A Short History of VHL All-Star Games

[Victor 10,949]

We used to have an All-Star Game.

 

An absolutely standard, not particularly adventurous, conference vs conference game at the end of each VHL season. 3 lines of forwards, 3 pairings of defencemen, and 3 goalies from both European and North American teams took to the simulated ice under the special All-Star format which meant high-scoring games (I'm talking 7-10 goals for each team).
 

This sounds like a relic of the past although everything from the past is a relic technically. But it's worth saying that there were 53 of them, running without fail every off-season from S1 to S53, until the All-Star Game died abruptly and nearly took the VHL with it. (the final statement overemphasises the importance of the ASG to the social fabric of the VHL – correlation does not mean causation and all that)
 

For around 46 seasons, the players were voted into the ASG by the public, a terrifying thought today but somehow a completely acceptable method at a time when people didn't take things too seriously but yet found it in themselves to not troll the voting process. There were some exceptions to this of course but no memorable dramas have survived for posterity so for all intents and purposes this set-up worked for the older VHL generations.
 

After Season 46 I felt compelled to document every single player to be voted into the ASG over the years and then publish a an all-time ranking. It is not much more interesting than a re-ordered list of the players who made the Hall of Fame in the first 45 seasons (with some exceptions), but that in itself is indicative of what I mentioned above about the voting being historically done on merit. The list, although not the underlying rosters, survives at this link: https://vhlforum.com/topic/9276-all-star-appearance-records/

 

The league promptly decided that was a good time to revamp the game with an ambitious attempt to make it more than just an off-season footnote (including moving it to mid-season like the NHL does). Did the idea succeed? No, given the ASG died a quiet death only 6 seasons later, but circumstances dictated that more than anything else – nothing was surviving in the barren wasteland of non-recruitment late 40s and early 50s VHL. But a draft and mixing up players between teams was a good idea especially in a time of increasing disparity between conferences.
 

The All-Star Game stopped, started and sputtered throughout the 50s (there was an edition in S55 in between none in the adjacent seasons) before being picked up and rejuvenated by young whippersnapper Beaviss in S57 who took it out of STHS and instead streamed it live. As a time-consuming task both in terms of streaming and also manually creating the players beforehand, it required a lot more dedication than the previous version but Beaviss provided that throughout the 60s all the way through to S74. This is probably the version of the ASG most familiar to the older members of the newer generation of the VHL (the league's millenials?) although also increasingly a distant memory. Here's an example of how this looked, although in hindsight it appears to be just Beaviss screaming in an echo chamber: https://vhlforum.com/topic/54964-s63-vhl-all-star-game/page/3/

 

It is also worth noting that at the same time as Beaviss led the more laid-back, live, version of the ASG, the league implemented All-VHL Teams starting in S62. These are voted by the BOG and the results included in the seasonal awards ceremony (and subsequently contributing to Hall of Fame conversations) – although no game is played, these have filled the gap of recognition provided by the old All-Star rosters pre-S47. Does an informal game have a revival in its future? I don't think anyone will object but given it will require organisation and effort, and doesn't fill a burning need in the market, I wouldn't count on it.

[Alex 3,206]

VSN did run one as well in the early/mid 80's, stopped mostly due to a lack of interest and my simming license expiring

[Beketov 9,033]

1 hour ago, Victor said:

but given it will require organisation and effort, and doesn't fill a burning need in the market, I wouldn't count on it.

It’s honestly not even THAT much work if it was handled like the old seasons. It only added a bunch of organizational mess when we started having each team guarantee a player (which then resulted in GM’s intentionally picking someone less deserving to guarantee they get in) and then had drafts and outside sims and everything else. I would love to add a very simple NA vs. EU  All-Star Game again.

 

The issue is two-fold. First, as you kinda alluded to, can we trust the voting process? We’ve repeatedly seen public votes turn into not only popularity contests but also intentionally voting less deserving by members for the memes.
 

Second there’s the issue of just absolutely constant sims. Back when the ASG ran the only sims we had outside of the seasonal ones were the WC every 2 seasons. Now we not only have that but also the WJC and Junior Showcase every season and those are full on tournaments, not just single games like the ASG was. It’s just a lot of sims that already make them basically never ending so adding even more is just adding even more simming strain on top of things.

[Mysterious_Fish 386]

19 minutes ago, Alex said:

VSN did run one as well in the early/mid 80's, stopped mostly due to a lack of interest and my simming license expiring

there is a simming license

[Crstats23 340]

Didn’t @DarkSpyro and @DoktorFunk stream a ASG using NHL might have just been a one season thing if I’m even remembering it right 

[Victor 10,949]

8 hours ago, Beketov said:

Second there’s the issue of just absolutely constant sims. Back when the ASG ran the only sims we had outside of the seasonal ones were the WC every 2 seasons. Now we not only have that but also the WJC and Junior Showcase every season and those are full on tournaments, not just single games like the ASG was. It’s just a lot of sims that already make them basically never ending so adding even more is just adding even more simming strain on top of things.

Yeah definitely. It's all oversaturated so I'm not sure anyone would care.