The Whole BOG Should Be Fired

[CowboyinAmerica 2,840]

When I take a look at the standings in the VHL portal, a few things jump out to me upon first glance. For instance, take a look at these for Season 70:

 

 

What strikes me first is something that may be apparent to outsiders: The whole league is listed. Sure, this only makes rational sense, you would think. There are 12 teams in the league, and the distinctions between them are rather arbitrary. In fact, here's a breakdown of the number of times that a random squad - say, the New York Americans - faced each other team during the S70 season:

 

Arbitrary and uneven? You bet ya! But what would be even worse is if those arbitrary distinctions would somehow result in the competitive balance of the league shifting. Well, good news: That's exactly what happened. See those standings above? The seventh place team, New York, did not make the playoffs, because four other "North America" teams finished ahead of them. Helsinki and Prague, meanwhile, made the playoffs with five fewer points, just because they were arbitrarily placed in Europe. As you can see by the games played, there wasn't even uniformity in scheduling: New York somehow played two North American teams (D.C. and Toronto) fewer times than they played European teams.

 

This is where the BOG comes in. On its face, the entire reason to have a Board of Governors is to ensure fairness and balance in the league. They're a balance to the commissioners from making decisions unilaterally, a balance in different job titles and positions to bring different perspectives, and - from the fact there are so darn many of them - to bring up points for discussion based on what are obvious fixes to make the VHL better. This, as given above, would seem to be a rather obvious fix for the BOG to get done: There is no reason to have the conferences separated and to have worse teams making the playoffs for arbitrary reasons. It might have been forgiveable the first season or two after expansion to 12 teams, but certainly not three seasons in.

 

But the league did nothing. And it would be a shame if it happened again. Especially if it happened again to the same damn team. Enter Season 71:

 

 

Enjoy the playoffs, Malmo. Hope you enjoy your time off, New York. Those 9 extra points you got don't mean shit. For funzies, here's the teams that New York played this season.

 

 

At least that's more balanced by conference this time - though in a perverse way, it actually shows how much stronger of a team New York is, given the tougher schedule. And I sure wouldn't have minded one of those games against Calgary being against Toronto.

 

Conferences function in real life for two primary reasons: to cut down on travel, and to protect regional rivalries. Well, it's safe to say there is no travel element at play here, though it wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that it's coded into the recesses of STHS's dark arts. And it's hard to say that there's regional rivalries either, given that four of the league's 12 teams are less than 8 seasons old, and there aren't exactly fans of these teams to push for more games against one another. Simply put, in the VHL, there is no reason to have conferences at all. It does not work; it has never worked. And yet, it remains.

 

To me, this is a dereliction of duty. If you see something not working and don't fix it, that's a problem. If this happened in the real world, where real dollars were at play, heads would be rolling. So, while my headline is tongue-in-cheek, I think it's entirely reasonable to not be happy about being screwed out of two prime years of a player I put a lot of time into. And even moreso for Esso, given the work he puts into making the team work to the best of his ability.

 

So, I leave with this: Do something.

 

[TheFlash 317]

I had a similar (less detailed) rant on my .com article last week.

 

Love everything you said man! 100% right.

 

 

Also in before people telling you that NY should just “be better”.

[Banackock 7,979]

[Victor 10,830]

5 minutes ago, CowboyinAmerica said:

Helsinki and Prague, meanwhile, made the playoffs with five fewer points, just because they were arbitrarily placed in Europe.

Is geography arbitrary?

 

5 minutes ago, CowboyinAmerica said:

So, I leave with this: Do something.

Contraction of NY in progress.

 

 

On a serious note, I flagged this before S68 expansion as I knew it would impact Europe and rest assured Moscow missed the playoffs with the 6th most points in the league. I think this level of parity was just something no one predicted. But rest assured, changes are coming.

[CowboyinAmerica 2,840]

4 minutes ago, Victor said:

Is geography arbitrary?

 

I mean, when there's absolutely zero actually tying a franchise to a single location, yeah.

 

4 minutes ago, Victor said:

On a serious note, I flagged this before S68 expansion as I knew it would impact Europe and rest assured Moscow missed the playoffs with the 6th most points in the league. I think this level of parity was just something no one predicted. But rest assured, changes are coming.

 

I think the parity has as much to do with fuller teams than in the past too, combined with a restrictive cap. But I do hope changes come. And if that means I miss out on the playoffs by being 9th overall but 4th in North America next year, I'd be happy.

[Devise 4,475]

@Beketov messed up the conference schedule sliders last season and it was brought to attention far too late. It's more balanced this season because it's how we listed it in the rules when 12 teams were announced. Sadly and I get the reason to target BoG with this post but this is all simmer related stuff. STHS scheduling simply put, sucks. Like quite literally we've had times where the actual number it shows for games doesn't line up to what it should based on the teams and overall settings. We generally look at what we can do with the total number of teams before going forward with a schedule plan, which is what happened here. Bek simply forgot how the scheduling was working when he made the schedule last season, as it was still a relatively new process. 

 

But the reason why we can only do so much balancing is because of the format for STHS scheduling, as we have it set to be 8 vs inter conference and 5 vs other conference. We cannot manually create or assign games when we make the schedule, as such the final two games we need get randomly assigned based on the five other teams in the conference. As Victor said though, you can rest assured changes are coming. 

Edited April 28, 2020 by Devise

[Enorama 2,030]

24 minutes ago, CowboyinAmerica said:

If this happened in the real world, where real dollars were at play, heads would be rolling.

 

18-19, Montreal missed with more points than Vegas, Dallas, and Colorado

17-18, Florida missed with more points than Colorado

 

You get the idea. Actually happens pretty often IRL, and to my knowledge, nobody on the NHL executive team has been taken the the guillotine.

 

Not that I disagree with your point as it stands, but the real life comparison is moot.

[CowboyinAmerica 2,840]

7 minutes ago, Enorama said:

 

18-19, Montreal missed with more points than Vegas, Dallas, and Colorado

17-18, Florida missed with more points than Colorado

 

You get the idea. Actually happens pretty often IRL, and to my knowledge, nobody on the NHL executive team has been taken the the guillotine.

 

Not that I disagree with your point as it stands, but the real life comparison is moot.

 

Yeah, not the strongest point in there. But I'd still argue that you're talking about teams that would finish 13th-16th overall anyway in the NHL. With fewer teams in the VHL, finishing 6th or 7th overall absolutely would mean you'd have a championship chance, especially with the parity you have now.

[Jayrad28 375]

With more and more teams filling their rosters and it seems mor and more players are joining, perhaps the league should look to expansion in a season or two if the member growth continues. And with the addition of two extra teams you could create two extra playoff spots, so that stuff like this couldn’t happen.

Edited April 29, 2020 by Jayrad28