Theme Week: When do rivals become rivals really?

[Gaikoku-hito 2,134]

Theme Week: Rivals

 

 

When do rivals become rivals really?

 

 

Back in few seasons ago when I was much younger than I am now the league was full of new players after the great influx due to the great recruitment drive of Season 75. I was many that would join the league looking for a team, a career and glory that everyone thinks they will get when they join the VHL.

 

 

Like many I had no clue what I was actually doing and I was really thrown to wolves when I signed with the worst team in the league at the time, Minnesota Storm. Yes, I am talking the VHLM since they have since been moved the great important VHLE as the Oslo Storm. If I remember correctly, I was actually the only active member on the team and was playing third line minutes since I don`t think we had the rules about releasing the inactive players from the roster so having high inactive players was a positive thing; I think. So, to say my first season in the league S74 I had no rivals to speak of and I wasn`t really that committed to the league. I motivated myself by following the draft rating so I guess this might be where I had my first rivalry as chased Justin Lose and Cowboy Prout in the draft ranking most of the season. I was expected to be a top five pick if I remember in the VHLM draft as I was hoping to selected by either San Diego Marlins or the Philadelphia Reapers. In the end I was selected by the Philadelphia but lower in the draft at seventh overall. It was a weird draft if you only follow the TPE of the players as teams seemed to pick randomly.

 

 

My first real friendly rival came after being drafted by Philadelphia as I was now tied to another really good first-generation player in Addison McLaren, who was also drafted by Philadelphia. In the end looking back this wasn`t the rivalry at all since it was way too friendly and we would split after the season to different VHL teams; he was drafted by Riga and I would fall to Prague. I was hoping actually to be drafted by Vancouver at 23^rd or Riga at 26^th, 27^th or 28^th. I was drafted 24^th as mentioned to Prague and without knowing this is actually where my real rivalry would come from in form of Dominic Gobeil.

 

 

I knew very little about Gobeil at the time other than the fact that he was drafted a lowly 46^th overall by Prague and actually we had joined the league within minutes of each other coming from I even think the same Youtube ad; but that we never discussed this. In the end Philadelphia would meet Dominic Gobeil and the Mexico City Kings in the finals. It was a close battle but, in the end, Philadelphia was simply too much for the defending Champions as we would win in six games to claim the Founder`s Cup.

 

 

Prague in the end would benefit the most from this rivalry as Gobeil and Bouchard would become a dynamic duo, that could never find chemistry with each other but would put up more than a point per game average through their careers with Robert Bouchard finishing his career as the second highest score in Prague history with 584pts and Dominic Gobeil with 483pts after retiring a season earlier then Bouchard.

 

 

In the end it was great to be pushed by a team mate and a fellow player learning the game at the same time. While we never did actually have the success that we would have liked. We; and I might be speaking out of turn both benefited from our rivalry that started in the VHLM finals and carried on through our careers. A second round and a third-round selections that would make up a big part of the Prague franchise.

 

600 words

Edited February 14, 2023 by Gaikoku-hito