S68 Expansion GM Profiles, Part I

[McWolf 3,111]

Alright, so I decided for this week's theme to write the profiles of the 2 GMs. @diamond_ace and @Enorama are two of my absolute favourite sim league members so it should be easy enough. Part I - this media spot - will be about Jason Glasser, d_a's GM persona. Later this week, I'll write Part II about Eno's GM, which we'll call Eno Rama for now (scratch that, his GM player is George Washington). This one will be a VHL.com article because, let's be honest, there won't be as much to talk about when it comes to Eno compared to d_a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

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S68 EXPANSION GM PROFILES, PART I
A love letter to diamond_ace

 

GM Experience
If I counted well, Glasser had 3 stints in the VHLM (Ottawa from S20 to S25, Oslo from S43 to S45 and Ottawa from S59 to S64) and a single one in the VHL. If this only tenure as a VHL GM is any indication of the future, we might stuck dealing with Glasser as a GM of this new franchise well into the 80's, as he managed the Calgary Wranglers for a then record-breaking 16 straight seasons (from S26 to S41), a record that has since been beaten by Banackock, who's currently in the 19th season of his tenure with the Seattle Bears. 

 

He only has one Continental Cup to show for his 16 seasons with the Wranglers, but he put his name on the GM of the Year award no less than 3 times during that span. I wasn't here for that time so I can only imagine how it all went down, but the fact he was voted best GM 3 times tells me he made good moves and had great rosters 3 times, but ran on some bad case of Simon luck. Sometimes, the engine just doesn't want the better teams to win, which is what keeps it fresh as members of the league, but it can also be very frustrating when you're a GM and you feel like you're banging against the wall, never being able to go the distance despite dressing the best lineup in the VHL.

 

GM Style
I had the pleasure of playing under Glasser (with Enorama, too, fun coincidence) in my first season in the VHL. He led our Ottawa Lynx to a Founder's Cup in S62. He seemed to me like he was an experienced GM that knew what he was doing. From the draft, he had a plan in mind and he stuck to it. Many discredited us from the start because our team was built around first-gen members with low TPE numbers (Wilinsky, myself), with very few high TPE players returning from S61. Glasser took risks, but he was patient with us and only traded for more firepower (Kastelic) when the price was right for the team and it all paid off in the end.

 

I was then blessed the next season, when I was offered an AGM role on the very team with which I won the Founder's Cup. My player went on to pursue his pro career, but I stayed as d_a's helper. I only stayed there for around a season, before pursuing a GMing opportunity myself, but I got to see another side of Jason's personality that really impressed me at the time: how respectful he was towards his players. We had some great players (Dahlberg, Gebauer, Davison, Svoboda, among others) but lacked the depth to truly be able to compete with the better teams. The GM offered our players to trade them to better teams if they wanted to chase a Founder's Cup. It would have made more sense for the team to sell everyone and go for a big year in S64, but he respected everyone's choice. Some people wanted to stay with us because they'd get more time every night and more opportunity to put their names on the scoresheet in Ottawa than with a top team already filled with capped players. It didn't make sense with the team direction to keep more than half of our top players, but it was their wishes and he honoured them all which I thought was honourable from him. We ended up upsetting the first-seeded team and moved on to the finals, but there we truly saw how better the other team was and lost in only a few games to Saskatoon.

 

Team Identity Prediction
Ever since my stint in Ottawa working with him, d_a and I have talked in private about life stuff and all. We became good internet buds. He even invited to join another league he's a part of at some point (which I also abandonned during The Great Burnout of '19, sorry engi, it was fun but I went too big for the time i actually had to invest in simleagues). Well, in this other league, he was a GM for a team he chose to move in Czechia. And it might not be a known fact to some people, but some others know that he's been pushing for a Czech VHL franchise for a while. I'm not a betting man, but if I was, I'd put a 20 on the fact that Glasser takes control of the 6th European franchise and he places them in Prague.

 

Now, for the name and colours, I'll admit I have no idea what he's up to. So I'll just take a very wild guess and say the team will be called the Lions and will wear black, red and gold jerseys. I don't know why, i feel like it. Prague Lions. Sounds good, no?

 

Conclusion
People can expect good things from Jason Glasser as the GM of the yet to be named 6th European franchise. I'm sure he'll again be a charm for players he manages and he'll still look to put competitive teams on the ice every season. He won't be scared to trade if he feels this is the direction the team has to take to succeed short or long term, but he won't be the kind of GM to send trade offers to each of his colleagues every other day for the simple fun of overhauling his own roster. I realized having a good competitive team is everyone's goal, but still, to me, d_a is a perfect candidate for this job and I'm excited to see the team name he comes up with and what kind of team he'll try to lead to the highest honours of lifting the Continental Cup in, hopefully for him, a near future.

 

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So, once again, congratulations @diamond_ace, you deserve this team. I'm happy for you, bud.

 

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1,089 words

Claiming for weeks ending on Aug. 18 (along with the bonus from the Theme Week) and Aug. 25 (along with the lottery double week)

Edited August 12, 2019 by McWolf

[Victor 10,525]

God damn this was going to be my idea. Guess I can focus more on his Calgary time.

[McWolf 3,111]

9 minutes ago, Victor said:

God damn this was going to be my idea. Guess I can focus more on his Calgary time.

Go ahead, I pretty much only talked about S62-S63 Ottawa because that's the only thing I know from him, but I'd love to read about Wranglers' Glasser.

[Advantage 2,769]

I think I'd put my life savings on it being Prague.

 

Hes been the champion of that city getting a team for a long ass time.

 

Seems fitting he brings them in if he does make that choice.

[McWolf 3,111]

22 minutes ago, Advantage said:

I think I'd put my life savings on it being Prague.

 

Hes been the champion of that city getting a team for a long ass time.

 

Seems fitting he brings them in if he does make that choice.

Can we actually bet on this? I got like 100 banked TPE