Wumbo Joins VHLM/Fire Vigneault Actually Does A Media Spot

[Fire Tortorella 2,653]

SASKATOON, SASKATCHEWAN - "He, She, Me...Wumbo?" - what many people are calling the best goaltending prospect in VHL history (and by many, we mean his parents), Wumbo has recently decided to take his talents to the VHL and its development leagues. While he had the opportunity to play in the NHL/AHL/CHL or KHL/VHL/MHL, Wumbo has decided to join the Victory Hockey League. He is following in the footsteps of his mentor, the great mediocre goalie "Bernie G". Bernie was a mediocre VHLM goalie who failed upwards after backstopping his team to a Founder's Cup victory and found zero success in the VHL. He has been able to tell Wumbo to do the exact opposite of what he did in order to find success.

 

"Being able to talk to Bernie has been a huge help for me," said Wumbo leading up to joining the VHL. "He'll be the first to admit that he didn't have the most success in this league, and those are the guys I want to listen to. The superstars like Wayne Gretzky and the Clegane Brothers had too much natural talent, so they are shit coaches. It's the true mediocre, veteran presence guys who always make good mentors and coaches. I'm hoping to become the best goalie this league has ever seen."

 

What is their to say about Wumbo? Obviously that's not his real name, but like those Brazilian soccer players, he'd decided to go by just this made up name. Maybe his real name will become some backstory so I have something to write about in a media spot, but for now, it doesn't mean anything. Wumbo started playing goalie because his team could never find a 6th person who actually wanted to play the position, so he volunteered to do it once or twice. The team obviously got shellacked, as he wasn't very good. Wumbo got sick of losing, so he kept practicing and sent his video on Hudl (or whatever the hockey equivalent is) to Bernie, who agreed to take him under his wing.

 

After officially joining the VHL and declaring himself available for the VHLM waivers, he received two offers - an offer to start in Saskatoon or an offer to back up, split time, and maybe eventually become the starter in Philly. Neither team was very good, so he decided to take the guaranteed playing time in Saskatoon, not to mention that the Wild seemed like a good fit for Wumbo. Now he'll play there for the rest of the season and hopefully put up kind of respectable goaler stats, especially for a waiver player on a....not great team.

 

SO NOW FOR THE ACTUAL IMPORTANT PART AND NOT JUST WORD FILLER - my plans for this player. Those who have seen me post around the board (once in a blue moon) know that I am a huge proponent of "taking players off" - that is, not going full TPE whore on every single player, because that's how you get burnt out on either your 2nd or 3rd player. I've been in this league since...2010? 2011? and have one player that I would consider AWESOME (Smitty W, whose name I already forget how to spell), 1 player that I would consider GREAT (Robin G), and then someplayers who fall somewhere between GOOD with some GREAT seasons (Shayne G, Jeff G), and just BAD (Bernie). My plan is for Wumbo to be at least GREAT - I doubt he'll get to AWESOME since that takes just as much luck with the sim engine and team situations than it does skill, plus that's a lot of writing and TPE earning. Before LeClair II, I moved around with my last couple of players, but that's kind of hard to do as a goalie, since there are only so many starting spots in this league. I'd like to play on one team for my entire career, but we'll see how that goes. Plus there's this whole VHLE thing now and backup goalies are an actual thing, so who knows what a goalie's actual career progression will look like.