theme week - remembering when I was a first gen player

[ROOKIE745 607]

First thing I wanna say for this piece is that I was struggling to find the motivation to type it up and also what exactly I was gonna focus it on, there's a few ways I could have gone with this but after watching Spyro's podcast and him talking about the early to mid S70's it gave me exactly what I was gonna talk about for this piece. As I'm nearing the end of Ori's career and taking a break in general from the league it dies feel like a good time to look back at how I started and offer a few tips along the way. In fact the first thing I'll say here and now is pay close attention to your own motivation in the league, if your ever starting to feel worn out or starting to dread doing TPE tasks cut back on how much you do or take a week or two off, you don't wanna because frustrated and burned out like I am getting to. I made a promise to myself to max cap every week for Ori and I didn't come this close to fail now! Now to actually get this seriously started we have to look back to season 69, funny number I know but I joined a little over halfway through the season and joined the Halifax 21st as my first team, FonziGG was my first GM. I joined at a fun time as the Saskatoon Wild went on to set one of the best VHLM records ever in the regular season and in the post season won the cup, I will always remember that we were able to take a game off the Wild that playoffs, and that my first player Jaxx Hextall faced 40 or more shots for all but one game.

 

Both of my first drafts were interesting experiences, each of them kind of making it feel like no one had faith in me but for those who did I went on to make them proud. In my VHLM draft there most have been confusion about whether I was going up to the VHL or not because I slid deep into the draft, I was at 191 TPE at the time of being drafted and fell to 32nd overall in the third round, finally being picked up by Rayzor and Mr Hatter that ran the since moved to VHLE Minnesota Storm. For them they got a free upgrade in net essentially and what made it more humorous for me was the fact I was replacing the same goalie I had taken over from in Halifax, the Storm had picked them up during the off season probably with the intent of them being the starter but then I fell into their hands for free, one more thing to note was that I reached the 250 TPE VHLM limit before the season started, so you can say that the Storm got a max TPE player at 32nd overall haha. Season 70 in general remains my most accomplished season with winning the Founders Cup in a playoffs where we never lost in regulation, and a regular season where we would post the third best record of the S70's, 61-8-3. Hextall won the Benoit Devereux Trophy as best goalie with 10 shutouts that season, he also won the playoff MVP Skylar Rift Trophy with a 12-0-2 record with a 2.22 GAA and .907 save percentage. He shares this award with his two rivals Lafontaine and Spyro who both won it the season prior.

 

Going back just a little I had both my VHLM and VHL draft in the same season, so before the M draft I had my VHL draft where unfortunately I would get BPA'd, in other words picked by the the system as I was deemed best player available. As a first gen this was pretty disheartening as it felt like you weren't going somewhere you were wanted and that GM's weren't willing to take a risk on you since your new, doesn't help the GM of Davos never reached out to me either, this has kind of left me with a sour taste in my mouth about Davos I have to say. Thankfully it wasn't very long before Peace had reached out to me who had just taken over as the Toronto's Legions general manager position. I know Enorama, the person who brought me to the VHL was trying to trade for me well but Toronto had the better trade offer. As Toronto was heading into a rebuild it made season for my still young player to stay in the M for season 70, less he get destroyed in the VHL, of course again this lead to me sliding in the M draft and becoming an absolute steal for the Storm. One thing I've always stood my and any advice I'd give for a first gen player is don't try to do everything at once, I know some people learn very quickly and come in and max cap immediately but take your time, do the easier tasks first like just making sure to claim practice, welfare, press conference and get some help on trivia questions. Two of these are just clicking a button, one is answering six questions and the other is answering sometimes rather obscure questions, can be a little hit or miss but your GM in most cases should be able to point you in the right direction. Even if you don't do trivia just doing those other tasks will net you eight TPE and take little to no time, if you just stay active my experience is that you will be rewarded with more playtime. Will you feel up for it you can take on articles, graphics or podcasts and start doing the big 6 TPE point tasks. 

 

I would go on to play seven seasons for the Toronto Legion as a starting goaltender and unfortunately it was a fairly rough time, I stayed dedicated to the team though and Hexy will always be known as one of the greats there. Drafts to this remain probably the most exciting time in my opinion and brought me the most joy as a first gen player, and both my first experiences are ones I'll remember for both good and bad reasons. Going with a goalie as a first player was a little rough but I was lucky enough to go to a team where I was planned as the future starter and never had a season as the backup, though if you wanna call me the back up in season 69 since I only played 32 games fair enough. You can only be a first gen player once and my first time was definitely one to remember, hope ya'll enjoyed reading this and that's there's something you can take away form it.

 

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[ROOKIE745 607]

claiming for second and final time