VHL Notebook #1: New Series, New Season, New Year

[LucyXpher 1,605]

Since I won't be writing SuperSailor entries anymore, I needed (wanted) to start another series of VHL.com articles where I could ramble about random VHL stuff and earn a few TPE in the process.  Unlike the SuperSailor series, this entries can be much broader in scope-- which is a little freeing to be honest as there's a lot going on around this community and the two leagues that I'd love to say a few words about here and there.  

 

S97 just kicked off and the new year is right around the corner, which means I'm coming up on a full year in the VHL community (January 7th).  It honestly doesn't feel like it's been a year and I've had alot of fun following sims, meeting new people on the forum and Discord, creating and building my player, managing the Halifax 21st and now the Malmo Nighthawks, and just generally having a fun passtime project to come back to amid the grind of life.  I'm really happy to see that Halifax is off to a good start so far this season and I'm impressed with the moves that @rory has made through the draft and in trades to fill out the lineup.  The forward group looks amazing and I had been wondering how the defense would come together since there were only a couple returning players at that position.  I think San Diego is probably still the favorite to win the VHLM this season, but I really do think Halifax has a chance to make some noise in the regular season and/or playoffs.  As much as I would have wanted to win the team's first ever Founder's Cup, I'll be cheering for Halifax this season and every season until it happens-- it's WAY overdue.  

It's also really gratifying to see how well the individual players on Halifax are doing so far, and how they've improved over the offseason.  Pelayo Bolivar @SMYLS4 is currently tied for the league lead in points and has a real chance to potentially get some award nominations this season, and Ty Duke @TheDuke is only one point behind.  Both of those players should push to 400 TPE by the end of the season and that will make Halifax very scary offensively with the likes of Inker Belle @WildfireMicro, Xhekajs middletoe @Xhekajsleftankle, Steven Nichols @SlyDigi, and Hater Tottingham @Trunkxolotl all on that team as well.  I am also happy that I have some continuity with Xhektoe and Duke as they're both Malmo prospects now (via trade), so I have another reason (excuse) to be invested in Halifax's success this season.  

 

In Malmo, we dropped a close opening game against Davos, 2-1, but we did run into some penalty trouble and I'm hoping it's not a trend since the same thing happened against Prague-- a team we should probably beat-- resulting in our second loss.  But I'm encouraged by our 3-2 record, +5 goal differential, and the fact that our players have generally been producing well so far.  There's definitely a bit more nuance to line combinations in the VHL with TPA differences being so much greater than they are in the M, and I'm hoping we can quickly find some winning combinations since this is definitely an all-in season for us.  Jorgen Lovstrom @Pifferfish has also started strong-- aside from his game against Prague-- and we'll really need him to be solid if we're going to take games off of teams like Vancouver, Moscow, and Davos throughout the season.  

 

Just on a personal note, I always hate transitioning into new roles, places, or jobs.  I like stability and continuity, and it stresses me out having to learn new things because I set a pretty high standard for myself.  Taking over Malmo and the job as VSN Head has been a fair bit to work through this offseason-- thankfully it was a long one and I had some time off!  Going into the new year, I'm hoping to settle into these roles a bit more as I'm excited and happy to be doing both, I just can't wait to get past the "being new" part.  Thankfully, there's a lot of great people around who have been answering questions and making those transitions as stress free as possible!

 

And that's about it for this entry.  Again, this isn't meant to be super formal or anything, just a way to express a few VHL related thoughts-- but if anyone wants me to comment on anything or answer random questions, feel free to post below and maybe I'll pick it up next time.

 

. . .

Edited December 31, 2024 by LucyXpher