What Happened to Retired Numbers?

[CowboyinAmerica 2,889]

 

When I first got into the New York locker room, one of Esso's first requests was a normal one: PM him what number I wanted on the team. The addendum though actually caught me a bit off guard, even if it shouldn't have: "Make sure it's not a number that's retired."

 

According to the Team Announcements forum, the last jersey retirement occurred more than a calendar year ago: Helsinki and Higgins retiring Ay Ay Ron's number for Boubabi. In other words, long enough ago that Boubabi has been banned, unbanned, and Higgins inactive then active again since then. The last jersey retirement for the Meute was S56, the Legion S53, the Americans S52, the Reign S45. Both the Vikings and the Express - two teams that haven't existed in 10+ seasons - have retired jerseys more recently than the Dynamo (S41!) or the Wranglers (S36?!?). The Bears have absolutely nothing; the team's "Hall of Fame" has had one old player and question marks for 10 seasons.

 

One of the main reasons I stick around the VHL in particular is because of the history of the place. And while the Hall of Fame is the best place to commemorate that history, I'd argue that retired numbers are the second best - they demonstrate the long-standing history of many of these teams, and the unique players that were a part of franchises that may not have been good enough for the HoF proper. Players that are 6-8 good, active seasons on one team should be awarded, in my opinion.

 

So, I'd like to see not only numbers (why were they removed from player creation?) but number retirements become more of a thing again. It wouldn't be too much work from GMs - just a bit of understanding of a team's history, as well as a quik photoshop job from someone on the team. I think it'd be a time investment well worth the effort.

[GRZ 179]

I'd love this to come back, because the biggest thing I wanted to achieve with my player was to get his number #96, retired by a team, but then I understood that not too many teams followed this anymore.

[Tagger 2,722]

Was thinking this the other day while recording my upcoming podcast series, I'd like to see them make a return as well for certain. 

 

Also it's pretty funny in retrospect seeing New York be the team mentioning not taking retired numbers given that I think my jersey was the third #10 retired ! But it's a cool touch by Esso for sure. 

Edited September 16, 2019 by Tagger

[Fire Tortorella 2,653]

Gonna sound dumb, but they really just stopped because people stopped doing them. The old old core gave way to the now old core of GMs, and in general, they stopped do9ng them, so the new GMs today don't do them either.

[Victor 10,940]

I’ve got a Media Spot in the works to shout at everyone for not retiring them.

[Bushito 1,945]

I updated ours when I took Calgary over and I have plans to retire Stopko’s as well

[Quik 4,113]

For me, a lot of the older players didn't have numbers, so rather than retiring "numbers", I went to ring of honour for Helsinki.

 

Titans Ring of Honour

 

Updated it when I took over. AAR and Schmeckeldorf need to be added, but otherwise, it's up to date and waiting for the current group to retire.

[ShawnGlade 1,010]

Without revealing too much (but also revealing it) I have something in the works top change this