Victory Three

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

Pop Quiz!

There has been a new addition to the VHL and VHLM This Week articles. Not only will they give you a quick overview what is happening around the league anymore, there is also a nice way to earn TPE throughout the season. Every week there will be new questions posted within the articles, if you have the correct answers you can send them to the creators of the article. At the end of the season you will get a nice TPE bonus that can give up to 5 TPE if you have around 90 to 100% of the questions correct. For the players that are already in the VHL, you can only focus on the VHL side of this event, while players in the minors have an extra opportunity to gain TPE, they can do both of the trivia events. A nice addition en route to the Victory Hockey League. You can send in the answers as long as the ‘This Week’ article is the most recent one. Once a new one is posted, the deadline for the questions has passed. Have fun and goodluck in finding the correct answers.

 

Rise Again

 

The Davos Dynamo are on their way back to the top. After a couple of consecutive finals appearances (including two cup wins) they ended up having to rebuild, but sitting in a second spot in the strong European Conference they seem to be back on their way to the top. The main strength of this Davos team definitely lies in their defensive game. Both Callum Sinclair (0.948 save percentage in 13 games played) and backup goaltender DAV G (shutouts in both the games he played) are holding down the fort. Offensively they are being lead by Gifford Shock and Devin Sundberg who both have 18 points in 15 games. Maybe the biggest surprise on their squad though is the young defenseman Vladimir Komarov, who is currently third in team scoring. Many would have expected Mason Richardson here, but Komarov, who had 22 points last season is well underway to becoming the most improved skater this season. If  it will be enough for the most improved player trophy remains to be seen though, especially if Callum Sinclair can keep this level of play up to his current standards.

 

So Delicious

This year’s rookie of the year competition looks to be a real challenge for the youngsters, where we saw a dominance of the Stockholm Vikings last year (and last year’s winner is actually leading goal scoring in the VHL at this point). This year it is all different, currently there are four rookies with over 10 points in 15 games. Leading the race is last season’s first overall pick E’Twaun Delicious, picked by the New York Americans he is making a great impression with almost a point per game scored. He is followed closely by Quebec defenseman Patrick Demko, who also started the season with some great scoring, having gathered thirteen points so far. The numbers three and four at the moment are Prince Gigga-Bijou from the Vikings and Bronson Faux of the Riga Reign. While it currently is a four horse race, it will be interesting to see what will happen this season. The race for the rookie of the year trophy probably hasn’t been this exciting in years.

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

Scoring Elsewhere

The New York Americans had a great roster over the last seasons; due to their retooling process the majority of them were moved elsewhere. And after the trades have happened the former New York American forwards keep dominating the league. Currently there are only four players that are above the 42 point mark; Thomas O’Malley is one of them, the other three? All former New York Americans players. With 43 points we see Tom Slaughter who will likely finish out his career in Stockholm. His teammate in Stockholm, Jody 3 Moons is currently sitting on 44 points for the shared lead in points by centers. The third player is the only winger on the list, Xin Xie Xiao, who is currently playing with the Cologne Express also has scored a total of 44 points in 28 games. Even though the Americans are not competing right now, you can definitely tell that they have great ways of picking up talent, as most of the top point scorers so far all had their roots in New York City.

 

Another MVP year

 

Martin Brookside was important for the Cologne Express last season and this has brought confidence to the goaltender. When looking at the current season he is dominating all goaltender rankings.  Last season’s winner of the Aidan Shaw award is currently on pace to pick up another one for his collection. After 28 games he is the only starting goaltender with a save percentage above 94%. With a 0.943 percentage he actually is well above that. With this percentage he also made sure he was there for the team, with only allowing 1.59 goals per game on average, a small difference with Callum Sinclair of Davos who is in second place. Due to Cologne doing so well it’s only obvious that Brookside also leads in the wins department, having won 22 of his 28 games in total. The remarbakle fact however is that seven of these wins were with a shutout, proving that even after being regressed, Brookside does not give up easily and remains a force to be reckoned with. With his current numbers he might even be en route to an MVP award in Season 43.

 

Playoff Predictions

 

The NHL playoffs are well underway and they reached the conference finals. This is good news for the VHL as once the NHL is over all the hockey focus in the world will once again target the VHL. The two leagues are related in a weird way though. The VHL player agents are competing against each other while they predict the playoffs in the NHL. Two persons are currently ahead of the rest in these predictions and are currently the main competitors to win the prediction competition. These agents are Kylrad and Mr. Escabar who both have around a ten point lead over Gorlab, Boubabi and Advantage. With there being less teams in competition now, it will be harder for them to gain back the difference in points. Will they predict the safe options and risk not getting any closer, or will they go with a bold prediction in order to take the lead. It’s an exciting competition and it will be fun to see how is the master predictor of the Victory Hockey League

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

A Fresh Look

Bored of the same old look on your VHL Forum visit? No worries, because this week another skin has being added. Boubabi has designed the ‘Stadium Series’ skin for those wanting a skin with less colors. And less colors it has, the skin is mostly white. The removal of colors is great for those who visit the site at work. It looks more and more like a professional site that you are visiting then. While the addition of the skin is great, it’s currently not 100% finished. There still is some work that needs to be done by adding the short links on top of the page. But the start for a fresh look is there and once again it gives you an option to choose the way you want to look at the Victory Hockey League. Usage of the skins is optional and this makes it a great addition, so whether you go black and yellow, full black or just white. You can choose your favorite way to visit the site now.

 

Fantasy Update

The Fantasy Hockey league is alive and kicking and thanks to the efforts of Streetlight we are now able to take a look at the standings. On top currently is diamond_ace who had put his own goaltender in net, together with a flashy offense consisting out of Slaughter, Xin Xie Xiao and Bismarck Koënig and a defense of Patrick Demko and Jaime Hill he so far is the man to beat. A lot can happen though as both Ball and Phil are chasing him down and round out the top 3. The only player they all three got in common is infact Martin Brookside, so diamond_ace his goaltender, who is in his last season is proving himself a worthy fantasy asset. The offense off both Ball and Phil also has Brady Stropko, who isn’t doing that well, so it is surprising to see him on two of the top three teams. Mister Irrelevant so far is Bushito, who is losing points on having Brick Wahl on his team since he is splitting games in Stockholm. Jack Kowalski is probably also not doing what people expected from him. His top skater currently is Thomas O’Malley, but the Cologne center seems to have problems to save his fantasy team.  Hope is not lost yet, Bushito still has a fair chance to catch up to the other people at the bottom, Molholt, Flocka and Flyersfan.

