What Went Wrong With Twinger?

[DollarAndADream 3,357]

Twinger: The Sim's Hated Player

 

If anyone needs a shining example of how TPE does not always mean success, just take a look at Leph Twinger. While he had success in the very early goings of his career, things dropped off, and they dropped fast. Now in the twilight of his career, Leph Twinger is hoping the Seattle Bears can help him win a cup in his final games, to at least cap it off with something good.

 

Twinger came out of the VHLM with nothing but accolades. In his season before the VHL, he won the Higgins, Chershenko, Osborne, and Bentz trophies with the Yukon Rush. Any VHL team could look at his stats and want to draft this kid, but not all things are as they seem.

 

Leph was drafted 1st overall by the Riga Reign in S62, and he came out of the gates into the VHL with flying start. 56 goals and 60 assists as a rookie, with 116 points. He even had 10 game winners 12 PPGs, not to mention his 559 shots on net. Riga was a team that season that had ridiculous scoring, however, so maybe those numbers were just boosted. Podrick Cast had a 174 point season, not to mention Edwin Preencarnacion's 141. Still though, all things seemed to point to a big 'YES' for Leph Twinger's career. Those rookie numbers are nothing to slouch at.

 

Moving on to his next season in S63, Twinger's point production was halved. He ended the season with 67 points, including 34 goals. He still had 290 hits on top of that, so he was not a bad player by any means, but going from 116 to 67 is still very notable. That season, Joseph Bassolino led the Reign with 110 points, while Cast and Preencarnacion had 106 and 95 respectively, so Twinger was 4th in team scoring. Those other player's numbers all fell as well, so at first glance, this drop was not anything to worry about. The Riga Reign also went on to win the cup that season, which wound up being Twinger's only cup of his career so far, unless he wins it all this season with the Bears in S69.

 

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In S64, Twinger dropped again, this time to 50 points. For a 1st overall player in his 3rd season, that's not something that you want to see. He had chances playing with Cast and Preencarnacion in Riga who were still producing, so seeing this high training kid in Leph Twinger struggling.....it was not good.

 

The Reign decided to trade him away in that off-season, over to the budding New York Americans. This move was a hopeful one for both Twinger and the Americans, as a move that it would light a fire under his ass and starting performing similar to his rookie season. This definitely happened, as he upped his game to 74 points. Unfortunately for him, that was the last time he would hit a point per game in a season in his career. The next season with New York he would drop to 63 points, and I suppose the doubt began to sink in for Leph. He never had any super successful seasons in New York, and only managed to get in 8 playoff games in total, not producing much and obviously not winning a cup.

 

New York then tossed Leph Twinger over to the Calgary Wranglers, where BladeMaiden, Bushito, and company figured they would take a swing at reviving him. As more of a depth guy on the Wranglers, he did no better, putting up 49 points. They would grant him some good time in the playoffs that season with 7 games, but that's another season of not winning for Twinger, and that would ultimately do it for him as a forward.

 

In the very next season in S68, the Wranglers and Twinger decided it would be best to move him to defense, which may sound like an odd move for a guy named Leph Twinger, but what other reason did he need to give up on being a forward than his rocky past? As a defenseman he had some respectable numbers with Calgary, putting up 65 points and 247 hits. This was actually 3rd in scoring on the Wranglers, so pretty decent for a defender. That Calgary team managed to take Twinger to the North American finals, but they ultimately lost to the Seattle Bears in 4 games. Why not have Twinger be a player that gets swept in a series? Might as well, considering all the other failures of his career.

 

Now moving on to his final season, S69, the one that is currently in the playoffs, Leph Twinger plays as a defenseman on the Seattle Bears. Yeah, that's the team that eliminated him the season before. For the Bears, as a 675 TPA guy, he put up the worst season of his career, production-wise. 39 points with 14 goals, both milestone lows for him. He also has 0 points in their first 2 playoff games right now. My wish is that the Seattle Bears can carry his old ass to a cup, but who knows how far they will go.

All I am saying is, TPE doesn't mean everything. You can pour 1300 TPE into a player and have him be very average. You can have him have 90's or higher in all the important attributes and not perform even close to what people would expect. You can have him get 116 points as a rookie and have you feeling like you could have your best player yet. All of this can happen with lots of TPE. One thing is for sure I guess, and it's that I don't give up on my players.

 

@Banackock@BladeMaiden@Bushito@hedgehog337@Spade18

Trying to tag my GMs. You guys don't have to read it all obviously, just figured I'd tag you in my Twinger fail write-up.