Angry and Motivated

[der meister 3,183]

It’s no secret that The Terrible Trivium is disappointed with how Draft night played out in the VHL. With some mocks having him go as early as 9^th overall, but most having him in the late teens, Trivium slipped all the way to 31^st overall before being scooped up by the expansion London United and their General Manager McWolf. There is a sound byte from Trivium that has been circulating since Draft night: "There are 15 other teams in this league that are going to be very, very disappointed by their decision in the years to come. I promise you that."

 

 

Pretend this is a porn parody called This Ain't the VHL Draft

 

 

"We got our target in the 1st round. From the time the team was announced, Volchenkov was a player we kept tabs on,” McWolf said in a recent press conference. “We really liked what we saw and were happy to add him to our depth chart. He's a great two-way center and we felt that he's the kind of guy around who it'll be easy to build a championship-caliber team."

 

When one reporter asked a follow-up question about The Terrible Trivium, McWolf visibly composed himself before answering, choosing his words carefully. "I'll be very honest,” McWolf slowly began, “I never thought we'd be selecting The Terrible Trivium in the 2nd round. We didn't even scout him because it was evident for us that he would go at the end of the 1st round or early in the 2nd round.”

 

After a slight pause, McWolf continued. “I'm not even sure why he slipped so much. Are we missing some clear red flags?” Silence filled the room as the assembled reporters asked themselves the same question. “Either way, we talked a lot since the draft on Wednesday and we made a good connection. Watch out for him in the next couple of seasons; he's eager to make the other teams pay for letting him slip so far and we are absolutely stoked to see him reach his high potential."

 

With both the player and his General Manager echoing the same sentiment, one can’t help but wonder how much of this is legitimate optimism, and how much is pumping up Trivium’s ego. With London continuing to fill out their roster and anxious to try out line combinations, it’s impossible to say.

 

“Would I like to be on the top line for London? Of course,” Trivium said. “But I don’t think that’s necessarily a realistic goal.”

 

If Trivium is able to continue to develop his technical skills, as off-season reports have indicated, top line duty for the expansion franchise might be feasible. One unnamed scout said that Trivium has been working exceptionally hard since the Minnesota Storm’s season ended, hiring a skating coach and has been seen doing some advanced passing and shooting drills.

 

The Terrible Trivium has a surprisingly strong work ethic, and a nice ass

 

 

"With the numbers he put up in Minnesota, he could be one of those under the radar stars in the VHL in a few years," a scout based in Europe wrote. "It's unlikely he'll ever be a household name, but he has the ability and work ethic to carve out a solid little career for himself. I'd be shocked if he didn't, honestly, and being with an expansion franchise could be just the thing to jumpstart the process for him."

Edited July 20, 2020 by der meister

[Devise 4,475]

New GMs clearly don't know the reputation of the Der Meister agency. This man been making quality players of all variety since before some of em were even in the league.

 

Steal for London.

[der meister 3,183]

8 minutes ago, Devise said:

New GMs clearly don't know the reputation of the Der Meister agency. This man been making quality players of all variety since before some of em were even in the league.

 

Steal for London.

 

Thanks Devise. On that note, it would be nice if prior players got added to the VHLPortal. I think part of why I fell is because my profile only has Jones listed, so it's missing Till, Klose, and Ravenwing. That said, I'm very happy to help establish London. 

[Devise 4,475]

25 minutes ago, der meister said:

 

Thanks Devise. On that note, it would be nice if prior players got added to the VHLPortal. I think part of why I fell is because my profile only has Jones listed, so it's missing Till, Klose, and Ravenwing. That said, I'm very happy to help establish London. 

 

I don't actually know where things stand when it comes to this. I know last I recall I was told that players of a certain point and up were all we could get on the portal. If you go look many of Jardys old indexes are inaccessible so linking players to attributes and stats from then is hard. 

 

Obviously we still have forum records of TPE totals when a bunch of older players retired, but even that is limited to this forum, so still names missing from that age old move. 

 

We do have some of the old index files for STHS on the Dropbox, but I can't recall how far they go back or if it predates the existing portal. I'll dig through when I have time and see what's possible though.

[der meister 3,183]

3 minutes ago, Devise said:

 

I don't actually know where things stand when it comes to this. I know last I recall I was told that players of a certain point and up were all we could get on the portal. If you go look many of Jardys old indexes are inaccessible so linking players to attributes and stats from then is hard. 

 

Obviously we still have forum records of TPE totals when a bunch of older players retired, but even that is limited to this forum, so still names missing from that age old move. 

 

We do have some of the old index files for STHS on the Dropbox, but I can't recall how far they go back or if it predates the existing portal. I'll dig through when I have time and see what's possible though.

