A record.

[hedgehog337 3,480]

 

*nothing much, just another playoff appearance*

 

 

What a way how to make a comeback to VHL media. After a many seasons of being frustrated by being unlucky in playoffs since S63 finally our team managed to pull another one cup run. In convincing fashion. But hold on, it actually gets better. It looks like Riga is having the best times since a long while. There is another achievement the organiation will celebrate regardless of the playoffs outcome. This achievement does makes sense though as Riga has the most playoff appearances than any other VHL team. But anyways, we will throw a parade later because

 

RIGA REIGN HAS THE MOST CONSECUTIVE PLAYOFF APPEARANCES IN HISTORY OF VHL!

 

That's right, I put some color here, thank me later @Plate. But indeed, the outcome of the match against Warsaw certainly made some NY fans sad. The win against Polish guys clinched yet another playoff appearance for us. This will be our 12th playoffs in a row which now beats the Americans result by 1 season. It's been a while since any team made that long post-season appearance run. I think the last time we had that type of a run as in S50's by Helsinki. But I believe only New York managed to make the post-season dance for more than 10 seasons in a row before we came into the play. So let's give it up for Riga, we made a history and I hope we will continue to do so.

 

But what about the actual results, like the championships? Well, I gotta tell that it could've been better. From underwhelming mid 60's (including that S65 disaster, fuck that semi final series) to the defense era that was overshadowing our offense too much; to S69 finals that was disappointing; to the very early 70's when I wasn't 100% into this thing and being the second fiddle to Moscow. That definitely sucked. But hey, we still won two which is always better than zero, right? And who knows what this playoffs is going to bring to us.

 

Can someone beat our result someday? Well, everything is possible, but it obviously depends on how more season can we collect. As of this moment I don't see teams that can get close to it, but I can see Seattle reach 10+ seasons because it looks like they can go strong for several seasons at least. Right now thay will have 6 seasons in a row. At one point we had Vancouver and Helsinki trying to do so, but both of them had hiccups on the way (by not even making the playoffs).

 

How many more seasons? Uhmm...who knows. But I have a strong feeling that mid 70's will be fairly tough for us. No Tate, no Eagles; Codrick Past is retiring already (speaking about losing 800+ TPE guys as a big blow to teams...in Riga world we have 460 TPA player with huge offensive output so losing him is gonna hurt us for sure). The fact that we'll have to settle with a rookie goalie in S75 will make things harder than usual. But then, we have Helsinki with a 520 TPE goalie fighting for the Victory Cup so we can see having a low TPE netminder is not the end of the world. The good news that we have picks. Except for the S75 first for obvious reasons. An upcoming off-season should be interesting since one particular team is heading to a rebuild and two more teams are about to have some questions about their cap space. There is a chance to get VHL-ready players by trade so we wouldn't miss a beat once Tate and Eagles are retired. So this off-season may answer to the question I mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph.

 

So here it is, 12 playoffs in a row. Here's to make the 13th, 14th, 57th and counting.

 

That's it and I'm out.