I Flipped Through the History Books And...

[Gustav 6,469]

Ladies, gentlemen, neither, and both, it is THEME WEEK, and it's that time of the season again when we all get together to write about a certain topic. When I saw that we were doing this "history" thing, I didn't know what exactly I'd write about. I could go back and dig up the greatest pre-portal players of all time, or look at a ton of spreadsheets and end up with a bibliography that's basically "thanks @Victor." But truth be told, I don't feel like doing that sort of digging at the moment, and I don't have all the time in the world this week, so I'd rather just get something out there and spend the few hours I've avoided working here working for other things, or at the very least staring at my computer and telling myself to work on other things. So, instead of digging through old spreadsheets that I've only looked at to find trivia answers (and that is a hint for just about any trivia week, people), I decided to take a page out of the holy book of @Tagger and use none other than random.org to find something to talk about, as we see below...

 

 

First, I did a bit of digging through the VHL Games section, and found that the games that are still on the portal date back to S59. I joined the league in S65, so my "random season range" was somewhat small, between S59 and S64.

 

 

...and as we can see, I'll be talking about some game in S59. 

 

 

There were 288 regular-season games in S59, so I ran a random generation again to figure out which one, specifically, I'd be talking about.

 

 

...and, oh, look, I'll be talking about Game 243. Here's a link to the portal summary.

 

Game 243 of S59 was a late-season matchup between Seattle and Helsinki, with current Bears GM @Banackock hoping to take down not only Helsinki GM @Higgins but also former GM @boubabi and his two Helsinki stars and future Hall of Famers, Franchise Cornerstone and Ay Ay Ron. It didn't take long, in fact, for these players to make a mark on the match and make Seattle supporters nervous, as less than a minute into the first period, after Seattle defenseman (and Bana's player, no less), Aleksei Federov, went to the box. Just over thirty seconds into the penalty, Cornerstone won a face-off against Bana's other player, Mattias Forsberg, and Ay Ay Ron picked up the puck and scored. Offense was relatively quiet through the remainder of the first period, as Helsinki's Augustus Gloop and Seattle's Dexter Lane took penalties, but neither resulted in goals for either team.

 

Cornerstone contributed once again in the second period--just over two minutes in, he picked up a puck lost by teammate Rudolph Schmeckeldorf (@Corco) and shot it at Seattle goaltender Vernon Von Axelberry, twice. The first time he missed, but the second time Axelberry failed to control the rebound and Cornerstone's teammate Jack Shepherd (@Higgins) got to the puck and put it in the net. This marked Cornerstone's 60th assist of the season, but it was also Schmeckledorf's 66th. The Titans held onto their two-goal lead for almost five minutes, but then Seattle brought the game to within one at 6:53--after a Helsinki rush went offside, the Bears' Shawn Gretzky (@TheLastOlympian07) won a face-off, and after some neat passing work between the elite defensive duo of Federov and @Quik's Mats Johnsson got the puck back and scored. No other offense was seen in the period--at one point, the Bears had a 5-on-3 advantage for almost a full two minutes, but failed to capitalize.

 

Period 3 was Bana's answer to boubabi's Period 1--the only goal scored here came on a charge into the Helsinki zone carried out entirely by Aleksei Federov, as he took a pass from Forsberg, moved the puck down the ice, and scored by himself (even getting past an initial blocked shot from Ay Ay Ron). During the third period, Augustus Gloop took his third penalty of the game, though it was negated by a Gabriel McAllister hooking penalty which occurred at the same time and resulted in a 4-on-4. Later on in the period, Helsinki went on the power, but the penalty was killed off successfully.

 

After a brief overtime which only saw five shots in total, it was time for the shootout. Higgins' other player, goaltender Jacob (who, by the way, was historically good in the VHLM, running up a 41-3-3 record for Ottawa) managed to stop a shot from McAllister, and after that three shots were missed in a row, by Cornerstone, Gretzky, and Schmeckeldorf, in order. After Federov was stopped by Jacob, Jack Shepherd came in as the final shooter and buried the game-winner, on the only shot on goal faced by Von Axelberry, and Helsinki took home the win after coming close to throwing it away.

 

The three stars of the game were Ay Ay Ron, with a goal, seven hits, and three blocked shots, Cornerstone, with two assists and six hits, and Federov, with a goal and an assist, respectively. 

 

All in all, a randomly selected game, but an interesting one nonetheless.

 

 

865 words, claiming for next week, as I've already submitted a claim for this week.

[Gustav 6,469]

Doubles week claim.

[Gustav 6,469]

Claiming 1 uncapped for doing both this article and this one:

 

[Banackock 8,143]

 Boubabi was the real GM

 

#BanADV

[Higgins 3,618]

20 hours ago, Banackock said:

 Boubabi was the real GM

 

#BanADV

I always beat you. You could never beat me. That must have sucked for you. I’m sorry.

[Banackock 8,143]

12 minutes ago, Higgins said:

I always beat you. You could never beat me. That must have sucked for you. I’m sorry.

I have a whole dark poetry collection all about you. 
 

 

[Gustav 6,469]

On 10/15/2019 at 2:44 PM, GustavMattias said:

865 words, claiming for next week, as I've already submitted a claim for this week.

Claim for week ending 10/27.