 

Race for the Brooks

The Kevin Brooks trophy might not be the most prestige award, as the winner usually doesn’t get the attention that the positional awards get, but this years race for the Brooks is pretty exciting. 40 games into the season the trophy is still anyone’s game. There are nine players who are within five points of each other. The top goal scorer at the moment might surprise some people, as early in the season this player had troubles finding the net and was racking up the assists instead. But he found his groove and now Xin Xie Xiao is leading the league with 29 goals. One goal ahead of the Stockholm duo of Slaughter and 3 Moons. Triple X his partner in crime, Thomas O’Malley is one goal behind these two. But Boychuck, Wolf, Zoidberg are trailing by another 1 point. The outsiders for winning the Brooks at this point would be James Faraday of the Bears and Mario De Rossi of the Americans, who both have 24 goals at this point. Being over halfway the season, it will be interesting to see who can challenge Xin Xie Xiao for this trophy.

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

The End of a Mad Man

 

Don Draper is no more, or at least he won’t be a player anymore in the next season of the Victory Hockey League. Draper who was being managed by William Shaw, manager of the Helsinki Titans has decided to retire early. He however has decided to go out in style and got traded to the HC Davos Dynamo where he will be suiting up as a Center.  Draper, who has been a defenseman for his entire career has been secretly working on his face offs in the past season. With the addition of Draper the offense of Davos gets a great boost and makes them a real challenger for this seasons Continental Cup. In order to have the cap room to be able to afford Draper the Dynamo had also released AIM-11 on Waivers, who was quickly picked up by the Helsinki Titans. The end of his career is unfortunate but needed due to the rebuild the Titans are currently going through. Thanks for a nice but short career Draper.

 

Shaven Viking  

 

Vikings are usually portrayed as tough beardy man in mythology, but Benoit Prevost, general manager of the Stockholm Vikings participated in a Shaven Head Challenge in where he tried to collect money to support children that are battling cancer. In total there were more than a thousand people who participated in this challenge and had their head shaved. Speaking on behalf of the entire VHL Magazine I would like to thank Boubabi for participating and generating money for a good cause like this. You are truly an inspiration for this community and I’m glad your actions will help those children who are in need of it. Well done on the challenge to you and all these others, you are truly remarkable persons.

 

Playoffs: check

 

The race for the playoffs spots this year isn’t as exciting as we saw in previous years where we saw battles between for instance the Legion and the Bears, with the Legion pursuing a final chance to make the finals. We are now 20 games before the season ends and half of the playoff tickets has already been given away. With 84 points each, both the Stockholm Vikings and Cologne Express have claimed the European part of the playoff tickets. HC Davos Dynamo, who are currently in third, will have to defend a 35 point lead over the stretch of 20 games. So in all fairness, it is a mission impossible for the 4^th place Riga Reign. In the North American Conference the only team to have secured so far are the Quebec City Meute with 79 points. They have a lead of six points over the Seattle Bears, who are close to qualifying themselves. The third spot this season is held by the Toronto Legion, who in their turn are also 30 points up from the the fourth place New York Americans. So in a couple of game days, we might have the playoff tickets already divided. The only exciting part we will see is the way the matchups will be held. Anything can happen there, and we should be happy for that, or this season would become one of the most boring regular seasons in history of the VHL.

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

Back to the Future

 

As some observant members noticed while they were looking at their goalscoring numbers, something indeed went wrong with the sim. In order to fix things a re-sim was done and people noticed the difference in numbers. While the re-sim definitely has screwed over several members, we are now more games into the season as before it happened. In the ‘Whats wrong with the sim’ topic on the forums, JardyB10 posted long explanation of what went wrong. The conclusion of his post basically comes down to ‘no matter what happens, people will get screwed over’, either the people who did good in the earlier sim will see their numbers change, or the ones that did well in the re-sim see their numbers change. While there is no golden solution, I hope the league just goes with the flow, mistakes can happen from time to time, we should just go with the flow and get ready for an exciting round of playoffs.

 

Bad News Bears

 

Talking about the playoffs, one of the teams that has already qualified for the playoffs is in deep trouble since their goalie Niklaus Mikaelson has decide to retire from professional hockey immediately after the playoffs end. This leaves the Bears without a starting goaltender for the years to come, immediately pushing their rebuild a few years back. The retirement of Mikaelson came as a shock, as the young goaltender seemed happy about the grow he was making and was even thanking Remy LeBeau for the goaltending advice he got. With the retirement though, it becomes clear that something needs to happen in Seattle. While being an iconic VHL franchise, success has been lackluster for over a decade. It’s time to get a strong manager in the lead, one that can bring back the franchise back to the golden days of the ‘Seattle Six’.  Bad news now, but let’s hope they figure out how to turn this into a positive thing for the franchise.

 

Upcoming World Cup

 

Once the playoffs are concluded we once again will have a World Cup lined up. Last World Cup Team USA won the gold with young guns like James Faraday playing their first World Cup. This time around most of these young players will have to carry the team to a repeat of their victory. If they will manage, only time can tell, but one thing we do know is that there is an opening for World Cup Commissioner up again. So have you always wanted to organize one of the World Cups, this is your chance to apply. There are a lot of suitable candidates already, so do your best to stand out from the pack and the job might be yours. You don’t have to worry about having to sim, since that part will be covered. You will need to make lists of the eligible players and keep track of stats during the tournament. Apply now and make sure the World Cup goes as smooth as ever.

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

The Re-sim Riggery

Due to a human error the first round of the playoffs did not run as smooth as people had hoped. The Cologne Express had won the first of two games versus the Davos Dynamo. When giving a further look into the results we noticed that backup goaltender DAV G was playing the first game, while the correct lines also had not been applied to game two. Despite winning the first two games the Cologne team agreed to a re-sim and it seemed to have paid off. The first game of the re-sim ended in a solid 5-0 victory, a bigger victory then they had versus the backup goaltender. We don’t know if this was actually the first re-sim result, as the simmer had to make sure the outcome of the North American conference would stay the same. So Cologne ended up keeping their wins, but it easily could have been a different result. Davos showed their glimpse of brilliance in games three and five, games which they both won. In the sixth game it was the Express who ended up going to the finals, but despite the results being the same as before the re-sim, this series will always have an asterisk attached to it.

