Claimed:What is This Contraction? [1/2]

[Phil 5,129]

What is This Contraction?

 

 

What would the VHL look like contracted down to 8 VHL teams?

 

It is a legitimate question. Rumours have been flying off the handles about whether the VHL should contract to try to increase the parity levels. The discussion usually happens in times like these, where you have five strong teams and 5 terrible ones. What was odd (and frustrating for members of the Toronto Legion) was that this season, 4 of those teams were in one Conference and it was Toronto who had to miss out, despite having more points that any of Europe’s teams.

 

But it is a little bit ludicrous that the longest surviving sim league on the internet will have some seasons where a couple teams can’t even fill a line of players (let alone active ones) so one obvious solution to not having enough players is to shrink the number of teams in order to fill out the rosters, right?

 

I mean, there is another obvious solution and that is to actually put effort into recruitment but that does not seem likely. So what I am interested to know is how would this change the face of the league?

 

Of course, historically, we have always had eight teams - for the first 32 seasons that is. When The Expansion happened in S32, it was a big deal and there was much change going on at the time. We were switching boards, Commissioners were switching, and Expansion was going to happen. Among all this chaos, however, I do not think that this was fully thought through. For even when we had 8 teams, there was an obvious cyclic life cycle of a VHL team: get a young core, fill it out, compete for 3 seasons, sell everyone off, get draft picks. Rinse and repeat. With 10 teams, that remained pretty much consistent.

 

 

Now with our integration of the second-player rule, I think that we are in a position to actually give GMs other alternative to the build-up, break-down nature of the league. It is my belief that if we do revert back to eight teams, that even the weak ones would at least have one competitive line, and therefore only be a couple of pieces away from competing. Because of the salary cap (which probably should be raised a little but that is an issue for another day), with less teams and more deepened rosters, GMs will have to be closely monitoring their acquisitions and caps. This should lead to more players being on the block and also more competitive choices for players to go in free agency.

 

Can we finally break the cycle and have a Detroit Red Wings-like dynasty for once?

 

The long and the short of it is that we probably never should have expanded to ten teams and it was a decision made in a time of much change and confusion and was probably not fully thought through. This season’s league parity was shocking and if we do not want another season like this it is best that we look at contraction as a serious possibility. 

[TheLastOlympian07 2,388]

contract Quebec and Koln

[jRuutu 2,475]

4 hours ago, TheLastOlympian07 said:

contract Quebec and Koln

[Higgins 3,618]

Contract Calgary and Davod

[Higgins 3,618]

Also Yukon

[Beketov 9,101]

Realistically if this were to happen I would think taking out the teams that were expanded (thus Cologne and Quebec) would make the most sense for the league history.

 

With that said I don't love it. The points you make are relatively valid and while I think it would be fun to have true Dynasties in the league I can't see it happening. It's kinda the nature of things in a sim league. In the NHL you can have rookies come in and play really well but here that's almost impossible so unless you perfectly space out our team ages a dynasty longer than 5-6 seasons is a real challenge. I think the Toronto 4-peat (and another finals appearance after) is about the longest that's realistic.

 

I'm not sure the issue surrounding league parity is as much a problem with the amount of teams and more a problem with how Free Agency often goes. There's nothing wrong with getting a large pile of free agents onto one team, it can certainly be fun if you're one of them, but overall it's going to hurt the parity of the league. If NY had only gotten half its Free Agents and the rest had been split up it likely would have increased parity in the league.

 

I think we have enough players that 10 teams can be sustainable, at least under the old model. With that said, if it was the goal to try and create dynasties (which would create further problems with free agency IMO) then I'll admit that it might be challenging without dropping back to 8.

Edited January 23, 2017 by Beketov

[Phil 5,129]

#Beke4BOG

[Molholt 2,185]

I like Beketov's version of history where we won 4 cups in a row and then made another finals.

 

#BekeDoesntEvenKnowWhoWonTheLastCoupleCupsWhyWouldHeBeOnBOG

 

 

[Devise 4,475]

5 minutes ago, Molholt said:

I like Beketov's version of history where we won 4 cups in a row and then made another finals.

 

#BekeDoesntEvenKnowWhoWonTheLastCoupleCupsWhyWouldHeBeOnBOG

 

 

 

And where NY acquired all these FA. Robbie, STZ = 2 players. 

[Molholt 2,185]

#AlternativeFacts

[Beketov 9,101]

46 minutes ago, Molholt said:

I like Beketov's version of history where we won 4 cups in a row and then made another finals.

 

#BekeDoesntEvenKnowWhoWonTheLastCoupleCupsWhyWouldHeBeOnBOG

 

 

Blaming my phone keyboard for that one, was going for 3.

 

as for the NY FA, that ones on me. Could have sworn they got more.

[Kendrick 4,741]

Claimed

[DollarAndADream 3,357]

Review:

I wish we could somehow pull out all the stops to get a huge recruitment wave and avoid the possibility of contraction. High hopes.