VSN Presents: The Rushed History of Geneva!!!

[UnknownMinion 728]

Graphic Credit @v.2

 

Geneva, a team that made a brief impact on the Victory Hockey League as a whole, helping to develop players such as The Board Game Clue on Skates, Ronan Lavelle, Kronchy Kardashian, and Leonard Triller! However after only Nine Short Seasons in the VHLE the Geneva Rush pages in the history books ended, after having some interesting pieces of history! With the World Juniors taking place in Geneva, it only makes sense to revisit Geneva’s history!

 

Season 81 (The Mickey Season )

The Chapter of VHLE History Starts here, after the Yukon Rush folded in the VHLM, the rights to the name were given to Mickey Dickson (First GM of the Rush). Fresh from a career with Halifax, Mickey had the choice of where to place the new franchise, and Geneva was the final choice. In an interview with Mickey about being chosen as the first general manager of the new franchise they had this to say “There was a lot of excitement to get to build a team from the ground up. Including picking where the team was actually going to be located. It was an exciting time.” But like most things the excitement didn’t last long, the issue commonly seen in the VHLE struck again. Lack of real locker room activity, and missing communications; lead to a rough time for Mickey.  The Rush would fail to make playoffs, and history would be made in the following weeks, something the league has only ever seen once, and most likely never again.

 

Mickey Dickson would make the move back to Halifax with Nathaniel Minion (at the time GM of Halifax) taking over as the GM of the Rush, the only GM trade in league history. When asked about the trade Mickey explained in fantastic and clear details on why it happened, “The E and M GMing wise are very different in goals and what makes a good general manager. The roles and responsibilities of a minor league general manager were much more aligned and were more exciting to me than those of the European league. It was a learning experience of what place fit my wants as a general manager and where I best fit in a general manager role.”

 

When asked about the new opportunity, Nathaniel made the following statement, “I was excited, and glad to face a new challenge, sadly family life meant it wasn’t to be, I went away for a while, but Geneva was a fantastic experience and one I’m glad I took!

 

Season 82 ( The Minion Season)

With excitement Nathaniel took off in the draft, bringing in the likes of Miervaldis Arpa, Ronan Lavelle, and Milan Dvorak. Geneva would later acquire The Board Game Clue on Skates. With no regard for the future of the franchise Nathaniel built a team to win that season. Just to fail to make the playoffs, after a fantastic season by the rush who just needed better goaltending. Ronan Lavelle would set the standard for a MVP season, winning the trophy that is now named after the legendary member of the rush, The #13 would also be raised to the rafters in Ronan’s Honour, a truly fantastic team legend. 

 

Nathaniel would never own up to anything more as GM of the Rush, he would step down as GM after that season due to a family emergency and never return to Geneva, ending his reign of terror, and destruction of the team’s future.

 

Season 83-85 ( The Pearce Era)

Season 83, Time for another change in Geneva's office, this time it wouldn’t only be for one season. Cole Pearce took control of geneva in the offseason, and would get star player Brain Kowalski, playing alongside Eldon Escobar, the team would again miss the playoffs, but Cole wouldn’t let that be the end of the season story, he would trade and acquire two second round picks for the season 84 draft hoping to bring Geneva to their first playoff trip in team history as soon as possible, with nothing more eventful happening this season, Eldon Escobar would win the Aldwin Craig Trophy bringing some extra success to Geneva 

 

Season 84, The pattern wasn’ broken yet. Geneva is struggling to make any form of history, beside missing the playoff season after season. After drafting Clueless Wallob, Cole Caufield Jr, and Doug Britton with the top three picks, who played fantastically in the VHLE while they were there in their own respective ways. After the season all the players mentioned would be called up to the VHL, ending a brief appearance in the VHLE and Eldon Escobar signed with Stockholm; Sending Geneva back to square one.

 

Season 85, four points. Four points, the closest to the postseason Geneva has been so far.The only two notable players this season were Sebastien Dokis who despite his best effort couldn’t bring the team to the playoffs, and Karl Pedersen who played fantastic in net for the team, leading the effort and giving Geneva a chance. After not making the playoffs, Cole Pearce would be hired by the VHL to be the next general manager of Warsaw, ending the Pearce era in Geneva!

 

Season 86-88 (The Jordan Era)

Season 86, welcome to Geneva Jordan Tonn your next Rush GM! He showed us Geneva’s worst season in team history, only 32 points. Led by Ash Sparks, the team’s regular season reflected the two players on the roster that were not bots. However the season had one positive for the team’s future, with the 8th overall pick on the S86 draft Geneva Drafted Leonard Triller, Jordan would acquire some fantastic picks and give the team a chance for a future in the league.

 

Season 87, this season would be a historic one for the rush, as Geneva would make the playoffs. After having three first round picks in the draft (Yaroslav Trunov(never played for Geneva), Jack Jeckler, and Kronchy Kardashian). Jean Mercier led the way in net for Geneva’s first Playoff run. In the Playoffs Geneva would beat The Vasteras Iron Eagles in the wild card round 2-0, but would fall short in the semi-finals to the eventual champions the Cologne Express in five games. In the offseasons Jack Jeckler was traded to the Oslo Storm. Jordan set history as the first GM to bring Geneva to the playoffs, hardware won by this team included Orion D H Chiester IX Trophy won by Jean Mercier, Jake Thunder Trophy by Kronchy Kardashian, and Aldwin Craig Trophy by Leonard Triller!

