VHL at 15 - The Cup Win

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There have been a lot of moments for everyone in the past 15 years but the best memory I have of the VHL happened on November 19, 2016. Hard to believe that was nearly six years ago now. Back then I was a young 20s GM hoping to make some sort of impact on the league as a GM. I had joined back in the late S20s/early S30s I think and had yet to win a Continental Cup in the league. World Cup medals were easy enough to come by but I seemingly could never win the big one. Until that day anyways. 

In S51 we saw a lot of high profiled free agents sign together with the Calgary Wranglers. People thought the season was done with from the get-go and we were just waiting for the inevitable cup win from this group. In the semi-finals though, the Toronto Legion were able to pull off the upset and eliminate this super team. They eliminated them in dramatic fashion by doing it in five games and the entire league was shocked. The members who grouped together were disappointed and frustrated that STHS had other ideas for them with some even claiming that the Toronto dynasty was locked in to make another run. All the fun can still be seen on the forum: https://vhlforum.com/topic/35227-na-semi-finals-gm-5-toronto-vs-calgary/

With that dramatic series out of the way, the other semi-final saw Riga and Cologne having an intense battle. That Riga team had quite a bit of talent with Jardy, sterling and Green all playing key roles on the team. While we weren’t the favourites by any means, I felt like the roster had a chance to win it all. That was almost lost to Cologne as the team was able to take Riga to game 7 but the team was able to pull it together and book that ticket to the finals vs Toronto, or more importantly, the Cleganebowl. 

I’m sure I’ve written a piece on this before but Jardy and Victor having the opposing Clegane goalies was a great story in the VHL and finally they were set to do battle. Both goalies were fantastic in the final series that would go all the way to game 7 again for Riga. Thanks to the strong play from Jardy, the team was able to pull off the championship win and my drought without a championship was finally over. Check out the insane stats here: https://vhlforum.com/topic/35330-vhl-cup-finals-gm-7-toronto-vs-riga/?page=2#comment-387388

It was an incredible feeling to finally win a title and I’m pretty sure after this the roster would change dramatically and lead to me stepping down from the position soon after. While it was not a hall of fame career by any means, it was a thrill to help lead a team to a championship and see the people that we were able to bring on board for that run. It’s always going to be my fondest memory from the league and you can still see my excitement from six years ago here: https://vhlforum.com/topic/35330-vhl-cup-finals-gm-7-toronto-vs-riga/?page=2#comment-387410