A Look at the League's Weirdest Player

[Gustav 6,406]

Hi everyone, and I hope your week has gone well! As I do sometimes when writers' block is particularly present, I took the chance to open up the index and start poking around for interesting points that I could talk about here to fill up my word count. I found one or two (in case you're curious, all of the bottom 12 in +/- play for either Warsaw or Chicago!) and then got stuck as I found a couple other things related to one player in particular. I looked a bit deeper, and I think I certainly have enough to write a .com on why I think DC's Ryuji Sakamoto (@der meister) is currently the VHL's weirdest player.

 

• I already knew this and I'm sure it was intentional, but Sakamoto's STHS attributes are left at 40 in both PA and SC. I'm not sure I've ever seen this both ways for an experienced player--and someone who builds with the Hall of Fame in mind would never even consider it--but he's managed to be a reasonably desirable player nonetheless.
• Some people play physical, some people play physical. I tried seeing if we have anyone with more penalty minutes than hits, and we don't (at least not among those with any notable number of hits), but the closest I found was Sakamoto, who has 91 hits to 87 penalty minutes. On the other hand, Calgary's Rip Wheeler is second in the league with 170 hits and has only put up 65 penalty minutes.
  • And maybe you'd think that the 87 includes a lot of gooning, but so far Sakamoto has never been in a fight this season.
• Sakamoto currently leads the league in assists...but has only scored 6 goals. 
• This isn't his first time playing for DC, although the first (in S88) never involved any playing time. He's spent every season since S87 in a different place (including four different teams in S88) and logged ice time for a total of 7 teams. That's more than I've seen in my entire time in the VHL.

 

In a league where the "best build" has been collectively decided upon by most of the members, Sakamoto shows that it's possible to do OK (and be interesting) without listening. And though depreciation is taking over now, we'll see if the rest of his career gives us any more interesting facts.

[der meister 3,187]

It's definitely been my weirdest experience in the VHL

[eagle_3450 278]

9 hours ago, Gustav said:

 

 

In a league where the "best build" has been collectively decided upon by most of the members,

Please great Gustav enlighten me on what this build is

[der meister 3,187]

37 minutes ago, eagle_3450 said:

Please great Gustav enlighten me on what this build is

 

No pain, only score