 

Season 88, Jordan set more history, drafting Merome Dilson, Jasper Davis, and Nils Andersson Geneva was looking to make a deep run this season, after winning the Kings cup for the most points in a season (99pts). Geneva would make playoffs again but lost to Rome in round one of the playoffs in six games, ending the Jordan Era, and marking Jordan Tonn as the best GM in rush history, two players would also bring home hardware Merome Dilson with the Orion D H Chiester IX Trophy and Jasper Davis with the Ronan Lavelle Trophy.

 

Season 89 (Zetterberg Tour)

Season 89, Geneva had one more shot. They chased the cup for the final time, the future of this team was thrown to the dust, everything was to acquire a cup, under the leadership of new appointed GM Tyler Zetterberg, Drafting Zyn Westwood and trading for Nagy AL,and Fradin McGryer, Tyler has Geneva in a place to make a cup run, making the playoff second seeded, Geneva would lose to Express in five games once again. Ending the team's history as a team in the VHLE. After never really doing much as a team, The Geneva Rush joined their predecessor team the Yukon Rush in the VHL history Books.

Disbanding

Before I go into details about why Geneva was selected to disband, we talk about why they became a team in the first place, Covid bought the world to a halt, making more people than ever feel the need to join the VHL, this massive influx of players made VHLM Teams overflow with players would never intended to play in the league long term, it was too much for the VHLM and VHL to handle, so the land of inactive players was formed, the VHLE was a development league built with a self destruct button so if the players being created in the league reduced the league could fold without too many problems.

 

Geneva was one of two teams selected to meet this fate first, Rooster size was at a low, and teams really needed a boost in player activity. The number of active players per team was barely enough for a whole starting lineup, something had to change. The VHLE made the call to disband two franchises, said by the E commissioner himself Enorama stated “There was never going to be a correct pick as every team had a history and people who were attached. Geneva fell victim because their branding never really fit and out of the two "expansion" teams with limited history, they were by far the worse performing one.” 

 

Geneva’s downfall can be found within the retelling of their history, the team never stood out, a weak playoff team that took seasons to get there, and when numbers were lost, Geneva fell to an uneasy fate. A fate that the VHLE could be facing as a whole depending on the numbers of the league in the next few seasons.

 

Spoiler

mentions: @UnknownMinion @samx @N0HBDY @MexicanCow123 @Zetterberg @Arce  @MubbleFubbles  @Triller @Doug Britton @lil OG z @Garsh @Wheaties @solas @TeeJay11 @DMaximus  @weekz @JeffD @qripll @Sebastien @Uncommon @Is_thatok @MexicanCow123

 

[Triller 1,686]

Glad to even be mentioned in the history of this franchise!  Leonard almost lost to an IA roster filler for the Aldwin Craig Trophy while in Geneva but thank goodness the voters let us tie lol

[DarkSpyro 973]

7 hours ago, UnknownMinion said:

Led by Ash Sparks, the team’s regular season reflected the two players on the roster that were not bots.

Slight error. ☝ This team was led by Joel Castle. Ash Sparks was the 1-B in the tandem, Castle playing more than half of the games made him the starter (although both goalies performed brilliantly for having a team of bots and the 2 active goalies). Gotta give the props to @animal74 for leading the Rush that season, but for some reason I don’t think that was your intent when you said;

8 hours ago, UnknownMinion said:

He showed us Geneva’s worst season in team history, only 32 points. Led by Ash Sparks,

Good read otherwise

[UnknownMinion 728]

32 minutes ago, DarkSpyro said:

Slight error. ☝ This team was led by Joel Castle. Ash Sparks was the 1-B in the tandem, Castle playing more than half of the games made him the starter (although both goalies performed brilliantly for having a team of bots and the 2 active goalies). Gotta give the props to @animal74 for leading the Rush that season, but for some reason I don’t think that was your intent when you said;

Good read otherwise

I was going off the index, it said they split starts, Ash Sparks has better SV and GAA so I went with him!

[DarkSpyro 973]

1 hour ago, UnknownMinion said:

I was going off the index, it said they split starts, Ash Sparks has better SV and GAA so I went with him!

Aww respect! Appreciate that then lol  

I def felt like the backup back then cuz I was drafted after Castle (in the same draft to the same team) and man has just been an absolute legend of a goalie his who career too!

[animal74 1,855]

14 hours ago, UnknownMinion said:

I was going off the index, it said they split starts, Ash Sparks has better SV and GAA so I went with him!

 

You may have flipped the stats, but good read regardless! It was an interesting time, that's for sure.

[UnknownMinion 728]

3 minutes ago, animal74 said:

 

You may have flipped the stats, but good read regardless! It was an interesting time, that's for sure.

lol pearks of not being able to read screens, I should get glasses

[UnknownMinion 728]

second CLAIM

[UnknownMinion 728]

Final Claim

[Lemorse7 1,021]

I tought it was Yukon now Im sad