Why I Keep Returning To The VHL

[Shaka 228]

Why I Keep Returning To The VHL

 

For almost a decade, my relationship with the VHL has been a back and forth love affair. It's been no secret that my interest in the sport impacts my interest in participating, at length, in the VHL. While I've maintained a membership in the SBA and EFL over the years, as well as many other start up leagues that are no longer with us today, I've never managed to stick with y player in the VHL. That makes my opinion on the VHL, it's recruitment and it's retention, a unique one. I very well may be the only member in the VHL today, or ever, with the experience I have had regarding the Victory Hockey League. So, in the spirit of Theme Week, I'm going to bypass my weekly Welfare post and explain why I continue to come back to the VHL.

 

For me, the VHL stands for one thing more than anything else. Community. I think a lot of people have, and will, say that Longevity is the first thing they think of when they think of the VHL. While I believe that to be obviously true, I don't believe any sim league stands the test of time and rests it's name on Longevity without the power of a strong and dedicated community. In the decade that I have been engaged in sim leagues, I never never quite seen a sim league take as many lumps, get back up and keep pushing forward than the VHL has. From it's humble beginnings, fighting for memberships with the SHL and every start up league you can think of, to it's server hack and loss of a mass number of members, to bouts of inactivity that other leagues may have folded through, the VHL has fought it's way to 71 seasons and counting and a lot of that is due to it's membership and leadership.

 

Now, with an ugly disagreement between leadership at the VHL and the SBA lingering over the past year, the VHL encounters yet another bump in the road. Does anyone expect that this loss of affiliation spell the eventual decline of the league? Hardly. It's because those who have been here longest know that nothing has gotten in the way of the VHL reaching what we all know it will one day reach. The historic 100th season.

 

In addition to my understanding that this community is a strong one, with quality leadership, I can't write about my experience and constant interest to partake in the VHL without mentioning a handful of members who I will forever member as staples of both here and several leagues I have been a part of. Guys like Jardy, Street, Bushito, Diamond_Ace, CowboyinAmerica, STZ and several others I could earn 6 TPE for just naming in a row. One, however, had stood above the rest. He helped me create the framework for what has become the SBA. He helped me create an unheard of project, at the time, in the SSN. He's taken over the leadership role over the VHL in the time that I have mostly been away. Beketov.

 

Beketov and I go way back and it's my hope that we'll go way forward, if that's a thing, for years to come. It was Beketov who first introduced me to the VHL and it was Beketov who relentlessly tagged me in an SBDL Discord server to return again. It's our conversations that has led me to take the challenge of assistant GMing, and hopefully eventually GMing, and it's because of him I get to write this Point Task and add them to yet another attempt in a VHL Player.

 

I can't guarantee that I will make it to the VHL with Cal Conway, or my next player. I can't guarantee that something won't come up in my real life and I'll vanish from the forum as quickly as I arrive every 2 years. What I can guarantee, however, is that the VHL will be here all the same. And the stable of guys I've grown to have, at the very least, internet friendships with will be here to catch up with and shoot the shit with. It's them, as much as anything, that get me excited to return to the VHL and engage the community. And it's them that I believe is ode a debt of gratitude for 71 seasons of success, and many more seasons to come.

[Advantage 2,920]

[Beketov 9,140]

1 hour ago, Shaka said:

it was Beketov who relentlessly tagged me in an SBDL Discord server to return again.

And you better believe I’ll do it again if you disappear on me  

[Victor 11,043]

I was discussing with @solas earlier this week, I think I agree - I'm more impressed not with the longevity of the VHL but the consistency of the member base (until more recently when we've just got more than ever before). Anecdotally, I linked a trade thread from S38 (June 2014) in a different conversation also earlier this week and of the 15 members who posted there nearly six (!) years ago, 10 have also posted in the past month.

 

Anyway, I don't know you personally because I am the polar opposite (no interests in American sports outside hockey), but you're a name I know that I always hope sticks around.

[Shaka 228]

47 minutes ago, Advantage said:

 

 

I wrote this off the top of my head and I just knew there was someone I was going to miss. You may be the VHL member I remember the most, as you have been involved in the other leagues with me as much as anyone on that list(maybe Bushito). Had I thought of it another 30 seconds, I'd have come up you. Shit, I feel bad 

[diamond_ace 3,114]

One of these days you will make a successful VHLer. I will always believe that. You could be on attempt 800 and I'd still believe that. You're too much a staple of the sim league community to not add this particular feather to your cap along the way.

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

Just stick around Shaka

[Baozi 1,664]

We got the milkshakes here. Just saying.

[frescoelmo 1,282]

6 hours ago, tfong said:

We got the milkshakes here. Just saying.

PG FONG PG