WC S46 - Interview With Team Mercenaries GM

[Tagger 2,722]

Congratulations on being selected as Team Mercenaries General Manager for the upcoming World Cup! Team Mercenaries made some forward strides in the last tournament, making the Bronze Medal game for the first time. How confident are you that this team can repeat their performance from last tournament or even improve upon it and get a medal?

Thank you. I am very confident that the team I assembled and prepared game plans for have a great shot of at least playing for a medal in the World Cup. With this type of team, it is very important that you play to your strengths and I am doing my best to make sure that happens with the on-ice product. It also would be very cool and an honour to be the GM who was the first to help Team Mercenaries achieve a medal.

 

The nature of the selection process for Team Mercenaries means that you're pretty much only left with those players who haven't quite done enough to make their own team. With that being said, is there any player who is eligible for Team Mercenaries that you were surprised to be in a position to do so?

I was very surprised that both Sandro Clegane and Fedir Okranitz were available, two solid goalies in their own right. I will definitely not complain about being in the position to select not one but two very capable netminders and I was happy to do so.

 

Team Mercenaries have benefited once again from log-jams at the goalie position. Last tournament, Team USA's abundance of goalie talent let Team Mercenaries select both Callum Sinclair and Blake Campbell, this season you have the ability to select Sandro Clegane. How important is it for Team Mercenaries to consistently be able to grab respectable talent in goal?

In my opinion, the goaltending position is the most important position in the game to have capable talent playing for you. If you have a decent or good goalie, you have a chance to win every night but if your goalie is not very good, you will have a tough time trying to win games. So, to answer your question, it is imperative to have a decent guy between the pipes if you want any chance of being successful.

 

Speaking of goalies, your new player Artom Zhumbayev is also a goalie who was eligible for Team World selection, however only Ariel Weinstein was selected for the team. In the future tournaments, would you prefer to be a backup on a team that perhaps has a greater shot at a medal or would you prefer a shot at starting for Team Mercenaries and try to help them be as successful as possible?

Any professional athlete will tell you that he would much rather be playing than sitting on the the bench. So naturally, I would rather play for Team Mercenaries to try and help them find success as a starter rather than be selected by a team with a better shot at a medal and sit on the bench the whole tournament.

 

There have been discussions about introducing a purchase that would let players change their nationality once in their career. Do you think allowing such a purchase would be detrimental to the chances of Team Mercenaries? 

That could cause the talent pool available to Team Mercenaries be a bit more watered down, depending on what nationality certain players changed to. It's hard to say at this point as I have not seen such a purchase implemented and the only way to know for sure would be to see if and when it were to be implemented.

 

One of the benefits of having a team with the selection process that Team Mercenaries has in the World Cup is that it gives younger players would previously would not have had a spot on a roster the opportunity to show what they're capable of. Of the players available for you to select, which do you think will go on to have the best VHL career?

That's a tough one. There are a few players on Team Mercenaries who I believe will go on the be very successful in the VHL but I will have to give the nod to Shawn Muller. I really like how Muller is developing as a player and he has shown to be a great locker room presence from my experience. He may not be putting up all that many points in the World Cup thus far but he is young and has played the right way. If he continues his hard work, I see no reason why he will not go on to have a very successful VHL career.

 

Final question, if you had the option to freely select any player in the VHL to be eligible for Team Mercenaries for the rest of their career, who would it be and why?

As I eluded to earlier, it is my opinion that goaltending is the most important position to have top-end talent at to be successful. With that said, I would Jakab Holik to be eligible for Team Mercenaries for the entirety of his career. He is a young goalie who appears to have a bright future ahead of him and thus, he would play in multiple tournaments. If he can keep developing like I know he can, Team Mercenaries would not be disappointed.

[Tagger 2,722]

Dealing with off-season stuff has got me a bit behind on World Cup Media Duties, I'll post review of games 5-8 tomorrow.

[TheLastOlympian07 2,388]

 Muller got mentioned