Why VHL?

[rjfryman 1,120]

Why is the VHL great?

 

It's Hockey. We all love hockey. Here is my hockey story.

 

Hockey is a hell of a sport. To me, it's my favorite sport that I have never played. Being a Miltary Kid who grew up on an island in the pacific ocean, I never got a chance to play the great sport of Hockey. I recall the 1998 winter Olympics because my mother had very little to do so she had it on all the time. I recall having to sit and watch a lot of things that were cool and a lot of things that were not fun to watch. What I recall more than anything was watching hockey. After sitting through ice skating and being interested once I saw Ice Hockey. I recall wanting to do something with hockey but I could not find an outlet while living on the 13.444304 N Latitude. The one thing that I could find to help foster my love of hockey was a game I found.

 

NHL 98 was a great game that I loved to play any chance I could. That was actually the first time I found a player that I would call my favorite. Peter Forsberg the cover athlete was my favorite player. I had very little knowledge of the NHL or even Hockey but that game was great and I enjoyed every minute of it. I recall playing the game and getting so many penalties because for someone who doesn't know hockey charging is a penalty that you can do very easily. I also recall the fighting. One of the strangest things that I had no idea why or what was going on. Since I got a lot of charging penalties I often had to fight because a lot of players would stand up for their teammates. 

 

I loved hockey and tried to keep up with it but it was hard to watch the NHL due to the time difference. The only real thing that I could do in order to stay on top of hockey is to keep up with the Olympics because it was big enough to be broadcast across the world and then be rebroadcast the actual hockey games even if the time of the games was off. It was not easy though. We grew up not being able to afford a lot so I would only be able to get a hockey game every few years. My favorite team at this time was the Colorado Avalanche because it had my favorite player Peter Forsberg.

 

After we moved back to the mainland we ended up in Memphis Tennesse. I looked for the nearest hockey team and that was the Nashville Predators. Interestingly enough that is around the time when Peter Forsberg came to play for Nashville So it was easy to start to see the Nashville Predators as my favorite team. That grew as I moved closer and closer to Nashville. I now live in Nashville with my lovely wife and we go to games when we can and try and watch the games on the TV when we can. I even tried to learn to play some hockey but I fell and rolled my ankle on the ice while learning with the Scott Hamilton Skating Academy. 

 

We all have hockey stories. We love hockey and that is why we are even drawn to this in the first place.

 

The Fantasy/Sim/Game

 

I'm a gamer, through and through. I enjoy the game of hockey. I enjoy games that I can play and I enjoy role-playing games. I cannot speak to everyone but I have a feeling that a lot of people like the games and the idea of the sim itself. It's one thing to create a story of your character. It's another to keep updating for years so that you can fully tell the story of your character. 

 

I am on my first character and I started behind the 8 ball. I joined after the VHLM draft that season and joined a team where I learned the basics and found a group of people that I enjoyed talking to and working hard to fight for the same thing. We were trying to win the VHLM Cup. I was quickly doing everything in my power to do great things for that Halifax team. That season I had had some great people on that team. We worked hard getting ready for the playoffs and tried to make it all the way. 

 

Halifax was a team with a good history so far and we wanted to continue that legacy and even get us over the edge. We started to talk captains and even though I was very new I was named one of the Assistant Captains with Dimitri Volosenkov and Rhye Tyr. This was an interesting thing because I told the captain Dimitri time and time again that my goal was to take over his first line LW job. The fun thing was at the beginning he thought I was joking but every week I got one step closer learning everything I could find about the league while also trying to learn any tricks I could to get a leg up. We ended up trading to get some great players who helped our team get better and honestly made for some great teammates. Jet Jaguar joined us that season and I learned a lot from him and his ability.

 

We got close that season to win the cup. I was drafted high. A lot higher than a lot of people thought especially since I joined late and there were some big names on that draft list. Things got interesting being draft to a good team and want to help them early. We got close to a cup in my first season but was just short. We ended up winning it all my second season. We still are working on trying to get better and make another cup run but at the moment we are just trying our hardest. 

 

The community

 

Honestly at the end of the day, all of the above does not matter without the people. We don't go and spend as much time on this site just for hockey. We don't spend this much time just for the fantasy of making a player and make that play great. We spend that much time because of the connections that we make and the people who we enjoy talking with and talking to.

 

I want to first give a shout out to the first person who reached out and my first GM in Halifax. McWolf. Thank you for reaching out and talking the site and the league through with me. Without that Who knows what would have happened. The Recruitment team and the VHLM GM's do a great job keeping people interested in the league and getting more people who will end up in the league and enjoying it so that we can grow our community and keep those great people engaged and working together to make it strong.

Interestingly enough McWolf started to step away around the time I got really serious so I never got to know him that well. Thranduil was more of the person who was there as my unofficial GM. 

