Curses

[Gaikoku-hito 2,134]

VHL Curses

 

Curses a lot of the time is nothing more than a way that most deal with the misfortune situations that arise around them or their team when they were expecting great outcome; even when presented with stats, knowledge etc… that maybe they were always going to fail based on past precedence. Most curse are simply not a curse at all as curses are usually defined as someone wishing another harm or injury and in most cases that isn`t the case when we look at the VHL leagues curse. In most cases it is simply Misfortune and it is easy to point to individuals, cups or whatever being curses as fun way to explain the misfortune. I am starting to ramble so enough. What I am going to do this week is look at some of the curse that I am aware of and where they might have come from:

 

 

1. Victory Cup Curse – It has been a long time since a team claimed both the Victory Cup and the Continental Cup in the same season; if my quick history is correct; as the last team to do it was the cheating meta teams of the Vancouver Wolves in S82, S81 & S80. It was also done the year before the meta team from Vancouver as Malmo Nighthawks also accomplished the feat in S79 but I am unaware if meta affected this situation. Looking even further back it would be S73 Seattle Bears that I can confidently state; accomplished the feat without meta. But as I quickly look through history it is actually rather rare that a team wins both awards in the same season as it has been done only; quick break for quick data collection; not really that rare in the past since. It actually has been done 35 times if my data is correct or 37% of the time so why has the Victory Cup Curse become a thing than?

 

Simple answer is recency bias since the end of the Expansion era in the VHL, S65 – S72, only the meta teams have actually completed the feat of winning both cups in the same season. Since Hybrid no team has actually completed the feat.

 

 In the old days it was actually common that a team would dominate the league winning multiple Victory Cups and multiple Continental Cup in what seems to be a four season spans usually losing either the Victory Cup or the Continental Cup to the next team that would dominate for the next four-season span. Since I have the data who or which teams actually accomplished the feat the most?

 

1.     Helsinki Titans – 5

2.     Calgary Wranglers – 4

3.     Toronto Legion – 4

4.     New York Americans – 4

5.     Riga Reign – 4

6.     Vancouver Wolves – 3 *

 

So with the current Victory Cup winners in the Toronto Legion facing my next to mentioned cursed team, Moscow Menace means that one of the two curse will be broke/lifted at the end of the season with whomever lifts the Continental Cup at the end of this season.

 

 

2.  Spartan & Moscow Menace Curse – This one is rather sad and is rather personal feel to it since not only is a team effected but also players from this singular manager; not to mention I seen this in work first hand. So let try to break this down as how I understand it as I know I won`t even do this one complete justice so let’s look at the Manager and the players individually:

 

Moscow Menace would make the finals S80, S81, S82 and S83 with Moscow losing to the Vancouver Meta Wolves three straight times before losing for the fourth season in a row to Seattle Bears in S83. Moscow was a very good team in S84 but couldn`t get past the eventual Champions Warsaw Predators as Moscow most likely would have lost the rematch with Seattle Bears anyways!! Back to the finals in S85, where you guess it, Moscow would lose again to surprise D.C. Dragons. This would end that current strong run of Moscow Menace at they would shortly thereafter enter into a rebuild bring us full circle to S94 play-offs, where Moscow will try to break the curse of five finals and zero cups. Add in the manager Spartan player, who also played with Moscow in S81 and Vancouver in S89 as both teams also lost in the finals; not to mention being traded away from the S86 Cup winning Vancouver Wolves at the trade deadline. Bring the Spartan Curse to seven finals and no cups!!

 

Will Moscow break the Spartan curse this season? While I wouldn`t put any money on it since Toronto Legion head into the finals clearly as the favorites to lift the cup at the end of the play-offs; I know I will be cheering for Spartan and Moscow as it not even really that funny anymore, or is it?

 

 

3. Captain Curse Vancouver Wolves – This actually ties into Nico Pearce and Spartan curse somewhat as Vancouver Wolves would trade Captain Nico Pearce at the trade deadline in S86 before Vancouver would lift the cup that season. While most think the Vancouver Captaincy curse actually starts with Nico Pearce and they would be right!! LOL!!

 

While Nico Pearce joined the Wolves in S85 and was announced as an assistant captain (and btw the curse covers all three captains not just actual captain); the curse wouldn`t take effect until S86 when the season was going sideways for the Vancouver Wolves so a mid-season trade to try to shake things up lead to an unexpected run to not only make the play-offs but to lifting the cup at the end of the season. Since the Nico Pearce trade, no one has been safe wear a letter in Vancouver!!