 

The Higgins Heist

After years of questioning the activity of the Seattle Bears GM he was fired during the regular season. The manager who took over as interim was Mitch Higgins and it turned out to probably be the  best move the franchise could have made at this point. During the season they were surpassed by a Legion squad who is hungry for some success. They expected to get that during the first round of the playoffs, but Mitch Higgins found a way to ignite the Bears and make them one of the most clutch teams in the history of the VHL. The Bears swept right through the Toronto Legion and three of these games (originally it could have been all four due to the re-sim) had a one goal differential. The Bears unexpectedly went to the conference finals where they lost the first game versus the Quebec City Meute with 4-3, despite outshooting them by quite a margin.  In the second game it was once again a one goal game in the Bears advantage. A 2-1 victory puts things all square for the series. Higgins have claimed the Bears as his own and the hopes of finding a suitable replacement are still out there, but the heist at least got them back into the conference finals.

 

The Sullivan Salute

Even though he was inducted in the Hall of Fame quite some seasons again (the class of 36), Ryan Sullivan finally has his entry to the HOF finalized with a brilliant piece on his career. If you weren’t there for the era in which Sullivan played, this article (which is currently in the Media Spots section) shows you the great things he achieved in his career, he won the Stolzschweiger in his rookie year, earned three Labatte trophies and managed to win Calgary their (for now) last cup in history. I will spare you the full details of his career, but it is definitely worth looking into. Sullivan had a great impact on the VHL and the defenseman of the year trophy in the VHLM was there for renamed the Ryan Sullivan trophy. A great reward for an even better defenseman. While winning less Labatte trophies than Daniel Braxton (who won four), he still won more cups and this alone would likely make him one of the better defenseman from his generation.

Edited June 12, 2015 by Green

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

Heist Completed

Last magazine we talked about Higgins` Heist and how he took control over the bears late in the season. This heist has now been fully completed, because much against everyone’s prediction, the Bears managed to beat the Cologne Express in seven games, crowning them the new Continental Cup winners. It had been since Season 28 that the Bears won a title again, so this title for the storied franchise is a bright spot in the last years. Even though they won the title now, it looks like it will be hard for them to repeat. They lose players like Phil Villeneuve and AC Savage to retirement and they don’t have much to deal with to work towards the future. The new General Manager will have a nice job ahead of him once he starts, but none of this matters for now. The Seattle players are celebrating their cup victory, many have doubted them, none believed. But in the end, it was captain Villeneuve who got awarded the cup. He showed them to the fans that travelled with the team to Germany. For the upcoming season the Bears are your champions of the Victory Hockey League.

 

Offseason, no time to rest

With the Seattle Bears victory we officially have landed in the offseason, and while some players would love to relax, hit the beach or just chill with their family and friends, the VHL players jump right into the next event. Starting Monday the 22^nd of June, the World Cup will start once again. The managers have made their rosters and it’s up to Canada, Western Europe, Scandinavia, World and the Mercenaries to stop the United States of America from repeating. The world cup is not the only thing going on during the off season. Currently the voting has opened for the All Star Game, so make sure to cast your votes on the players you want to see starting in the All Star Game. During the week, free agency will also open up and we might get to see some players changing their teams. An event people are likely looking forward to would be the awards ceremony on Friday, we know who is the top goalscorer in the league, but there are a lot more prestige worthy awards being announced, so make sure you be there. In the weekend, we will see the final rounds of the World Cup and the pre-season of the VHL starting up again. There is so much to do this week, there is no rest for the wicked.

 

Penalty Shot Specialists

For years the VHL players had a number assigned to them for their penalty shot skills, this was based on how good a player probably would be at it. It all happened by the simmer and players could not further influence the stat. In a sim league world, there is not a more fair solution for this then to actually let people decide if they want to train in it., so starting next season, all players will have the same ability to take penalty shots. This gives people another option to build themselves into a specialist or gives high earning members another spot to dump their points in. It will be interesting to see how this will affect the penalty shot series throughout the season.

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

The Three Way

After a final with an unexpected ending between Cologne and Seattle the teams are facing each other once again during the offseason, but this time they were accompanied by the Quebec City Meute. The teams worked together in a switch off players and picks and as expected the Seattle Bears are selling off the assets they have to enter a rebuild. Wolfgang Strauss and Niklaus Mikaelsson are being traded to the Quebec City Meute and they receive two first rounders, a second rounder and a third rounder for them. While it does sound expensive for the Meute, it’s not as bad as it looks, as one of the picks they gave up they have just acquired from the Cologne Express. With the acquisition of the younger goalie the Meute no longer required the services of Waldron. The Cologne Express are happy to take him off their hands since they need a goaltender since Martin Brookside has retired from professional hockey.

 

All Stars

With the season coming to a closure, the VHL players lace up their skates one more time as they are playing the Season 43 All Star Game. It’s all fun and games and some of the goaltenders actually did their best to make it as entertaining as possible. In the first period we saw the Europeans running away with the early lead, especially the combination of Tom Slaughter (3 goals) and Thomas O’Malley (4 assists) were great during the period in which they saw Mikaelson being pulled at the end of the first period. On the opposite side we saw Wahl having a good game (in terms of an All Star Game Standard), with a save percentage of 67 percent he actually had the highest percentage off all the goaltenders. The North American Conference answered back in the remaining two periods, Faraday with 4 goals and 2 assists and Thomassen with 3 goals and 2 assists were the big guns for their team. While Slaughter managed to get another two goals added to his totals, it was not enough to bring Europe the victory. With a 14 to 12 score the North Americans have taken this All Star Game.

 

World Cup Progress

After the round robin of the World Cup we noticed two teams going head to head for the championship title. Both Western Europe as the United States of America ended the first stage of the tournament with seven wins, giving them a bye for the quarter finals of the tournament. The quarter finals were World versus Scandinavia and Mercenaries versus Canada. The fourth placed World team demolished the Scandinavians with a 5-0 victory, securing them a spot in the semi final. The other team joining the semi finals is Team Mercenaries, who caused an upset to knock out the third seed Canada.  Big man for the mercenaries was Marcus Hurley, the Wranglers Captain scored three times versus the Canadians, enough to secure a trip to the semi finals. The Mercenaries will face Western Europe and Team World will face the United States of America in two games who will decide the teams that can battle for the golden medal.

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

And the winner is….

