VHL 20 in 20 #8: The "Competition"

[sterling 1,990]

The “Competition”

If you think that the VHL is the only league that has been created over the past little while, then you have been living in a bubble. The reason for this is because you could not be further from the truth. In fact, a large amount of leagues have sprouted up in the time that the VHL’s been around. Many of them were in direct competition with the league, and were started by people who are affiliated with the VHL already. The reason you may not have heard about these leagues is because they often didn’t last very long. Many died before a single regular season game was even played, but some made it a bit further before eventually succumbing to fate and fading away. This episode has no quotes, as I’ve decided to change things up for this one and just write it on my own. As someone who has joined and brought players to many of these leagues, I think I can handle this one on my own.

Before I start, I want to add a quick disclaimer. In this episode, I will be praising the VHL a lot, but that doesn’t mean I think the league is perfect. There are still chinks in the VHL’s armor, but compared to the other leagues out there, I’d say we have it pretty good here.

As I mentioned, there have been tons of leagues that have sprung up between the VHL’s birth and today, but let’s go back to before the VHL’s genesis and talk about the first league I remember: the ESHL. I’m sure some of our greybeards have some fond memories of that place, and I can’t really say anything bad about it because this league was created from its blueprints. To me, the one thing preventing us from still being in the ESHL today was the sim engine. As mentioned in episode 1, the simming was done on the Playstation 2, and it was very inefficient in terms of time. By the time I arrived, the sims were already off schedule and I could tell things weren’t going to hold for much longer. We eventually evolved into the OHSL, which was so insignificant that I don’t even remember what we were going to use to sim the games. We never did, anyway, as the league died before anything got going.

This, admittedly, surprised me. We had the member base to have a good thing going in the OHSL, but it just died before it began. I really don’t remember much about the OHSL, but perhaps what killed it was the birth of the VHL, and the introduction of the STHS simulation engine. It is this tool that makes the simming much less time consuming for our hard-working Commissioners. What the ESHL and (presumably) the OHSL had going for them was a strong, and dedicated group of members whom were very close to each other and were dedicated to league success. What was going against them was, obviously, the simming utility. The VHL has both of these things and while we definitely don’t have the “everyone is friends with everyone” environment that is, quite frankly, utopic at best, we have a strong, dedicated gang of people who will do a great deal to ensure the continued longevity of the league. Couple that with STHS, and it is clear why the VHL has long outlived both of these old leagues combined.

Perhaps the most notorious man in the VHL for heading these new leagues is Zach Manship. Manship has probably made between 10 and 15 new leagues that folded either before the season even begun, before the dispersal draft even occurred, or somewhere in the 1st season (he would usually just sim the rest of the season in 1 day to see how things turned out).  Another guy who was involved with the creation of many leagues is Robert Sharpe. I find Sharpe made a bit more of an effort to differentiate his leagues from the VHL than Manship did, and I even agreed to help Sharpe on more than one occasion. So whyd di these leagues fail? Well, they obviously had the proper simming tool, but it was the member base that failed them. If you recruit VHL members, it is obvious that the VHL will still be their #1 priority. This is especially true if you’re starting a point task league. Sharpe made one attempt at a league that had mostly non-VHL members, but that also failed quickly. This is the terrible dilemma with trying to have a league that is exactly like the VHL – if you recruit VHL members, you know that your league is not their top priority. However, there’s only so many people out there who enjoy the type of league that you’re trying to market, and most of them are either in the VHL, or have left the VHL due to a loss or lack of interest. You’re appealing to a small segment of the market, and there’s a finite number of people in it.