 

Read article here if you are interested in the complete breakdown of the Vancouver Captain curse as I have wrote about this one a few times!!

Trade away while wearing a letter on their chest in Vancouver have been the following players:

Nico Pearce,

Biggie Cheese,

Alexandre Leduc,

Sergey Preobrazhensky,

Henry Eagles,

Pierre Emile Bouchard,

Dogwood Maple,

Wann Kerr,

FISTED ANALLY BY A CIRCUS MONKEY Analfist,

Larry Abass Jr

to date as I am assuming we will see more add to this list sooner than later.

 

We even tried to break the curse ourselves as S92 Vancouver Wolves decided not to announce any Captains as seen below in the announcement; just so that Frank wouldn`t feel the need to trade away another Captain:

But followed that up quickly in S93 by trading away Larry Abass jr before I had even finished the announcement of that season Captains. So far S94 is the first time since trading Nico Pearce back in S86 that Vancouver hasn`t traded an announced Captain off of it roster!! LOL!

 

Vancouver Curse was born more out of playfulness and has sort of taken off on its own freewill and rather is more a fun curse than a serious one.

 

 

 

I am sure that others can come up with another possible curse that I might have not covered and I actually would love to hear about them if they are team based, league based etc…. as off the top of my head I can also think about the 3-1 curse being real as we once again see it in these playoffs with Moscow coming back from 3-1 down to win in seven over Riga but I wonder if there are more serious ones that I might not be completely aware of…

 

Either way let me know what you think of these three curses and if you know of any more below by commenting and leaving a like.

 

Edit* I can think of a few more off the top of my head as I am finishing up the proof reading of the article as New York Americans have been cursed for 40+ Season now, Is the current Malmo Nighthawks cursed or is that part of the Victory Cup curse since they have lost three or four times in the first round after being top seeded team heading into the playoffs, VHLM based Halifax 21st Curse as they are actually the only VHLM team not to win a Founder`s Cup to date; if correct losing again in the finals as I write this.

 

Edit** Halifax lost again to Saskatoon for the second straight season while S93 wasn`t in the finals; it must actually sting more as it was once again in the finals as Halifax are now on the Spartan Curse level with five finals and no Founder`s Cup; not mentioning the S74 collapse!! Trade curse is also real, right? Where managers make a bad trade and everyone lets you know by simple Not Again in the comment section but is that really a curse or sort more an inside joke?

 

Again, I am heading off in the wrong direction when I should be trying to finish this article off so once again as mentioned above before my edit, please let me know of other Curse around the VHL and what you thought of the three curses that I actually covered.

 

1522 Words Claims for Wk July 21st, July 28th, Aug 4th

Edited July 16 by Gaikoku-hito

[Spartan 4,531]

sigh

[Victor 11,021]

Missing the Vasteras curse

[Gaikoku-hito 2,134]

8 hours ago, Victor said:

Missing the Vasteras curse

Please do tell as I am not aware of that one!!

 

12 hours ago, Spartan said:

sigh

[Victor 11,021]

2 hours ago, Gaikoku-hito said:

Please do tell as I am not aware of that one!!

Win in 1st season and (almost) never again. Get resurrected in VHLE, repeat curse.

[OrbitingDeath 3,229]

I just lost a series where we were up 3-1  

[Gaikoku-hito 2,134]

3 hours ago, Victor said:

Win in 1st season and (almost) never again. Get resurrected in VHLE, repeat curse.

I knew they won in 1st season as part of my research but had no clue that they haven`t won since!! Ouch!! Actually I though that they won it at least one more time. I guess that would be the (Almost)!! LOL!!

 

I never even noticed the win the first VHLE cup and haven`t won again repeating history!! LOL!! 26 Season until they won again in the VHL so maybe 26 season and they might win again in the VHLE!! LOL!! Yikes!! (S106; if I am correct!!) LOL!!

[Victor 11,021]

1 hour ago, Gaikoku-hito said:

I knew they won in 1st season as part of my research but had no clue that they haven`t won since!! Ouch!! Actually I though that they won it at least one more time. I guess that would be the (Almost)!! LOL!!

 

I never even noticed the win the first VHLE cup and haven`t won again repeating history!! LOL!! 26 Season until they won again in the VHL so maybe 26 season and they might win again in the VHLE!! LOL!! Yikes!! (S106; if I am correct!!) LOL!!

I might wait and make sure it happens for them, it would be poetic.

[diacope 1,696]

The feeling when you actually remember content  

[Gaikoku-hito 2,134]

July 28th Claim!!

[Gaikoku-hito 2,134]

Aug 4th Claim