 

It’s one of those things that would be a nice feature and a fun way to revisit history. Previous players, a spot for awards that player won to be listed. Almost like a trophy case with a season number listed. 

[gorlab 4,321]

too many new gens zippin around as GM now adays

[Jubis 1,347]

Hi @gorlab

[McWolf 3,115]

Great article. Really glad we got you at 31, bud!

 

And to add to what Devise is saying: Some page on the portal where members' past players are listed would be very cool. Maybe just the players, or maybe list stats, TPE, trophies too?

[Plate 386]

I think GMs need to do a better job scouting. It's been a complaint for a lot of players, especially new gen ones. If a GM doesn't have the time I don't see why you can't sauce your draft board over to the AGM to get things going. I felt like I had to reach out to teams to get scouted, even though I was a mid 2nd round selection. I still fell to the third round on a very promising Houston Bulls squad though. I'm not upset about it. 

Building a solid locker room is more important than the TPA values of players. Good locker room/leadership = More motivation to make your player better. 

 

I've been thinking about making a "scouting" suggestion thread, with ideas of having a VHL "central scouting" group who would take a deeper look at rather than just the numbers in the players. 

[Blazzer 759]

4 hours ago, Plate said:

I think GMs need to do a better job scouting. It's been a complaint for a lot of players, especially new gen ones. If a GM doesn't have the time I don't see why you can't sauce your draft board over to the AGM to get things going. I felt like I had to reach out to teams to get scouted, even though I was a mid 2nd round selection. I still fell to the third round on a very promising Houston Bulls squad though. I'm not upset about it. 

Building a solid locker room is more important than the TPA values of players. Good locker room/leadership = More motivation to make your player better. 

 

I've been thinking about making a "scouting" suggestion thread, with ideas of having a VHL "central scouting" group who would take a deeper look at rather than just the numbers in the players. 

This is honestly a great idea! A central scouting group will help teams and also individual players to know where they stand in the league. 

[Plate 386]

Just now, Blazzer said:

This is honestly a great idea! A central scouting group will help teams and also individual players to know where they stand in the league. 

The version that exists now is a spreadsheet that gets updated every week with the TPE totals of every player. But you can just see it if you go to the draft page and look at the list of players in your draft year. It's not the same as interacting with a scout. 

[Blazzer 759]

5 minutes ago, Plate said:

The version that exists now is a spreadsheet that gets updated every week with the TPE totals of every player. But you can just see it if you go to the draft page and look at the list of players in your draft year. It's not the same as interacting with a scout. 

But the drafts don't follow tpe so to me, it's rather inaccurate. Having a scout makes the experience more realistic too. That's my opinion on it. 

[der meister 3,183]

5 hours ago, Plate said:

I think GMs need to do a better job scouting. It's been a complaint for a lot of players, especially new gen ones. If a GM doesn't have the time I don't see why you can't sauce your draft board over to the AGM to get things going. I felt like I had to reach out to teams to get scouted, even though I was a mid 2nd round selection. I still fell to the third round on a very promising Houston Bulls squad though. I'm not upset about it. 

Building a solid locker room is more important than the TPA values of players. Good locker room/leadership = More motivation to make your player better. 

 

I've been thinking about making a "scouting" suggestion thread, with ideas of having a VHL "central scouting" group who would take a deeper look at rather than just the numbers in the players. 

 

I think that’s a really good idea. Personally, I’m really happy to be with London and anticipate spending my entire career there, as long as @McWolf is good with that. 

 

Scouting here is weird. I had two teams reach out to me (neither London). As a member, I’ve got 7 championships across 4 prior players, along with some individual awards in both the VHL and VHLM. When I was a GM in the SHL (for 19 seasons), I tried to talk to every prospect to build my draft list. 

[Plate 386]

1 hour ago, Blazzer said:

But the drafts don't follow tpe

TPE is a guideline. The main factors for how high a player is drafted isn't necessarily TPE. I can summarize it into the three A's: 
Activeness 
Attitude 

Aspirations
 

Activeness. If you're more active than someone with 20 or so TPE more than you then you're "technically" more valuable. You have a higher potential because you'll get more TPE in the long run. The amount of players you've had in the VHL also lowers the risk and you'll be drafted higher. 
Attitude. Your personality affects where you will go. Just like in real life. It's kind of a popularity contest but for a GM trying to build a locker room it's one of the main things that's taken into consideration. The more locker rooms you're compatible with the higher you'll get drafted. 
Aspirations. This more closely ties to motivation. You might be active in the community but not do many point tasks because you have a hard time staying motivated to put the words in. And that's okay. The more aspiration you have as a player means you'll get drafted higher. 

 

41 minutes ago, der meister said:

I tried to talk to every prospect to build my draft list. 

That's a really good mentality that not every GM/AGM has. Management might say they do, but I would be willing to bet that most (51+%) of players don't get interviewed at any point in their draft season. 

