen, and I’ve been rooting from them (quietly). We expansion teams have to stick together. At this point, I think all of us, London, Warsaw, and LA, have now had a chance to establish credibility. I hope that LA’s success continues for the rest of the season - they’re a good squad, and I have hope that they’ll be able to pull off something really amazing.

 

While I’m here, I guess now would be a good time to start a conversation with myself that I’ve been wanting to have for a while - the “it’s just a sim league” argument. I see it come up a lot - when someone is upset about something not going in their favor, especially relating to TPE, the rules/enforcement, having to resim, etc., you are almost guaranteed to hear, “well, I don’t really know what the big deal is. VHL is just a sim league, it’s really not that deep.”

 

I hate this argument. This is, in my opinion, the absolute worst argument that you could use in any situation because it completely invalidates other people’s feelings. That is super lame. VHL fulfills a different need for everyone here. Some people joined/stay because they want something to do in their free time, because they just can’t get enough hockey,  or because they love the community.

 

Yes, the VHL is, in fact, just a sim league. I can’t refute that. We are all here, doing our silly little tasks for our silly little TPE to apply to our silly little players so that we can win our silly little games. We’re here in our free time as a recreational activity. I’m not trying to say we’re not.

 

What I am saying, though, is that you can apply that to everything. “Oh, it’s just a law. Oh, it’s just a sport. Oh it’s just this or just that.” Calling something what it is and throwing “just” in front of it doesn’t make you a big brain.

 

Do I think that, sometimes, we get really caught up in things that, in the grand scheme of things, don’t really matter? Yeah, but if you look at it that way, then nothing we do matters. We don’t matter. I take that as a challenge to choose what matters to me in order to be as fulfilled in this life as I can. What I choose to matter is up to me, and one thing I don’t think anyone wants to hear is, “hey this whole thing doesn’t matter.”

 

For me, it’s all about keeping things in proportion. Sometimes it’s justifiable for me to care a lot. Sometimes it’s not.

 

Who knows. We’re all just out here trying our best, and sometimes our best is still not very good. We live and learn.

 

- matty

 

Edited May 2, 2021 by fishy

[Crstats23 334]

4 minutes ago, fishy said:

us, London, Warsaw, Chicago, and LA

You are Chicago 

[fishy 1,757]

Just now, Crstats23 said:

You are Chicago 

you are so right

[JardyB10 4,839]

2 hours ago, Crstats23 said:

You are Chicago 

fishy leak! Socks is on the blocks, you heard it here first.