Hypothetical Landscape

[mattyIceman 1,037]

Greetings, VHL community!

I want to touch on something I had written about previously.

WHAT WOULD THE VHL LOOK LIKE IF THE WHOLE LEAGUE WAS RESTRUCTURED?

What I had touched on was an idea that swirled around in my head.  What if there were 16 VHL teams, each with their own affiliate, and what if there was a Junior League (JVHL) and a league for inactive players/accounts (Divison A).

**I will only be speaking from my own perspective and imagination, as I have no right to speak for anyone else.  I understand the difficult implications and rules imposed by the Board of Governors and the Commissioners' due process, which would make this a highly improbable scenario or undertaking.**

Let's begin by listing the active VHL teams, followed by the VHLM.  Some will need to relocate and/or change league altogether.  Just this alone would spark confusion and/or dissent/outrage.  What I'll include is the current VHL landscape, then an expanded VHL with realignment, finishing with a Junior League and Division A global development setup.

Let's begin:

NORTH AMERICAN CONFERENCE (why even call them Conferences anyway?)
Toronto Legion
New York Americans
DC Dragons
Chicago Phoenix
Los Angeles Stars
Calgary Wranglers
Vancouver Wolves
Seattle Bears

EUROPEAN CONFERENCE
Helsinki Titans
Malmo Nighthawks
Riga Reign
Prague Phantoms
HC Davos Dynamo
Moscow Menace
London United
Warsaw Predators

Now, for a hypothetical, globally expanded VHL league alignment.

VHL team == VHLM affiliate team

AMERICAN DIVISION

Toronto Legion == Mississauga Hounds
New York Americans == Philadephia Reapers
DC Dragons == Miami Marauders
Chicago Phoenix == Minnesota Storm
Los Angeles Stars == Las Vegas Aces
Calgary Wranglers == Saskatoon Wild
Vancouver Wolves == Yukon Rush
Seattle Bears == Houston Bulls

As you may have noticed, four teams would require relocation:
The San Diego Marlins, Halifax 21st, Mexico City Kings and Ottawa Lynx are to be relocated.  Having gone from 12 to 8 teams, I selected the closest proximity affiliations.  It's a debatable alignment, the teams I've selected are arbitrary.

Now let's get creative and a bit crazy...

EURASIAN DIVISION

Moscow Menace == Riga Reign
Prague Phantoms == HC Davos Dynamo
Helsinki Titans == Malmo Nighthawks
Kiev (Cossacks) == Warsaw Predators
Tokyo (Shogun) == Shanghai (Soul)
Sydney (Sharks) == Melbourne (Tribe)
Hong Kong (Lions) == Singapore (Tigers)
London United == Paris (Revolution)

Holy, what the heck just happened??  What's going on here?? Simple, the VHL went GLOBAL.  The eight Europe Conference teams are still all here, except four teams moving to the VHLM.  Four new VHL franchises make their beginning, with affiliates within proximity.  I meant, it's not like we are spending on flights and hotels and dealing with jet-lags over time zones, right? I did go crazy here and I like this look.

Let's crunch some (very, very vague) numbers now:

Assuming the League is a 12 player-per-team ideology, 32×12=384 signed players. Heck, that's alot of players, correct?  Are there even that many created players and agencies?  What do the account influx and retention numbers look like?  How does the VHL increase the amount of created active players?  These would be "basic issues" to be discussed, after all this is hypothetical and nothing is meant to be taken seriously at all.

How about that Junior League and Division A stuff I mentioned earlier?  Let me get into that, it's pretty simple.  All new creates and recreates would enter here for one season, two maximum.  Drafted players would become property of a VHL franchise.  Inactive for a season, either in Junior or VHL, would become a free agent and be assigned to a Division A team.  A VHL franchise may bid for a free agent to fill a need within their franchise with the current VHL rules.

Anyway, let's make up some more stuff now:

JVHL (Junior) League Six Team Proposal:
Northwest Nationals
America Squadron
Scandinavia Vikings
Europe Continentals
Russia Red Army
Pacific Rising Suns

All new creates and recreates would be ASSIGNED to a "junior" team or "development program". Of course, I went GLOBAL hockey markets, because, why not?  We can all be from anywhere in the world with an internet connection now can't we?  With the idea of PARITY in mind, this is the place where the most tpe can be earned, with the idea of incentivizing fast growth and league promotion.  The details are also purely hypothetical, and of course I havent touched all bases.

Lastly, the Division A hypothesis.

Make up 6 more locations for teams wherever you please here.  Drop teams in Cairo, Rome, Johannesburg, Rio de Janeiro, even Bombay.  Wherever you please is just fine.  All free agents end up assigned to one of these teams.  They would be distributed among them equally with parity in mind.

I think the VHFL would benefit greatly from this.  Extra leagues, more tpe.  Simple are that haha.

The whole point of this article was just to get out an idea from my head.  I know it'll never happen, but to free it from thought into an article means the idea can be commented on in agreement or disagreement, or ignored altogether.

Chime in if you like!

Cheers VHL community!

[DMaximus 1,045]

You mentioned that this is a highly improbable scenario. I agree with that. Still, thank you for taking the time and writing out your thoughts! Awesome content! Please keep it up!

Edited July 31, 2020 by DMaximus

[Plate 285]

Review

I don't mind the idea of recreates/new players going to a "development" league, but that's kind of what the VHLM is. You couldn't have them be national teams because the number of athletes are skewed from different nationalities. Most teams structure their team around two lines of forwards and defense-men, and a goalie. Which is 17 players. You average about 82 players picked in the dispersal draft (over the last five dispersal drafts). So you'd need about five development teams up and running to keep those players. You said six which is almost spot on. 

 

Having VHL affiliates is something that I've always thought would be interesting to toss into the league. But this is a simulation hockey forum that's had its trials and learned its lessons. 13 years is a long time to learn what's right and what's wrong. All of the O.G commissioners and members remember much worse times. When parity was king and teams with barely 20 wins made the playoffs. 

 

With that being said, I love the article. Sometimes we need a breath of fresh air. Ridiculous questions and crazy ideas are the birthplace of things that we call normal today. For the article itself, a good way to make things pop is by throwing in a little bit of colour. You tried your best breaking up the blocky text look. Throwing in headers and highlighting ideas with flare can add a lot to your writing. 

 

Score

Content: 9.5/10 Five development teams, not six

Flow: 10/10 No problems here

Format: 6/10 Needs to look less text blocky

 

 

[Victor 10,534]

Yeah damn right Riga is our affiliate 

[mattyIceman 1,037]

On 7/31/2020 at 10:26 AM, Plate said:

With that being said, I love the article. Sometimes we need a breath of fresh air. Ridiculous questions and crazy ideas are the birthplace of things that we call normal today. For the article itself, a good way to make things pop is by throwing in a little bit of colour. You tried your best breaking up the blocky text look. Throwing in headers and highlighting ideas with flare can add a lot to your writing

 

Thanks for the input!  I actually wrote this in two notes on my notepad on my phone, so I didn't even consider using color and font size.  The point of the article was to get the idea out of my head and free for anyone to chime in!

[Baozi 1,635]

I like this cause this supports an Asian team  I'm mostly against assigning players directly to development teams as this would make gming at that level fairly meaningless.

 

On that note i do like how you've taken the time to think this all out with the information you have.

 

On a more constructive note, it would help if you highlighted and used different formatting for headers and such and added some things to color up the MS. But the content is solid so these are just merely suggestions.

 

8/10

[mattyIceman 1,037]

@fromtheinside @Enorama