Breaking the 4th Wall: S94 and S95 Reflective

[LucyXpher 1,588]

Welcome to my offseason ramble where I look back on the last season (or two) and how things have gone for me in the VHL as a player and as a manager.

 

S94

I don’t want to talk about S94… the way it ended at least. With the Halifax 21st, we had an incredible team and a dominant regular season. After a run to the finals, though, we managed to lose again to the Saskatoon Wild in 6 games, missing yet another opportunity to claim the franchise’s first Founder’s Cup.

 

That last week of the playoffs that season also coincided with a short hospital stay that kinda pulled me out of commission during those last few sims and put a finer point on an already crushing defeat. Losing in a sim league shouldn’t be a big deal, and it isn’t in the grand scheme, but it certainly does sting when you want nothing more than to celebrate with the teammates you’ve gotten to know over the past two months. The sim results in and of themselves ultimately aren’t that deep and Simon is a menace, we know this-- though I'd be lying if I said the unfortunate conclusion of our playoff run, a finals loss after a promising season, and personal health complications didn't leave a sour taste in my mouth about S94.

 

But that’s how it goes sometimes and the bitter defeats only make the victories that much sweeter. On the health front, things are much better now and I'm relieved to be basically back to 100% in time for what should be my last year of college.  
 

S95
S95 was my player’s 2nd VHL season playing for the Riga Reign and we won the Continental Cup! I honestly had no expectation that my player would be part of a championship team so early on, and so much of the team’s success is owed to @Lemorse7 putting together such an incredible roster. I’ll say more about this team in another article I’m hoping to get around to soon, but I loved the hype in the locker room every day as we got closer and closer to the goal. I'm already excited to see what we can do next season with a few new faces!

 

This win for my player really did a lot for my spirits after a tough season for Halifax in S95. After the dominant S94 campaign that ended miserably, we lost all but one player on our roster to the VHLE and were left to draft new players to fill out the team. Having gone pretty much all-in the previous season, the cupboards were a little bare as far as early round picks, though we did have a bunch of 4th and 5th rounders. I had hoped we would have a deeper draft with the ad that went out near the end of the season, but it didn’t work out quite as well as I was anticipating. That said, we still managed to select four players who stayed active and contributing for the duration of the season and were lucky to have a capped goalie come back from inactivity to help as well. We were also blessed with five incredible waiver players in S95 that helped us make the playoffs and give the eventual Founder’s Cup champions a bit of fight in the first round. We’ve lost to the eventual champions in three consecutive seasons now. I’m going to choose to feel good about that and take comfort in the fact that we beat Philly more times in the playoffs than their finals opponents. We take what we can get around here.

 

This off-season, I’ve had a ton of fun interviewing players for the upcoming M draft and I have high hopes that this is going to be a good one for us.  I'm also excited for what the VHLE’s dissolution means for the M. We should get more time with players now as the cap increases to 400 TPE. That means more options for team building and, most importantly, more opportunities to build relationships with players before they move up to the next league. On top of that, I'm looking forward to the chance to prepare players to go directly to the VHL. I think sometimes the VHLE could be a development killer as players were bounced to a new team, sometimes losing momentum as they had to build new rapport with a new GM and teammates. While I enjoyed my one season in the VHLE personally, I would have much rather spent another season on the Houston Bulls with teammates I had gotten to know and a GM that I came to trust as a new player. And maybe it didn’t affect my player development a whole lot, but I’ve seen the drop off in players that have left Halifax and other M teams. I'm not sure that so much change is good for players who are still getting to know their way around. With the ultimate goal being the VHL, having only one development league makes way more sense so that players have stability and continuity early on.

 

There’s lots to look forward to for S96 and I could ramble on for another thousand words, but I think I’ve accomplished what I set out to do, reflecting on the past couple of seasons. I probably won’t be claiming this for TPE anyway. I do have other things I plan to write before the next season is underway so I’ll save some words for those.  

 

──•~❉᯽❉~•──

LucyXpher

10/06/2024 - 800+ words

Edited October 5 by LucyXpher

[Thunder 1,205]

You should be a writer.