 

When I was drafted I tried to keep up with Halifax with Tharnduil. I don't recall if I was officially the AGM, probably not, but I tried to help out when I could. What I do remember was getting close to Beaviss playing games outside of VHL and talking with him about the league and what we could do. He even ended up drafting me. There were a lot of good people in that draft and the fact that he drafted me when he did still surprises me sometimes since again I was relatively new and there were some great people in that draft. 

 

I got some Jobs and worked hard to build some cool things for the VHL. I kept getting more things to help with and started to expand what I was working on. Soon though I was working on so many things in the background that I forgot to do the one thing that I should have been doing from the beginning. Engage with the community. That is when I started my rjfryman logs. I was just trying to engage as best as I could. This was also during the time when the love for recruitment was at an all-time low. It took a lot out of me working my normal job which was very stressful at the time, then working hard to do great things for the VHL. I started to think people didn't care about what I was doing and I felt like some people actively didn't like me or what I did. I cannot say any of this is real but when your inside your head and think the worst anyway its easy to think others think bad of you but in reality people probably dont care. Everyone has stuff and the world doesn't revolve around us.

 

Things in your head are worse than just talking to people. 

 

There are things that get better with time and there are some things that can only get better when you let go and talk about things. When started to fall short of my duties and for my own expectations I started to fall off and shrink away. I had plans and still do. every time i would feel like working and getting back into things all I can think about was who cares. no one would even care if I did these things. 

 

I tried to get out of it myself. 

I tried to get back into it by myself.

I could not do it myself.

 

This is when I have to say sorry for the people who were always in contact with me. There were some people who tried to talk with me for a while. There were people who wanted to make sure I was good.

The crazy thing in my mind right now is that what really pulled me back was marbles. I was feeling down on Friday and then I got a ping from Beaviss saying he was hosting marbles. I joined tentatively and eventually, people in the chat were talking about and engaging me. I was on the twitch chat and they were in the discord call. Eventually what was fun turned crazy. There was some crazy things going on in marbles that night. Eventually, it all calmed down but at that point everyone else in my house was asleep and I was like what the hell Ill join the discord. Eventually, we just started talking. Things felt good. Because this community is good. 

 

I was talking to some great people that night who just listened and helped me walk through things. They helped me more than they know. It made me want to hack again. Something that brings me joy but is hard to do sometimes when I don't have a goal or a reason to hack. I got back into it the next morning and started to get things going again. I was able to make some things better and get some things back online. I just have to really thank the guys who helped me that night. 

 

Thank you Beaviss for always being there for me. You have been talking with me the longest and keeping me engaged more than you know. Thank you so much for always being there. Acydburn you have been there so much for me since I started to not be great. You were there with the WJC and helped me when I needed help. You were there for me even before people started to notice. Thank you so much, man. Hatter thank you for listening to me. and being there. you are great and helped me realize people cared and want what I am working on. Hopefully, I can finish some of the tools that you want and that others can use for some great things. Rayzor You are a super great man and I want to thank you or talking with me and helping me understand the work and the value of it. Proto thanks for chatting with me and caring bud. I also thank you for having so much energy and excitement for the VHL. I remember that feeling and I want it back. It's infectious so thank you. There are more people who have helped me through this whole thing but I wanted to thank those people because they helped with the final push.

Why is VHL great? It's all of these things and more. But above all things, I think its the people.

Thank you for listening if you did.

 

2136 Words

[Matt_O 896]

Simp

[Acydburn 1,563]

20 hours ago, Matt_O said:

Simp

Someone who brought others into his world and shared himself, which is not easy and makes him vulnerable. Giving thanks to people to have helped him, and from this we didn't even truly know how much. Things aren't easy right now, a lot of shit is going on the world and you have the balls to be insensitive, immature, and downright disrespectful to someone who helps out the community and never asks for any praise or probably even gets noticed . Grow the fuck up man. @rjfryman Just know we appreciate you man. 

[Matt_O 896]

4 minutes ago, Acydburn said:

Someone who brought others into his world and shared himself, which is not easy and makes him vulnerable. Giving thanks to people to have helped him, and from this we didn't even truly know how much. Things aren't easy right now, a lot of shit is going on the world and you have the balls to be insensitive, immature, and downright disrespectful to someone who helps out the community and never asks for any praise or probably even gets noticed . Grow the fuck up man. @rjfryman Just know we appreciate you man. 

Oh my god I didn't read the whole post I'm so sorry

[rjfryman 1,120]

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[rjfryman 1,120]

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[Mr_Hatter 1,603]

Hey man I just read this! Thank you for the kind words. I'm glad you are feeling better about the VHL as a whole and if I was able to help in some small way with how you feel, then I am very grateful. Take care bud  

[rjfryman 1,120]

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