The Dumbest Streak in the VHL Has Ended

[CowboyinAmerica 2,840]

 

I Finally Couldn't Get Away With It

 

It is a sad day for the CowboyinAmerica agency. After nearly 40 seasons, multiple players and countless close calls, one of the dumbest streaks to ever grace the VHL has officially come to an end.

 

In the quarterfinals of the S72 World Cup, a struggling Western Europe team fell to Team Nordic, which itself ended one goal from winning the whole tournament. Perhaps the most crestfallen of those Western Europe players was British defenseman Lance Flowers, whose loss represented the first time since Season 34 that a CowboyinAmerica player was in a World Cup, but didn’t make the medal stand.

 

Karsten Olsen - Team Scandinavia 

S32 - Gold

S34 - Fourth

S37 - Bronze

S40 - Silver

 

Hans Wingate - Team Western Europe 

S43 - Gold

S46 - Gold

S48 - Silver

S50 - Silver

 

Gabriel McAllister - Team USA 

S54 - Silver

S56 - Bronze

S58 - Gold

S60 - Gold

S62 - Silver

 

Lance Flowers - Team Western Europe 

S70 - Bronze

S72 - Out in Quarters

 

That’s right, it had been 12 straight World Cups that I had participated in with a medal. I had also gotten to the semifinals literally every time I've been a participant. But this season, perhaps as expected with so much parity and some strong contestants across the board, Western Europe wasn’t able to make a run from the quarterfinals the same way it had last season.

 

“It’s a shame, but all good things have to come to an end eventually,” Flowers said. “I know my agency has had its fair share of good luck in World Cups. But now, I’m expecting that he’ll never win another World Cup ever again… just joking, my fellow Europeans! We’ll be back in two years, I guarantee it.”

 

Switching into first person for the rest of this, the streak had gone back to my first active player in the VHL in his second season, Karsten Olsen of Scandinavia and the Seattle Bears. I had joined Scandinavia because I thought it’d be much, not giving it much of a second thought. But then, especially after winning gold in an S32 upset a few weeks after Olsen was created, I found that I really liked taking the underdog from the bottom to the top. Following two more Scandinavian medals with Olsen, I continued that trend with my next two players: Western Europe (Wingate) and USA (McAllister) weren’t particularly strong outlets when I got there.

 

But somehow, I just kept winning. I’ve called this the dumbest streak in the VHL for a few real life years now, when I first noticed it sometime early in McAllister’s career. Even when I’d be named to Team USA instead of Mercenaries just after creating, or Western Europe medaled last time despite going 4-6 in group stage, a weird confluence of factors kept it going. But now, that comes to an end.

 

Part of me actually hoped that the streak would end somewhat soon – I’m likely to be taking a long, possibly indefinite, VHL break when Flowers’ career is done and that’d be a weird thing to keep hanging there. On the other hand, being somewhat inexplicably Top 15 in all-time World Cup medals despite only participating in 15 total is also fun. Flowers has one more World Cup to go, in Season 74, and we’ll see whether he’s able to end this on a high note.

 

Edited July 20, 2020 by CowboyinAmerica

[CowboyinAmerica 2,840]

+12 for VHL Birthday Triples Week as well