 

The Season 43 World Cup has come to an end and it was another World Cup to remember. In the final rounds we noticed that the Mercenaries were close to completing their upset, but in the semi finals versus Team Western Europe they finally fell, but not before they managed to score three goals on the Europeans, almost giving them a run for their money. Luckily for Western Europe their offense was top notch and replied by scoring five goals themselves. The other finalist would come from the matchup between Team World and Team USA. Niklaus Mikaelson shutout the world, giving the United States a chance to defend their gold medal from Season 40. In an overtime thriller it turned out to come down to a single powerplay situation. James Faraday hooked Christoph Klose to give Western Europe the man advantage. At the end of the powerplay E'Twaun Delicious became the golden kid. His shot made sure Team Western Europe won the gold.  With the Americans getting silver and the World getting the bronze we have another podium full of great talent. The World Cup will now take a break again until Season 46 when Western Europe will have to defend their newly acquired gold medal.

 

 

And the winners are....

 

Next to Team Western Europe grabbing hold of the world cup there were more celebrations going on. For the first time in history there were also individual awards to be won this world cup. The breakout star award (for the young players in the tournament) went to the goalie of Western Europe. Hans Wingate played an excellent tournament and was a vital part of his team grabbing the gold medal. He did not receive a vote in the best goaltender category though, throughout the entire tournament it was American netminder Niklaus Mikaelson that got all eight votes to grab the best goaltender award. Best defense went to Ron World Peace who is starting his final season as a professional hockey player to win his first ever individual award. A great achievement for Mister Cologne who finally gets the recognition he deserves. The final two awards both went to the same player, best forward and most valuable player. It was Bismarck Koënig who secured the two awards as he was truly the star of the tournament. He finished first on scoring out of all players in the team and might be the biggest reason for Western Europe's victory. We would like to congratulate all off the winners!
 

And the winners still are....

Last season we noticed the Seattle Bears fight for their lives in the quest for the Contintental Cup. And even after selling a lot of their roster to enter a rebuild, that fight has not been lost. The Cologne Express still have a competitive roster for this season and expected an easy win over the rebuilding team. Revenge is sweet right? The Seattle Bears disagreed and even though they got outshot by 40 shots (54 versus 14) they got a 1-0 shutout victory over the Express. James Faraday was the one that put Seattle 1 goal up late in the second period on the 8th shot that the Bears fired against Waldron. The real first star of the game however would be the Seattle back-up goalie, yes you read it right, they played their back-up as well. SEA G turned out to be the true hero of the Bears, securing the first win of the season for the Bears.

Edited July 6, 2015 by Green

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

Player Survey Results

 

A survey had been ongoing where people could vote for players and teams in different categories, including the prestigious ‘Best VHL Trash Talker’. There have been around 23 votes on the categories, and it is nice to see how certain players are viewed by the community. When you look at the  ‘Toughest Player to Play Against’ voting, you see there were 10 different players listed and while players could have easily voted for themselves, Tom Slaughter turned out to be the toughest to play against. The Stockholm center brings a lot of experience and is in his last year and not showing any signs of slowing down. The best current VHL First Generation Player is another vote that was close, but Travis Boychuk of the Quebec City Meute closely won this battle over both Sachimo Zoidberg and Jody 3 Moons. Next to these categories there is much more being awarded, best city without a franchise, the most marketable player, the worst trash talker, the best goon.  If you are interested in reading all the results, make sure to check the VHLSC Player Poll: RESULTS! Topic on the forums.

Twenty games in

The season isn’t that far underway but after twenty games the playoff spots already have become clear for the European Conference. Early in the season there is already a 16 point lead between the current numbers three and four. The rebuilding Titans and Reign both have won four games while the other three teams currently sport thirteen victories. The top teams will have an interesting battle in order to fight for the first round bye. The Express and Vikings have the exact same record at the moment, while the Dynamo only have one less overtime loss then these teams. The one point difference is showing the competitiveness between these teams. In the North American Conference anything could still happen. The numbers three and four are separated by only four points there. The Bears have ten victories while the Americans have one less with a total of nine. The North American Conference is looking to be the exciting one this year when it comes to the playoff race. The race for the first round bye looks to be going between the Calgary Wranglers and the Quebec City Meute; a race in which the Wranglers currently have a one point lead.

 

Number 250

Another milestone for the VHL Magazine; 250 editions! With a maximum of 52 magazines per year (there have been some weeks without a magazine in the past) it’s almost an existence of five years of bringing the latest VHL news in magazine form. While the authors and editors have changed over the years I would like to take a moment to thank everyone who contributed over the years and everybody who even read just a single magazine. It’s a group effort between those who make it and those that create, without one or the other the Magazine would never have been able to reach this many editions. Thanks to everyone and let’s work together towards number 300! Let’s do that within a year.

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

VHL, we are watching you

 

Some of you might have seen it around the boards already, but multiple players of both the VHL and VHLM are now living in a house together with all their moves being followed around by a camera. Where have you heard that concept before? That’s right, it’s Big Brother and this time around the players of the VHL are the ones in the spotlight. A broad selection of players entered the house, from Tyler Cote to Bismarck Koenig and from Golden Jedtsson to Travis Boychuk. And Big Brother wouldn’t be Big Brother if there weren’t some twists and competitions to lower the amount of people in the house. The first elimination games have already passed and we are close to finding out who will be the first person who is forced to leave the house. I don’t want to give too much away, but I guarantee that you will not be disappointed  by the show. Tune in and follow as this competition unfolds.

 

The Battle for the Boulet

 

Some seasons we see some clear cut winners, but this year’s race for the Boulet trophy as best two-way forward is looking to be a nice race between Cologne’s Christoph Klose and Stockholm’s Lord Karnage.  The two left wingers are on positions one and two for left wing scoring and on positions three and four in terms of hits. While both of these are still in favor of Karnage we see Klose gaining ground on him sim after sim. Having played on the second line early in the season gave him a huge gap to close, and it looks like he is on his way to do it. The numbers one in hits, Bronson Faux could be an outsider for this trophy. Despite being a lot back in terms of points, he still is above a point per game average, so three worthy candidates, it will be nice to see who will hold up this trophy at the end of the season. Currently it’s Karnage’s to lose.

 

Trade Deadline week

 

The upcoming week is the last week in the season that teams can prepare for the playoffs. We have seen Calgary already becoming stronger by acquiring Ruutu and Zoidberg from Toronto, both players are retiring and this will be one last shot at a cup for them. If Calgary will be the only one that tries to get stronger remains to be seen as a lot of the teams are really competitive this year. Calgary, Quebec, Stockholm, Cologne and Davos all look like they are planning for a run at the cup. The question that remains now is that if they are content with their roster and feel they can win with it, or that they try to get stronger the upcoming a week. A lot will depend on both the market and the salary cap. Maybe after last year the managers are a bit more cautious, the Seattle Bears won out the continental cup out of nowhere. So maybe it will be quiet during the deadline since managers know now they probably don’t have to have a stacked team in order to achieve success. Either way, it will remain interesting to see what they have in store for us the upcoming week.

