Longest VHL.com Article Ever?

[NSG 498]

In the NSG player agency, there are technically 2 active players in the agency, however, all 3 parties have mutually agreed to give Tucker very little press or attention for the remainder of the season, however, both of them will get statistics thing, so double the fun for regular reader @Shindigs!

 

Down in Halifax, new goalie Henry Tucker Jr has been thrown into the fire, sort of. He and starter Tombstone have been splitting games for the past 3 sims, but it is pretty obvious that Tombstone has been getting the harder assignments (and for good reason. I’ve been at 87 APE to his 200). Since the 2 began splitting, Tombstone has faced Miami twice and Mississauga once, who have 91 and 84 points, respectively, and he has faced 72 shots. Tucker Jr, meanwhile, has seen Saskatoon once and Philly twice, getting shot at just 42 times. Thanks to these timely games against trash teams, Tucker sits at 3-0 with a 1.68 GAA, which ranks 3rd in the league, but don’t be fooled: He only has an .881 SV%. Onto the stats!

 

 

Henry Tucker

Games: 499 (4th) - Had I not gotten both trivia questions right, I woulda written a game recap of his 500th game. Blasted trivia savvy!

 

Goals: 240 (1st) - Ain’t no way I’m gettin’ to 250, but for one thing, I tried, and also, I’m 1st on the team, always a positive.

 

Assists: 283 (5th) - I didn’t get close to 4th, but as I’ve said before, top-5 is nothing to sneeze at and deserves to be included on my accomplishments.

 

Points: 523 (4th) - If I was first in assists as well as goals, I would also be first here, but tragically, it was not to be. Another noteworthy accomplishment, though.

 

+/-: 57 (19th) - I think I was like top 10 before this year, but tanking generally doesn’t help a plus/minus. I coulda done a Reinhart and conveniently ducked out before the season, but goddamn team loyalty kept me here. In the spoiler, some thoughts about team loyalty and Ruutu and stuff.

 

Spoiler

Whether it was intentional or not, I always feel like he overlooked some things when he ranted about me helping initiate the meta. For one thing, by the time meta happened, I had been a Wolved player or prospect for 4 seasons, or half of my career. I came in during the end of Beaviss’ reign and stayed through fonzi’s brief tenure, which was highlighted by a lot of Ls. So while I suppose he never said anything about my pre-meta future, I feel like the atmosphere he wanted to have was supposed to be one where I magically appeared on the Vanny bandwagon when the meta started (and it should be noted that in fonzi’s last season, he told me to get to 99 SC so I could score more goals. Not meta, 99 scoring. Many, many people had 99 scoring then and nobody built meta until the Reinharts came along) and the only reason I didn’t jump off was because I was AGM, and that’s not the case. What happened, in my view, was more like this (and I’m expanding on the bandwagon metaphor)

 

Back in 76, I was drafted into Vancouver along with RGN and Zolnek. Back then, it wasn’t like a bandwagon, it was more like a nicely furnished carriage. We did well, but weren’t manically successful. Then Beav resigned, and fonzi rebuilt the team, so we went from having that nice carriage to riding on a horse bareback. It was bad. A couple seasons later, Nyko and Jerome and Tyler entered, and we weren’t just a bandwagon, we were a traveling circus. There was Tyler and there was Jerome and there were all sorts of really good hockey players coming in and out. Jeffery Pines, Thadius Sales, Aloe Dear, to name a few, and they had a ball for 3 seasons. In the meantime, me, RGN, and Zolnek were still on Vancouver, but we were still riding the horses at the front. We had been loyal to the franchise through some tough times, and we were being rewarded. Then, meta ended and the traveling circus people just, well, disappeared, and all of a sudden it was us 3 riding bareback again, and that’s where we are now: a trio of loyal players with a trio or rings, still on the team during the desolate afterparty.

 

PIM: 854 (1st) - When I (hopefully) get my jersey retired, this probably won’t be one of the things they’ll want to celebrate, but I will celebrate it as one of my crowing achievements, along with my hits record. They’ve gone hand in hand and I want to be remembered for my time sitting in a box for being naughty. I also fulfilled last week’s goal of making it to 850 by season’s end, and I could quote myself on that.

 

Hits: 1689 (1st) - Last week, I said I was shooting for 1700 hits, and with 5 to play, I need 11 to seal the deal. It looks very likely, but at one point, 250 goals also looked very likely, yet here we are, 10 shy of that mark.

