Candid Pepper Thoughts

[Rin 138]

After churning out a bigger article about my first player this week, I figured I'd add on some more opinionated thoughts about how his career progressed.

 

When I came into the league, I had a few goals in mind-- I wanted to win the award for best goaltender in a season, I wanted to win a Continental Cup, and I wanted to be the MVP on a cup winning team. Eventually, I wanted to be the only goalie in Helsinki history to hit 300 wins in the blue and silver. And while I achieved all of those goals, the way in which it happened feels really hollow and bullshit.

 

The Shaw win, while recognized, was split between Pepper and the one player he sat comfortably behind for his entire career. It's more like a half win mired in controversy rather than an achievement to be proud of. The Kanou win was similar, someone submitted an objectively terrible ballot that caused Pepper to win an award which would have otherwise gone to the person people clearly voted for. It's recognized, but it doesn't feel good. 300 wins certainly happened, and I'm glad I was allowed to stay in Helsinki to put it in the record books, but now all it's done is relegate Pepper to a permanent answer to a depressing trivia question. The monkey's paw absolutely curled for his career, and it blows.

 

It's part of what makes it hard to stay invested in the VHL as a whole; I busted my ass to earn and earn and earn, but at the end of the day you're at the mercy of the sim. In a world of fairly standardized builds and a relatively understood meta, the only thing separating you from a HoF-caliber player and a respectable but otherwise non-noteworthy career is the luck of the sim. Sucks, but that's how it goes.

 

Ironically, Winter's eventual win with the Phoenix was infinitely more fulfilling than the entirety of Pepper's run.