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

Guess Who

We are all members of the community and we all love the game of (sim) hockey. But what else could we have in common? It is obvious there is a lot we do not know about each other. To increase this knowledge and maybe find some common ground, boubabi started a new fun forum game in the spam and game forum area.  In "The Guess Who Game" you will see a list of members that participated and send in two facts about themselves to boubabi. Everyone can join in and the more people that do join, the funnier it could become. Every round a single fact will be presented and everyone (even those who did not submit facts) can guess who it is. The first round had just been played and the fact was that a person never seen a Star Wars movie. Due to not many members being eligible yet (there is a list with who submitted the facts) there weren't many to guess from. A lot of people did guess it correct as well since the answer was Brovy. The link between his age and the movies being rather old, must have been a big part of their guesses. The second question is about a Yu-Gi-Oh card collection, so interested in who owned a lot of these cards? Check in and participate in the game.

 

New Tactics In Salary Management

One player wasn't really happy when he heard he was being moved from one team to another. Not by the fact that he was opposed to being traded, but by the fact he got put on waivers for it so that the other team who had priority could claim him. All this because off clearing some extra cap space for the Quebec City Meute. Wolfgang Strauss, the player in question, felt bad that he was worth more off the team then on the team. Next to that trading scheme, the Helsinki Titans traded a Quebec Season 45 first and second rounder to Quebec in exchange for their third round pick. Shady? Probably yes, but apparently it was within the rules. The cap situation in the VHL is tight and that calls for desperate measures like this. But hopefully I am not the only one that hopes this is the last time a move like this went down, since it is really disrespectful to the player in question, who is actually active in the league.

 

Closing In

The Playoff hopes for the New York Americans are still alive. Despite being in the playoffs the Bears have been trading away some of their star players for future draft picks. These trades have caused them to have lost the last five games in a row. The New York Americans are now only two points out of the playoffs. The difference between them and the Wranglers and Meute is too big, so it is likely the last spot that is available for a team. Will the last nineteen games be enough for them to close the gap? Only time will tell until we know how the playoffs will look.

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

Playoff Update NA

With most teams only playing six or seven more games, it is likely that the regular season will be concluded once this magazine hits the shelves again. However, it’s still going on in all its glory right now and we still have some interesting battles at hand.  One of the battles will be the North American conference. The New York Americans have finally overtaken the Seattle Bears and are close to claiming the final North American spot. Six games to go they hold a lead off four points over their competitors. With the recent fire-sale the Bears held, this should not be much of a problem for the Americans, who are taking it one step at a time to get back on top. Having added Edwin Reencarnacion at last season’s draft helped them out a lot. The rookie managed to get above a point per game and is only second in team scoring behind Niklas Kurri, who re-signed with the team in free agency. Things are definitely looking up again for the Americans.

 

Playoff Update EU

 

Last time we still were seeing a race between three teams for the top spot. This time around it seems that the HC Davos Dynamo have pulled out of the race for the top spot. With seven games remaining for them they are ten points out of the first place. This leaves the current leaders Cologne Express (102 points with 6 games remaining) and the runners up Stockholm Vikings (98 points with 7 games remaining) to battle it out. To spice things up. The next four games will be likely the deciding factor as the Express and Vikings will have to fight it out amongst both of them in a four game series. It can go either way so it will be exciting to see if the small lead of the Express is enough to pull them towards winning the European Conference.

 

Missing In Action

 

Where is the Pajodcast? This question might not be asked regularly, but when it comes to podcasts in the VHL one really might wonder. After they all meet up and recorded live, it seems to have died off afterwards. Rumors about the members being involved in various scandals might surface if they don’t release another episode soon.  Is Jericho being arrested after he binge drinked the wine collection of the restaurant he works in?  Is Advantage being held hostage by his new found girlfriend? And is Devise no longer working the streets at night and therefor unable to pay his rent? All these rumors will probably pile up and get worse if we don’t get any update soon. So if you have any information about the missing show, do not hesitate to let the magazine know so we can tell the world. Get back together soon.

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

Luxury for Titans in lottery

Usually when teams trade away their draft picks for players, you expect these teams to compete. The first round draft picks you acquire are usually in the bottom part of the round. Not this time though for the Helsinki Titans. Helsinki owned both the Seattle and Toronto picks and including their own they went into the lottery with 75% off the top four picks. The only question that remained was the order this would be in. Helsinki couldn’t have gotten themselves in a better situation than this one, as after the lottery was concluded they were now in possession of the number one, two and three picks in the draft. Giving them full control over deciding which three prospects they would like to add to their roster. If they draft some gems that keep progressing well, this could definitely help to jump start the franchise again to try and bring them towards the play-offs. However with three other teams in the conference being competitive, this could potentially proof to be a big challenge.

 

Super Cup Upcoming

This offseason it is time for another installment of the VHL Super Cup. The Super Cup for now was an event where all active players where drafted in a snake draft to teams that were inspired by Hall of Fame members. After a few rounds of playing each other the teams finally continue to a playoff season to decide the winner. This year it might be a different scenario though, since when looking at the commissioner application topic there were some new ideas being tossed around which would be discussed with the new commissioners. It’s a good thing they have been hired already now so that the preparations for the event can start right on time. This season Phil and Molholt will run the show, so the event should be in good hands.

 

Playoff Update

The European Conference once again shows how close the teams are this season as both the HC Davos Dynamo as the Stockholm Vikings won three of the first six games, pushing the series back to a deciding game seven. The Dynamo were at the verge of being knocked out after losing game five, but in overtime Freedom McJustice kept their dream alive. The winner of the last game will play the Cologne Express in the conference finals.  In the North American conference the American Dream is over. The New York Americans were outclassed and knocked out as they were expected to be. They managed to win a single game to make sure they would avoid the sweep. The Wranglers were dominant and they hope to continue their performance on the ice when she will face the Quebec City Meute in the North American Conference finals.

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

Super Cup Madness

 

In the eyes of some people the Super Cup has gotten boring the last time. So what can be done to make it interesting again? Step one is to hire two enthousiastic commissioners in Molholt and Phil. Step two is create some hype and that is exactly what they are doing right off the bat. Predictions, a mock draft, write a Super Cup related point task for an uncapped TPE point, they are really giving it their best to create a successful Super Cup run. The managers will as always also be rewarded, so if you think you can participate in the event and want to manage a team, all you need is to apply for one of the teams. Together with your members that you picked up in a live draft you can decide on the team name for this edition. The Super Cup proves to be a lot of fun again and we hope to see you participate in as many events as possibly organized by the two commissioners.