[Blazzer 759]

5 minutes ago, Plate said:

TPE is a guideline. The main factors for how high a player is drafted isn't necessarily TPE. I can summarize it into the three A's: 
Activeness 
Attitude 

Aspirations
 

Activeness. If you're more active than someone with 20 or so TPE more than you then you're "technically" more valuable. You have a higher potential because you'll get more TPE in the long run. The amount of players you've had in the VHL also lowers the risk and you'll be drafted higher. 
Attitude. Your personality affects where you will go. Just like in real life. It's kind of a popularity contest but for a GM trying to build a locker room it's one of the main things that's taken into consideration. The more locker rooms you're compatible with the higher you'll get drafted. 
Aspirations. This more closely ties to motivation. You might be active in the community but not do many point tasks because you have a hard time staying motivated to put the words in. And that's okay. The more aspiration you have as a player means you'll get drafted higher. 

I definitely agree with this. 

 

7 minutes ago, Plate said:

Management might say they do, but I would be willing to bet that most (51+%) of players don't get interviewed at any point in their draft season. 

Just a suggestion. Maybe introduce a scouting department in each team. Maybe 2-3 players hired to help in the process and then more players can get interviewed and have the chance to show the team their 3A's. 

[Plate 386]

7 minutes ago, Blazzer said:

Just a suggestion. Maybe introduce a scouting department in each team.

Working on a suggestion thread as we speak.

[Blazzer 759]

Just now, Plate said:

Working on a suggestion thread as we speak.

Great!

 

[McWolf 3,115]

16 hours ago, Plate said:

I felt like I had to reach out to teams to get scouted, even though I was a mid 2nd round selection. I still fell to the third round on a very promising Houston Bulls squad though. I'm not upset about it. 

VHL ≠ VHLM.

 

VHL GMs generally scout throughout the season and got a good idea of who they want to draft. There are about 2 VHLM GMs that scout. For reasons? I don't know really.

[CowboyinAmerica 2,880]

1 hour ago, McWolf said:

There are about 2 VHLM GMs that scout. For reasons? I don't know really.

 

Definitely a missed opportunity. Posting a long pitch in a creation thread is fine, but sending a PM to have a conversation is so much more personalized and relatively easy to do. That's why I signed with Halifax when I made Flowers, just because @Acydburn reached out to talk via PM even though I didn't know him from Adam.

[Quik 4,113]

12 minutes ago, CowboyinAmerica said:

I didn't know him from Adam.

What about Eve?

 

Also @der meister I don't think any of your others are in the portal, but I attached Ravenwing to you, so there's that

[der meister 3,183]

48 minutes ago, Quik said:

What about Eve?

 

Also @der meister I don't think any of your others are in the portal, but I attached Ravenwing to you, so there's that

 

Ravenwing’s statline looks HoF worthy to me....

[Plate 386]

7 hours ago, McWolf said:

VHL ≠ VHLM.

 

VHL GMs generally scout throughout the season and got a good idea of who they want to draft. There are about 2 VHLM GMs that scout. For reasons? I don't know really.

I feel like it's an unwritten responsibility for VHLM management to keep new players involved. Being interviewed, from a first-gens perspective, certainly would help retain interest. 

[McWolf 3,115]

22 minutes ago, Plate said:

I feel like it's an unwritten responsibility for VHLM management to keep new players involved. Being interviewed, from a first-gens perspective, certainly would help retain interest. 

Agreed. I know Sask does it.

[FrostBeard 2,049]

Talking about scouting.. 

I do my own scouting but I know what players I want a long time before the draft, I contact them. You can check on all 3 Top rated goalies for that and they will tell you that it was long before Deadline that I talked to them. 

When I GM'ed in VHLM, my plan was to talk to my draftees, get to know if they want to spend time with me in Houston and get something done. It was something I valued highly. There surely are VHLM GM's that don't want to scout and just get best people as their goal is to win and I can partly respect that. For VHL - it is about getting Cups, winning games and making legacy. For VHLM - making first steps of any player easy and fun, so having then involved into scouting and actually have interviews and not Google Forms type documents pop up would be nice. In my eyes it has to be about that human-to-human interaction. 

So there we go. 

Also @der meister, I was surprised that you dropped so low and when I traded up I felt extremely weird as there were to choices for me - you or Snussu, I selected Snussu just because I was more interested in a defenceman. If the situation would have been even slightly different in terms of our team composition, I would have drafted. That said - I find it a bit funny that people who desperately needed wingers and forwards passed you for so long. There has been truly amazing things said about you from many people.

[Acydburn 1,607]

2 hours ago, Plate said:

I feel like it's an unwritten responsibility for VHLM management to keep new players involved.

It's not unwritten, it's the main job of a VHLM GM.