Expansion GM's thoughts on expansion

[McWolf 3,115]

Here are my quick bullet point thoughts on this expansion, from the point of view of someone who was in on a part of it for a long time.

 

- When I was approached to take an expansion team, there were no details of how many teams there would be. The fact that an expansion was necessary in the short term was discussed in the BOG, and the idea of expanding straight to 16 teams was floated around, as to prevent the current teams from losing players in two different waves of expansion drafts, but I thought it was viewed as an on the crazier side and was quickly discarded. So it came to a surprise for me as well when it was announced that the league would be adding not two, but four franchises. It's a lot, but it's exciting and it shows that the VHL is in a good place right now. There's so much to love about this.

 

- My first two choices of cities were Montreal if I was to be in the NA conference and London if I was to be in the EU conference. We literally never discussed Montreal team ideas. I guess Josh and Jeff were tabbed early on as the two guys that would have the NA teams. I had a couple ideas for London. My favourite one by far was the Plague, which I imagined would be a fine ode to the Black Death that rampaged through most of Europe and Asia during the medieval era, but was quickly turned down because of the connection to the COVID, which looked really bad for me once I realized it. Other name I pitched that I liked a lot was the Fox (Foxes?). If the Reign (and possibly the Menace) weren't a thing, I would 100% have gone with the London Lions or the London Royals, but that theme has already been done so it was not really an option.

 

- We ultimately settled for the London United. The idea with the design was to ditch everything we knew about hockey logos or e-sports logos and really go all in with the European football style of logos. A divided shield with different designs on it to relate to the city in which they play. So we have the Union Jack on the bottom, with the Tower Bridge at the top, two things that scream London. Now, I get the critics that say it's obnoxiously too-British. To them I answer, that was kind of intended. I get that in a league where every team plays in the same country (like most IRL leagues), we don't usually see logos with flags on them. It would get old quikc if every team in the Premier League had the Union Jack on their shirt. But in this case, 73 seasons after it started, the VHL is finally establishing it's first franchise in the UK. It would definitely not work in a real-life setup, but I think it works fine here, where the London United is the first and only team to play in the UK. UNITE!

 

- I love the LA Stars logo. It's probably my favourite of the four. It's simple, and has the best North American sports feel of the four new logos. Honestly, it's possibly the one of the only logos among the 28 in the two levels of play that I think would make a great IRL sports logos for a NA franchise.

 

- I like the Warsaw Predators logo. It's a bit more generic than the United and the Stars, but it works well, and I think light blue and orange work really well together.

 

- I'm not a fan of the Chicago Phoenix logo, if I'm honest. The bird looks like it has no wingspan at all. I like the idea of the Phoenix for Chicago though, the city had a huge fire and the team lifted from the ashes. Or something like that.

 

- I'm not going to comment on the GMs. I think they were all great choices - four members who I believed deserved to inherit a VHL GM role at some point in their passage - and I'm excited to get to share this experience with the three of them. I'm really excited to see how the expansion draft will unfold, and I can't wait to see what's everyone's approach to it. I have seen Josh in Yukon for a while, but I have no idea what style of GM Jeff and Muff are.

[mediocrepony 1,216]

Great read. I like the Phoenix logo, but the LA logo looks too much like the Dodgers logo from baseball.

[Quik 4,113]

tbh I'm excited to see how the Expansion Draft works out. Gonna be some interesting strategies at play, and gonna be hard for existing teams to make deals with an expansion team with 3 others to worry about.

[ROOKIE745 599]

We have pretty different taste XD I love the Chicago logo