 

The Hunt Is On For Riga

 

There has been a change in management in the Latvian capital city. The Riga Reign will now be controlled by Toast and this means Kurtis Hunter will have to move from HC Davos Dynamo to the Riga Reign. Due to the ongoing playoffs the exact trade isn’t yet known, but this doesn’t make it any less real. Flyersfan1493 controlled the Riga for the last few seasons before they finally won it all in S40 and went back in a rebuild a few seasons after. The Riga Reigns rebuild will now be continued and it will be interesting to see what strategy the new manager will use to make the franchise competitive again.

 

Playoffs Continued

 

The Victory Cup was won by the Quebec City Meute, but this does not mean they are a lock to future in the Continental Cup finals. In the conference finals that have concluded they were almost swept by a Calgary Wranglers team that is hungry for a win. Calgary has not won since Season 30 and this is after Stockholm (formerly known as Vasteras) the second longest without a cup. Five games were enough to beat the Meute and clinch a spot in the cup final. Their opponent was only known a few days later as Cologne and Stockholm needed a game seven to decide the outcome. After line changes from Ryan Power we saw a different Cologne. They shut out the Vikings in the final game as Bismarck Koenig scored the deciding goals. The Wranglers are not afraid of Cologne as they have shown in game one. The Wranglers came out full throttle as they won the first game in Cologne. The series is still long though.

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

Super Cup Underway

This is it, the week we will be playing another edition of the VHL Super Cup. This week you will get an extra bonus TPE if your media spot is actually Super Cup related. This year's most wanted player was retiring player Tom Slaughter, a guy who looks to be a lock for the Hall of Fame. He will be teaming up with arguably the best GM player in Lloyd Light, making them the early favorites for the title. After two games however only Team Stamkos is still undefeated. I believe the names shouldn't stay for long as usually they get named after Hall of Fame players, so I am wondering what ingenious names people come up with this time. Will Team Stamkos be able to continue their streak and will Team Ahma finally get their first win? We will only find out if we keep on following the Super Cup, so why not do it.

 

Pulled Apart By Horses

The Cologne Express made the finals for the third time in a row. After defeating the Quebec City Meute for their first cup, everyone believed they would easily beat the Seattle Bears for their second. Sadly they were mistaken but they got another change. After the wolf and the bear, they now wanted to have some horse meat for dinner. But alas,  the Wranglers (who made some nice additions at certain points of the season to manage their salary) proven to strong for the Express. A long drought was ended as they were only second behind Stockholm as the longest franchise without a cup. Potential finals MVP's will be Tyler Cote and Hans Wingate. We will find out when the award ceremony hits, but whoever gets it, I know Calgary is still having one big party over their big achievement. A cup they can be very proud of!

 

Draft Upcoming

After the Helsinki Titans had picks one, two, three and six a lot of action has happened this offseason that changes the landscape of the draft. Cologne Express acquired the number three and six picks for Thomas O'Malley and Christoph Klose. They moved one spot down to acquire another third afterwards. The Riga Reign now got hold off that pick, but in the end decided to move it to the Quebec City moved who paid a hefty fine for getting into the top three. The top changed around a lot and only because there is so much quality to be picked this year. We have some talented goalies, we have some great defenseman, there really is something nice for everyone. Curious how the draft turns out? Make sure to watch it when it unfolds.

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

The Best Thread Ever

When people say offseason is usually the most boring time of the season they aren’t always right. Because this offseason something wonderful happened. Something that the future generations of VHL players will still look back at to enjoy. Something great that pops up and everyone suddenly chimes in on it. Something legendary, so legendary that I didn’t even had to add ‘wait for it’ like Barney Stinson.  I am of course referring to the VHL Meme topic. In this topic you can find a lot of funny stuff, references and teach you about the history of the league in the most fun way ever. So why not find situations of your own that you want to share and post your own meme’s in the topic. It’s already six pages full of fun, so let’s all work together and add some more to make this the biggest collection of meme’s the VHL has ever seen.

 

Saying Goodbye

 

With a new season approaching there are some players that have recently called up the reporters to let them officially know they are retiring. One of them is a likely future Hall of Fame player in Tom Slaughter. Tom Slaughter was mostly known for his excellent career at the New York Americans where he won two Contintental Cups. His last seasons he tried helping the Stockholm Vikings in their quest for a cup, but despite a strong roster they couldn’t get there. Tom Slaughter will sign a one day deal with New York to be able to retire as an American.  Another player that has to say goodbye to the VHL is Travis Boychuk. Drafted originally by Calgary eight overall, he was one of the biggest surprises coming out of the draft and infact he was one of the few players in the draft that played for all eight seasons. The third big name player that says goodbye is Ron World Peace, also known as Mister Cologne. As a former second round pick he played his full career with the Express, winning a cup with them in Season 42. All these three players will definitely be missed.

 

Awards!

With the conclusion of the playoffs we also saw the awards being handed out last week. Big congratulations once again to the Calgary Wranglers who won the most important prize in the Continental Cup. In addition to the cup victory they also saw Tyler Cote pick up the Playoff MVP award, Hans Wingate was the top goaltender and Austin Gow was the top executive to conclude a nice haul for Calgary.  Individually it was a big year for Cologne center Thomas O’Malley, who picked up the Most Valuable Player, Most Outstanding Player awards and was awarded with the top points, goals and assists prizes. On the top assist award though he suddenly got announced as being a member of the Quebec City Meute, but after being on the stage so many times there was bound to be a mistake.  One player from Quebec deserves a special mention as it was his last award ceremony of his career. Travis Boychuck concluded his career with the top leader trophy, finally an individual accolade for the center.

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

The European Marathon

 

As expected the European conference will be once again the one were the most challenges are for the teams. All five teams have decided to give a shot at it this season and claim one of the playoff tickets. So with all teams going for it, it will depend on the small things who will make it or not. The Helsinki Titans are currently off at the best start with nine wins and two losses. They have scored the most goals for and have the fewest against in the entire league. Behind them in the second slot are the Riga Reign, completing the change the conference has seen (as last season these were the two non-playoff teams). The third spot for now are the Stockholm Vikings, but they are one point ahead of both the HC Davos Dynamo as the Cologne Express. The Vikings are on a three game winning streak though where Davos and Cologne both lost the last two. Anything can happen in this conference this year.

