Beebeard's Written Thoughts #1 "First one, eh?"

[FrostBeard 2,073]

#1 "First one, eh?"

Well, I do have to say that writing an article right now feels incredibly weird. That said, I do believe I want to talk a bit about Bratislava Watchmen and  my player on Seattle Bears. I guess it is even more weird to know that I have officially moved on from ECN stuff for now, I had huge plans for that this season but I guess it will have to wait.  Also, if you don't know what ECN is, well, it is something you have when you have far too much free time!

 

Bratislava Watchmen, being a GM, finding myself

Firstly, let’s talk about Watchmen. The upcoming season 84 is going to be my 5th at the helm of the Bratislava team. I don’t even remember how many seasons I have been a GM in either VHLM, VHL or VHLE role but I think it has to be close to 15. For me Watchmen was a completely different sort of a journey. 
Both Houston Bulls and Malmo Nighthawks were two amazing teams but both came with a certain package of expectations from players that were on the franchise, from people who had played there and from the previous GMs. There it felt like I needed to continue a legacy that was already built. For Bulls it was really hard as their LR back in S65 was incredibly active and right after I took over, it quieted down, heck, it almost felt like I was doing everything wrong. Malmo seemed to be more or less what I expected from a VHL team, it was great to go through the rebuild and help the team get a fresh face but even then, it still seemed to be Malmo Nighthawks with me as a GM rather than my Malmo Nighthawks. 

I promised myself that if I ever get a GM position again, I will do my best to make that new team more resemble what I want from a team.
I guess I have managed to do it in Bratislava, it feels like home, I am incredibly dedicated to the team, maybe even more than with Malmo or Houston. I guess right now it would be a question - is it wise to apply for VHL jobs for me if I really like it here in VHLE? I am certain I want to be a VHL GM again, I know I can do it and be a decent one at that. I guess this and the next season is going to be incredibly vital for me in Bratislava, I want to prove something to myself, I want to prove that I can make the team take that extra step and become a VHLE Dynasty. I had one or two really good runs in M, had 2 or 3 seasons of decent results in VHL, it seems that VHLE has been better. 

This season, we have a tremendous roster going into S84. We have 9 forwards, 5 defencemen and 2 goaltenders - out of all those players, only 1 is inactive, our Backup goalie. We have players who want to play for us, are dedicated and are here to prove how much they care about VHLE and their performance. I just hope we can repeat the magic we had last season. 

Sirdsvaldis Miglasķēms or in the English tongue Heartruler Mistfreak 
 

Alrighty, onto Sirdsvaldis Miglasķēms. I have to say that I am impressed by how Sirdsvaldis has been playing with the Bears. As my first Centre, I wanted to put a huge focus on winning faceoffs and it does seem that I have managed to succeed. Went through and decided to do a small re-roll there to see if I can optimise the build a bit as I honestly didn’t see a huge reason to have more than 30 Back checking, also got a bit of that straight up passing down as I could get what I wanted from Offensive vision. I am incredibly excited for the upcoming season, with more TPE on the table, I am sure I can reach that 800 TPA mark I want and get all the rest of my TPE saved up for the regression. 

I do have to say that I am intrigued on how well the whole team is going to perform this season, after all, there is a certain expectation from Cup champions to do good. I am hopeful we can do it. I am sure that we are still the same old Bears. It is just that losing important players can be a tough blow to our line chemistries that will need to be figured out by our GM. I am expecting some new faces to become high scorers and who knows, we might even be better than last season? 
 

I guess that is going to be it. I will do my best to keep this up, I have finally got myself enough courage to go and record a podcast too so that is happening next week. I guess it will be the true spiritual successor of a never fulfilled dream of Pollencast.  Cheers!