Artist's depiction of Zach Manship

Another reason I think that Manship and Sharpe’s leagues always failed is that they, as VHL members, were also not as concerned with their own league’s well-being as they were for the VHL’s. They may deny this, but it seemed very apparent when I saw their willingness to throw in the towel at the first sign of activity. Sometimes, they would make a last ditch recruiting effort, but nothing would come of it. When the VHL has recruiting drives, we do have new members join up, but not all of them stick around. With these leagues’ recruiting drives, I saw no new members sign up, so there was clearly something wrong. I don’t blame Manship and Sharpe for trying to start up their own leagues, because I joined many of them. As an agent, I see many young players who are looking to make the jump to the next step, and I’m sure many of you guys are the same. I’ve gotten phone calls from parents (mostly fathers) who plead with me to take on their son as a client and find him a league. This is where Sharpe and Manship’s leagues come in – I never bring my best clients to those leagues, as I save them for the VHL. That’s not to say that the kids I have brought into other league’s are bad, but when I see a kid with true greatness potential in his game, I’ll tell him to wait, because I can’t have him go into a league, only to have it fold before he has a chance to show off his skills. Some agents are different than me, and they bring these players to the VHL when their other leagues fold, but I run things differently.

Now, there are 3 big leagues that I want to discuss. The first is the VFL, which is our sister league. The Victory Football League is, obviously, an equivalent for NFL fans. Some VHLers are members of this league, but I’d say that, for the most part, the VFL has its own member base. Two VHLers started it: Coach Reilly, and The Q, and they’ve done a good job with it. As a football league, it’s a bit easier to manage the simulation aspect, despite using a console-style sim engine. The football season is about 16 games per team, so it is not nearly as demanding as it would be to sim an entire VHL season on a console.

The problem with the VFL, from my perspective, is the member base. Yes, the VFL has done a good thing by having a relatively large population of members who are not a part of the VHL – this is only natural, as the leagues are centered around 2 different sports. However, there was an issue that arose there a while back surrounding late arrivals to practice. The VFL’s practice week is exactly like our own: Monday to Sunday. However, the VHL has been known to be lenient with players arriving to practice just a few hours after the deadline. The VHL acknowledges that there are times where one simply doesn’t have time to practice, and as long as they’re only a little bit late, then they can report to practice and count it for the week that just ended. Unfortunately, a couple VHL members thought that this courtesy extended to the VFL, and when they showed up late, they met a lot of hostility from some of the regulars who had practiced on time. This led to a big discussion, which eventually led to the installation of a “freebie” practice, where a player can make up a missed week of practice once per season. This was all well and good, but there were members of that league who either threatened to leave, or actually left just because of a dispute. Now, the VHL is no stranger to disputes, but most of the time, we get over it, make up, and continue on our merry ways. With the VFL, there seemed to be a lot of “my way or the highway” attitude circulating, which is never healthy for any league.


There's a team in Amsterdam, how can I hate that?

I don’t hate the VFL. The only reason I’ve gone inactive is because of school. I do plan to be active there again someday. However, I just get a general feeling of unwelcomeness there. I don’t have a concrete reason for it, but I can’t shake it either. The VHL has started welcoming new members very openly, and have done their very best to ensure that new members feel comfortable in the league from the get-go. I really don’t see the same degree of enthusiasm in the VFL, and for someone like me, that is a big deal. I need to have the camaraderie, or my interest will fade. I also question the dedication of the Commissioners. I see Duckberg, the #4 admin, more often than I see The Q or Coach, which is a bit alarming in my eyes. Either way, the VFL is still very new and is going through growing pains. I give them the benefit of the doubt for now, and I wish them the best. When I am ready to return to the league, I hope there’s still a league left for me to return to.

Another league I want to discuss is the ISHL. This is probably a lesser-known league around these parts, and I don’t think too many VHLers are a part of it. I know Dustin Funk, Edward Eldred, and Tyler Owens have signed up, but I can’t remember seeing anyone else. The ISHL is a 10-team league that uses EHM 2007 to simulate games. Unlike the VHL, the ISHL is not a stand-alone franchise. It is a sub-entity of “The Breakaway”, but that is probably why there are more players in that league – enough to fill each team with 3 forward lines, 2 defense pairings, and 2 goalies. They aren’t all active, but there are a lot of people there, which is also a negative point for me. That league is incredibly hard to keep track of. I just got down memorizing the 10 team names at the end of Season 3 (we haven’t started Season 4 yet), and suddenly 4 teams have re-located. Because of this, I’ve decided to just focus on the team I’m on and worry about myself, which takes away from the community feeling that I’m sure, is built into the league.