 

Waiting for the first win.

 

In the first game of the season the Seattle Bears were close at getting their first win of the season. Despite being outshot they managed to delay the game versus the Riga Reign until overtime before having to collapse to a Milos Denis goal.  The ten games after, the Bears lost every single one of them. Some of them were close, like against the Calgary Wranglers (3-2) and Stockholm Vikings (4-3) while others were complete blowouts: 10-4 against the Meute and and 6-0 versus the Dynamo. With 1 point so far they are dead last in the league and the question remains if they will have the firepower to make something out of this season, or that it will indeed be one of the worst seasons by a franchise in the history of the VHL. With the league having 8 teams trying to make the playoffs this year, the biggest chance to get their win will be against the Toronto Legion. So my personal guess, if they want to win a game, they will have to do it versus the Legion at home. So my guess is that the wait will continue for a while and that it happens during game 19.

 

Super Cup Four Completed

 

For the first time in four editions we have had an extensive closing ceremony for the VHL Super Cup. Phil and Molholt might have been the most dedicated commissioners the Super Cup has seen so far. So despite their efforts, they feel the Super Cup wasn't getting the attention it deserved. So if you feel like something could have been done differently, make sure to let them know for their feedback towards the Board of Governors. This year's edition was won by Campbell's Chicken Noodles which was GM'd by Paramorise. They made sure they finished the finals quick by winning both game one and two, giving Phil's Porridge no chance at all to clinch their desired victory. The team managed by Ahma got a well deserved second spot.  Best goalie was Blake Campbell of the winning Chicken Noodles team while Simon Valmount claimed the top rookie award.  Best two-way forward was won by Tyler Cote and Mason Richardson claimed the top defenseman trophy. Last but certainly not least, Bruno Wolf was crowned the unofficial MVP of the tournament. Despite lesser interest, let's hope we will see a fifth edition in three more seasons.

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

Smoking Hot

The New York Americans were not listed as one of the candidates this year to win it all, but in the shadows of the favorites, we see the Americans getting settled in comfortably in the North American Conferences. Currently on a 7 game win streak the Americans recently beaten teams like Calgary, Davos and Riga, so it’s not like they faced only easy opponents. Niklas Kurri and Jorma Ruutu currently lead the team in scoring from their second line, while first liners Nicolas Caprivi, Edwin Reencarnacion and E’Twaun Delicious follow them all within ten points. While they may not be the greatest players in the league right now, they do have perfect chemistry and who knows, this team might be able to cause an upset in the playoffs this season. We have seen worse teams win in the past year’s, so if they can keep this chemistry alive, the Americans might be the biggest surprise of the season.

 

The Correct Prediction

Last week the Seattle Bears were still without a win in the season. I predicted that their first win would be during game 19 of the season versus the Toronto Legion. If only sportsbetting in the VHL was a real thing, I would have at least made some money out of it as the Bears indeed won that game.  The victory however didn’t come easy. In both the first and the second period the Toronto Legion took the lead in the game, only to have the Seattle Bears equalize later in that period. While the third period has been the opposite scenario; after sixty minutes of hockey we stil had a tied game. With no goals in overtime we would have a penalty shootout,  Jakub Rhineheart and AIM-11 turned out to be the saviors of the Bears as both players converted on their penalty shot versus David Blind to give the Bears their first win of the season. A hard fought battle, but they made it. The win gave them some renewed confidence as they managed to upset the Riga Reign a couple of days later. There is still a lot of work to do for Seattle, but the zero in the wins department is off the board.

 

Stolzschweiger Watch

 

Fresh blood in the VHL is always fun to watch. Fresh blood when one of the prospects is called Greg Clegane, might be a very literal statement, as he has killed before in the future. Due to his history it comes to no surprise that Clegane is actually doing really well in his rookie season and might be one of the front runners for the Aidan Shaw. While he might have it in him to take that trophy, we are focusing on the Christian Stolzschweiger trophy. Clegane currently leads the goalies in both save percentage and wins, while he is ranked second in goals against average and stopped seven penalty shots so far. The competition this season for the award is looking to be his teammate Aleksi Koponen and Legion forward Max Molholt.  The Legion player currently has one point less as Koponen but is leading the whole league in shots blocks (while being a forward), both rookies are doing well so far as with 33 and 32 points respectively, they are above known names as Lord Karnage, Christoph Klose, Aksel Thomassen and Devin Sundberg, so not the worst players right?  It will be interesting to see what the rookies will continue to do this season, but the Stolzschweiger race proofs to be exciting!

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

Edition September 28!

 

A Short Victory Three

 

It was only two days ago that I have written the last article, but due to a holiday to Belgium where my son will be baptized, we will be visiting a convention and visit the Antwerp Zoo we won’t have time to publish a full article. So for now we will have just a short version, since it will be better than no update at all.  For the latest news about the standings, scorers and everything else VHL, tune back next week to a proper edition of Victory Three.

 

Happy Anniversary KloseCast

if all goes through following the weekly schedule Der Meister has for his podcasts, we will see the release today of the 50^th KloseCast in history. Almost a yearlong of podcasts on a regular basis isn’t something that happens and only a few podcasts have achieved this magical number in the VHL. So let’s congratulate der meister with his milestone and let’s all tune in and listen to it. If you want to do him an even bigger favor then listening to the podcast, you can always look into purchasing the book he is starting a kickstarter campaign for, but just ask him for further details about that.

 

The Next Ones

The league will always need an influx of new players and this season proves to be not different, there are at least twenty five players that have already gained some TPE and are looking to enter the next draft. The consensus number one pick looks to be Zach Parechkin, who is leading the rankings by a mile and also was this week’s most improved draftee in terms of TPE gain. He currently has a comfortable lead over players like Jeff Hamilton and Saul Hackett. At least nine out of ten players that currently are in the top ten have improved over the last week, so it looks to become an active first round if they can keep this up. After being swarmed by goalies in the previous draft, there only looks to be a single one this season in Chris Fekete, who is currently ranked 22^nd in TPE gained, but he was a late addition so look for him to rise some more during the course of the season. All in all, so far the draft looks nice and after a year with so many great prospects it’s great to see that the activity is keeping up in the years afterwards. Let’s hope the players will all reach the VHL so we can have another strong draft in our history books.

