my two cents on the VHLM/VHLE situation

[ROOKIE745 607]

I wanna preference this at the start that I am not the most well informed on this but I do know it's been a talking point, admittedly I'm a little late to the conversation as I haven't seen as many articles or media spots on it lately but I needed something to talk about. I was around for eleven seasons before the E became a reality and I thought it did it's job fine enough. I know that it was basically go all in on winning or tanking and for sure it'd be great if they could find a way to solve the issue, but I guess part of my view of it has been that it's a necessary evil. Granted it's easy for me to say that, I'm just a player and I've never been on the board or even a general manager. New players could have a really great time in M or a horrible depending on the team they got on, I was fairly lucky in that Hexy got on a good team in season 69 with the Halifax 21st, and the run we had was very memorable and we were the toughest out for the titan that was the Saskatoon Wild that season. Hexy's follow up season was in Minnesota with a team that would go on to win the cup, and when I returned to the VHLM in season 78 with my new player Jonathan Ori, I was back in Minnesota and we went on a run to the finals, it was another great experience. I'm talking about this because I definitely feel lucky with the time I've had in the VHLM, but I can also imagine a lot of players that sat on tanking teams in very quiet locker rooms. Not always the GM's fault, could be just that no one else wants to join. VHL teams aren't free either I just think it's clear it's worse in the M.

 

Talking about the E is harder because outside of the S79 event that had teams draft teams to determine their draft ranking (if my memory serves me correctly) which Ori was exactly at 400 TPE, the maximum one could be at, I haven't played in a proper VHLE season. I have to admit to that while I am more familiar with the M I know there have been changes that I have read but just don't remember. The purpose of the E (from my understanding) was to try and filter out the players who would drop off and to help players going into the VHL be more prepared, by this I mean you went in with a higher TPA number. This makes sense and it's something that would have benefited Ori himself since I wanted him in the VHL right away despite being in the high 200 or low 300 TPA range. (Of course it doesn't help that Helsinki was a team in a rebuild at the time) One other thing would be to help newer players in the M not getting stomped on by the higher TPA players, the more you raise that TPE in the M, the more stronger players dominate the newbies. It effects how much ice time a new player joins a team with recreates as the team of course wants to ice it's best players. I understand all of this and I can understand want the league was going for, but I have to say that in my personal opinion I do wish the E was cut.

 

I think the E just makes the league feel a little bloated and probably makes it more complicated then it has to be? I admit that the idea of being in a extra draft is fun as I do think it's one of the most special things about a sim league, and there are positives I'm sure but I would like it if it was just the VHLM and VHL again. So the question is what about the VHLE teams, players, and TPE cutoff? As some remember I'm sure two teams were taken from the M and moved into the E, the Storm and the Rush. While I would love to have a team back in Minny thanks to all the great memories I have there, I have something else in mind, currently all the M teams are located in North America, I do think it'd be fun to do what the big league does and have an even split. The M currently has 10 teams, at it's peak it had 12, so do we go back to 12 or have more? I'd say more personally, could go to 14 or match the VHL with 16 teams. I know another problem would be "would there be enough players in the M to support 14 or 16 teams?" I don't have an answer for that, I don't have players counts and all that so this is something I leave up to other people to decide. For now let's say we go with 16 teams, there are 8 in the E so two of them have to be cut, let's say Watchmen and Express get the boot. Now we got the 16 teams but 10 of them are in North America so we need to relocate two teams, I admit it's harder to choose with the M teams because I'm more found of them, let's say the hounds and Bulls? (Sorry to all the fans of these teams) And now we have 8 NA teams and 8 EU teams. Now you have an M that can match the L in total games played and in the playoffs.

 

So the teams are figured out what about the TPE cutoff? I believe it's 350 currently? Maybe 375? I've seen other people saying 275 or 300, I kinda fall right in the middle and say why not 325? I feel it's the best middle ground and I know it's still going to cause problems in the M and L but I don't believe there's a perfect solution to this. Finally for the players my answer is a pretty simple one, anyone above 300 TPE but lower than the 325 cutoff has the choice to move up but can also choose to stay in the M. Anyone under 300 stays in the M.... well is moved over to the M rather. Again not perfect and I don't envy the board for some of the choices they have to make, this is simply my two cents and what I would like to see, but I have no idea what the actual process is like or the logistics behind it. This turned out to be much longer then I thought it would be and I fully expect people to rip me apart and tell me my ideas are awful and how little I actually understand of the VHLM and VHLE, oh well, that's life. Thanks all for reading! 

 

(word count 1158)

Edited January 30, 2023 by ROOKIE745

[ROOKIE745 607]

claiming for second time Nov 6th.

 

also claiming for doubles

 

Edited October 30, 2022 by ROOKIE745