 

Shots: 2554 (1st) - Among my many targets last week, I wanted to be 50 shots ahead of Zolnek, however, I only gained like 3 since then, leaving me up 40, so RIP that goal. Worth a shot (hehe) though.

 

Shots Blocked: 263 (15th) - Because of these newfangled attribute things, building checking went hand in hand with getting good at shot blocking, so I currently have a career-high 103 hits. For reference, my previous high was 37. As a result, I’m in the top-15 here as well, which is a little weird, but OK, I guess. I’ll take any place on a leaderboard that I can get.

 

Game Winners: 33 (2nd) - No action here, but I don’t think we’ve won any games in a while, which while I can’t say for sure, there coulda been a strat change at some point to keep us from winning. Even as the AGM, I can’t say for sure, but for some reasons, the signs point that way, given that I’ve really cooled off after starting off so hot.

 

 

Henry Tucker Jr 

 

Games - 3 (31st) - I remain last here, but if I play 3 of our final 6 games, I can move into a tie for 27th!

 

Wins - 3 (T-25th) - As it stands currently, I am the only Halifax player in portal history to be undefeated, and I hope that holds up throughout this season!

 

Losses & Overtime Losses - 0 (31st) - If you’re the only undefeated player in franchise history, it seems unlikely that you’d have any losses. Technically, I’m tied for 24th in OTL, but it doesn’t really matter.

 

SV% - .881 (20th) - Woo top 20! If I actually got shot at, my GAA would more accurately reflect my save percentage, but luckily the Halifax management team is not sadistic to newly created goalies.

 

GAA - 1.67 (1st) - When you only face 14 shots a game, I’d certainly hope that your GAA is really good, and thankfully, I have not disappointed in that regard. Shoutout to the 2nd place dude though, as Tyler Smith managed a 2.23 GAA over 82 games. You rock, man!

 

Shutouts - 0 (T-20th) - Tragically, I am not at a super high-level goalie at the moment. Perhaps next season? I’ll set a goal, then: I want at least 1 shutout next year!

 

Goals Allowed: 5 (31st) - One of the big advantages of being a freshly made goalie - I currently have the fewest goals allowed in franchise history! I currently am 9 away from Thadius Sales, who allowed 14, but I think I can stay below that in these next few games.

 

Saves - 44 (31st) - Now for the big downside of being a freshly made goalie - I also have the fewest saves in franchise history! I sit 65 behind Sales with 3 starts to go, so beating him is possible but rather unlikely.

 

And that could be the longest VHL.com ever, folks.

 

1366 words

Edited May 23, 2022 by NSG

[Gustav 6,406]

...I think you actually have me beat, which is impressive. I might have something sitting around that I'm just not seeing with a few search terms, but the longest ones I could find from me were this one and this one, both of which did break 1,300 words but ended up 50-ish short of yours.

[NSG 498]

5 minutes ago, Gustav said:

...I think you actually have me beat, which is impressive. I might have something sitting around that I'm just not seeing with a few search terms, but the longest ones I could find from me were this one and this one, both of which did break 1,300 words but ended up 50-ish short of yours.

My gosh those are long! When you started thinking of the concepts for those articles, did you imagine them to be anywhere near that long? I know I didn’t. I usually write 300-ish word VHL.coms so I thought this top out 500-600 but then, well, it didn’t obviously 

[Gustav 6,406]

1 minute ago, NSG said:

My gosh those are long! When you started thinking of the concepts for those articles, did you imagine them to be anywhere near that long? I know I didn’t. I usually write 300-ish word VHL.coms so I thought this top out 500-600 but then, well, it didn’t obviously 

 

I'm a pretty fast writer when I'm able to concentrate and I have a problem with long sentences. It usually takes me at least 300 words to get my point across completely in a .com article (even a "short" one), so I never pay attention to the word count 

 

I came across a big handful of articles of mine that started as short ideas and ended up being 900-some words, so that's about what happens when I do what you're probably thinking of. I knew the draft analysis one was going to be long because I modeled it after a similarly long media spot, but the other one I don't really remember writing so I don't know what the deal was there.

[Shindigs 1,771]

Relatable, I accidentally wrote an 1100 word one last week. 100% didn't plan for it to be that long, just kinda happened.