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

Farewell to the fairground

 

Two great players have let the world know today that they would retire from professional hockey, Devin Sundberg and Benjamin Dupont will not be returning on the ice next season. Sundberg was getting older and regressing but was still a very valuable player for the HC Davos Dynamo. The departure of Benjamin Dupont is probably more shocking, as a Season 44 Draftee Dupont was still in his rookie contract. However he decided to focus on other priorities in life. The New York Americans, who had invested heavily in Dupont as their franchise player, will now select a new franchise player in Atticus von Braxton IV, a goaltender to replace the also retiring Mikaelsson. Next to the two players, Bruno Wolf also announced his retirement. Still without a cup he has been traded to the Americans in the hope to win one this season.

 

Playoff Watch

Due to the weaker teams in the North American conference we have two teams already who have clinched a playoff spot, the New York Americans who are currently in first and the Calgary Wranglers who are currently in second have both made sure the bottom teams will not be able to catch up on them. The Quebec City Meute are also a few points away from clinching the final spot, which should wrap up that conference. In Europe, things are more exciting. With 22 games remaining, the difference between numbers one and five are small enough that anything is still possible. The Vikings and Express will need a good push in the last few games to try to catch up to the current playoff teams. The Helsinki Titans look safe for now, but a ten point lead can disappear fairly quickly if you lose a few games. This conference will stay exciting until the bitter end, so stay tuned to see how this saga completes.

 

Gifford Shock

Many doubted manager Ryan Power when he traded away O’Malley and Christoph Klose away to get younger and then use one of the first round picks on Gifford Shock, who was only one year behind the duo. Currently Shock has shown why he was such a good acquisition as he leads the league in points over Koenig, O’Malley and Wolf, who are all within five points of him. Shock came into the league as a prophecy, a great player that would show the world what true hockey could be. In the first seasons he unfortunately never reached his potential and people had given up on him, so it is great to see that he is proving everybody wrong. With Shock as their scoring leader, the Express are still fighting for that last playoff spot, something nobody had expected prior to this season.

Edited October 5, 2015 by Green

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

My last Victory Three for now.

 

 

 

Last Call For Boarding

With four games remaining the Cologne Express will need a miracle to still make the playoffs. As the fourth seeded team in the European Conference they are seven and eight points behind the numbers two and three; one more victory for them or one more loss for Cologne and it is all over for the team. The Express showed an aggressive management style this year trying to make the playoffs were everyone expected them to go a full rebuild route. This made the conference a battlefield throughout the entire season and gave the regular season a much needed spark compared to how fast the North American Conference was settled in terms of playoff and non-playoff teams. Cologne made a nice run and tried giving Brock Waldron a proper goodbye from professional hockey, they fought like lions, but it seems the playoff train is leaving without them this season.

 

Don’t Panic

For the people that paid attention this message will probably be a week late, but the VHL Magazine as you are reading it now has gone through a make-over, STZ has stepped down of publishing and the job is being taken over by Molholt. So don’t panic, it is still the good old VHL Magazine. Next to a different design (after all each publisher brings his own style) we also would like to welcome Ahma (who will be writing Rookie Watch) and StevenStamkos91 (who will be writing Insider Trading). Also want to be part of this magazine? Make sure you head over to the job interview, as there is still an open position to be filled.

 

So Long And Thanks For All The Fish

 

For the past years I have worked for a company where I had time to enjoy and work on sim leagues during my worktimes. However the pay wasn’t that good and I worked from the other side off the country, away from my co-workers. I basically did what I was paid for (and it wasn’t much). After I got asked to apply at a bigger company I was a bit hesitant as I don’t like change at all, had a stable contract and a family to take care off. I decided to apply anyway and they offered me a job. With it being a bigger company I take their rules more serious than I did with my current one (co-workers are playing games during work as well) and one of the rules is no internet for private usage. Since that would mean I would need to do all my sim stuff from home, I decided to step down from many roles in the leagues I was in. In some leagues I won’t even recreate as it stands now. Due to the change I have decided to step down as magazine writer. I want to thank all of you readers for putting up with my articles, STZ and Molholt for their editing work and continued efforts for the magazine and the writing staff for giving us a reliable magazine to release week after week. This is not a goodbye from the VHL, but merely a new start on a lower activity scale.

[eaglesfan036 4,604]

wow green i will miss you victory 3s they have been a great staple of the vhl mag

[BOOM 8,807]

Agreed. Will miss your contributions but wish you the best in the new job. Thanks for your hard work and quality content.

[Toast 887]

Phoenix 

 

It lives...

When I first started writing for the Magazine way back around Edition 90 or something absurd, I was given the Victory 3 to handle. I loved that column until I lost interest in writing blurbs and instead wanted a change to polling the VHL with many questions. While the Power Poll was fun to get opinions of others into the article, I did miss this Victory 3 and what it offered to the Magazine. With that said, effective as of now, I have stepped away from the Power Poll to take on the V3 once again. Thanks go out once again to Green, for everything he did with this column and all that he did for the Magazine. I just really wish O'Malley wasn't such a pain in the ass. With all of that said, let's get back into the V3 and keep this thing going for hundreds of editions to come.

 

Wingod...

Riga and Calgary came to a surprise deal last week when we saw Hans Wingate traded to Riga for Bernie Gow and a 1st round pick. Since then, Wingate and the Reign have had a bit of a shaky start to the relationship. Wingate has struggled in some games against teams that have no right to be competing with the Reign, but when Wingate does show up to play? Wingod. Since coming to Riga, despite the shaky games, Wingate has already posted three shutouts for the team that had struggled with goaltending all season. Wingate now holds a two shutout lead on the league and definitely adds fuel to the Shaw consideration as well as Riga's chances to make a run for it at the end of the season. With Wingate re-signing for an extra year as well, it seems that teams all over the VHL are going to have to deal with a pain for the foreseeable future.  

 

Trade Deadline...

The period leading up to the deadline and the deadline itself is finally something to talk about. While most of the deals seen were for minor players with meaningless picks being moved around, there were some big deals. Miller is off to lend a hand to the Titans, and Calgary continues to build and refuses to give up by bringing in Light and Stropko. Of course there was also the goalie swap that was previously mentioned. While the league as of late has switched to the mindset that the big time deals happen in the off-season, over the past week it's clear that it isn't the case. Everything matters on the market, and with teams willing to unload some of their depth for picks in hopes that they will pan out let the deals start rolling. What would help these deals even though, is raising the cap for the first time in 1000 years. While that would help some situations surely, it must also be considered that GMs just get shit done in the off-season and otherwise wait until the cap to squeeze a late trade in under the cap. Kudos to all for at least making it a interesting Monday!