Another problem with the ISHL is that I find that their method of rating players is very arbitrary. It’s based on activity, like ours, but where the VHL is an “attend practice, earn points, improve” league, the ISHL seems to be more of a “speak up often, do media articles, and maybe you’ll get a higher rating”. I was given an E rating in my rookie year, but moved my way up to a C for this year, which is great.


Artist's depiction of an ISHL game

However, I find the ISHL’s differences from the VHL to be very interesting, and that is why I stick around. While their player rating hierarchy is not clearly defined, at least they have one and it demonstrates a clear differentiation between good players and poor ones. The league is very in depth, right down to customized logos, and custom jersey, skate, glove, and goalie pad designs of each team. Every now and then, they use the EHM sim engine to televise a game live for us to watch, and I find that to be very cool aswell. However, for the reasons stated above, I can’t rate it as superior to the VHL.

Finally, we have the SHL – the most notorious of the 3 leagues I’ve described. The SHL is an interesting league as it was also started by ex-VHLers: Jay Bris, JJ Krever, and Fernando Garcia. However, many of the members over there are not VHLers, so it is clear to see why the SHL is still around. The SHL uses STHS aswell, so the simming is done efficiently.

However, I find several issues with the SHL, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who sees this. First of all, there is absolutely nothing to do. Every now and then, the SHL will hold a practice facility, but it is generally a temporary one, and it is rare to see. Other than that, all you do is watch the games get posted. Sometimes, someone will call the game as if it were happening in real time, but most of the time, you just get a boxscore and that’s it. As a result, there is no real way of knowing which players will be better than others. As an inactive agent, my player was one of the top rookies in the league for a long time, and might still be as I speak. I understand that the SHL is probably marketed towards a different market than the VHL is. If you don’t have the time to do weekly point tasks, then go to the SHL. However, if you do have the time for it, then I see absolutely no reason to choose the SHL over the VHL. Several SHL members have moved over here, and a decent amount of them have remained active.


My depiction of the SHL

That leads me to an even bigger problem: the members. I could deal with having absolutely nothing to do if the members in that league weren’t so bloody annoying. Not only do they have worse immaturity problems than we ever had, but every discussion turns into a spam fest where they are eventually talking about something completely different than what the original speaker had intended. One issue in particular sticks out for me, where the SHL held a World Cup. Unlike the VHL, where we pre-group all the players into 6 teams, and have the GMs choose their players out of their assigned groups, the SHL simply has 16 GMs of 16 countries who recruit players, regardless of where they’re from, and have them play for them. As a result, we have Canadians playing for Team Pakistan, Americans playing for Team Iceland, and more. Now, the SHL had an influx of new players join, so Commissioner Jay McDonald decided to allow more players per team so more people could participate. Some members interpreted this as being able to switch teams, so a decent amount of switching had gone one before McDonald intervened and didn’t allow it, saying that the arrangements had already been made for the teams as is, and that no team switching would be allowed. Naturally, the SHL members accepted this, thanked the Commissioner for his hard work, and went back to their original teams, right? Wrong. Several players decided to “boycott” the World Cup, and would become nuisances around the league. This, unfortunately, is only the tip of the iceberg with this league. The only reason I’m still in that league is because my player can do well without my help. Otherwise, I wouldn’t stick around.

In conclusion, many leagues have tried to be as good as or better than the VHL, but in my eyes, none have succeeded. I don’t know what it would take for a league to topple the VHL for me, but I don’t think any league can simply come out and be better than the VHL. If the VHL is going to fall, it will have to do so from within, as I don’t believe any outside force can take it down. Luckily, I see great prosperity within the VHL, and don’t foresee any kind of collapse in the near future.

End of Part 8
Special thanks to me