The drought in retired numbers: The worst offenders (part 1?)

[Victor 10,846]

There has been growing talk about the lack of retired numbers in the VHL in recent seasons (or numbers in general). Fortunately I had a MS set-up just for this purpose which I don't feel like writing so let's look at some of the worst offenders.

 

Seattle

S4 & S5 cups: Danny Tremblay, #31, Patrice Reynaud, #58

S12 cup: Zacky Vengeance, #8, Alexander Beketov, #88, Sandro Desaulniers, #94

S17 cup: Sandro Desaulniers, #94, Markus Strauss, #9

S28 cup: Mitch Higgins, #60, Felix Peters, #92

S43 cup: N/A

S59 cup: N/A

S68 & S69 cups: N/A

 

@Banackock has been GM for approximately 50 years and has not retired a single number in this time. Now to be fair Seattle set the bar pretty high in their early days and after Peters, Higgins, and their friends retired in S30 it was pretty slim pickings. The Bears have unsurprisingly tried to ignore the S43 cup and didn't have a whole load of success for 30 seasons.

 

But under Bana's watch, there has been a bit of a return to the glory days. Gabriel McAllister spent 6 of his 8 illustrious seasons with Seattle and led them them to a cup at last in S59, so you'd assume that would be worthy of retiring his #21. After that, it's not customary for GMs to retire their own numbers but you'd imagine one of Bana's will get the honour eventually – probably Aleksei Federov's #63 or Maxim Kovalchuk's #44. And none of those options would have been retired previously!

 

The S67 core is obviously still active, with the likely players now going to be some combination of Greene, Hogan, Sundqvist, and Funk.

 

Riga

S4 finals: Chris Julien, #13, Markko St. Urho, #14

S10 cup: Layken Heidt, #51, Torsten Schwarz, #5, Blake Beukeboom, #2, Vladimir Kliment, #77, Marek Van Urho, #31

S16 cup: Max Kroenenburg, #54

S20 near-miss: Olivier Scarlett, #32, Max Kroenenburg, #54

S32 finals: Ansgar Snijider, #13, Miles Larsson, #53

S33 cup: Miles Larsson, #53

S40 cup: Brennan McQueen, #95, Mike Szatkowski Jr., #78

S51 cup: N/A

S57 & S58 cups: N/A

S63 cup: N/A

 

Oh look, another long-term GM who hasn't bothered honouring his players. @hedgehog337 Riga definitely has some catching up to do as all those cup wins had some worthy players, from Pietro Maximoff (#25) to Markus King (#50).

 

Fredinamijs Krigars, #43, and Kallis Kriketers, #who knows, fall into the Federov/Kovalchuk category above but definitely worthy of retirement by a future GM (unless hedge is an egomaniac). In the meantime, to pass the time he can also retire Podrick Cast's #96, Ryan Kastelic's #13 (for a third time), and Edwin Preencarnacion's #10.

 

Vancouver

S35 cup: Alexander Valiq, #5

S42 finals: Bruno Wolf, #8

S56 cup: N/A

S67 cup: N/A

 

Quebec dropped the ball a bit after going on 4 straight finals and 1 cup in the 50s. Look at all these Hall of Famers: Lukas Muller. Fabio Jokinen. Fook Yu. Apollo Skye. John Locke. Retire some numbers.

 

Also 2-time GM Frank deserves some love. Aksel Thomassen, John Sleeman, Pierre Gaudette, pick any or all of the three. Your move @Beaviss.

[Fire Tortorella 2,653]

ROBIN GOW PLEASE.

 

I specifically didn't retire his number since he's my own player, but I did McQueen and Szatkowski Jr. before leaving.

[Victor 10,846]

22 minutes ago, flyersfan1453 said:

ROBIN GOW PLEASE.

 

I specifically didn't retire his number since he's my own player, but I did McQueen and Szatkowski Jr. before leaving.

@Toast

[Beketov 8,956]

5 hours ago, Victor said:

Zacky Vengeance, #8, Alexander Beketov, #88

Got that backwards for what it’s worth. Bek was 8, Vengeance was 88.

[Victor 10,846]

2 minutes ago, twists said:

Wait...how do I pick a number for my player?

Step 1 to fixing this problem @Will @Josh

[gorlab 4,321]

3 minutes ago, twists said:

Wait...how do I pick a number for my player?

 

you gotta make a team HoF and then tell the GM what number you wore all those years

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

Maximoff