Ivo Willems (OrbitingDeath) Builder article Vol. 2

[Victor 11,043]

First of all, I would like to thank Poptart for his Hall of Fame article submission for Ivo Willems (Green/OrbitingDeath) which I will be combining with this one in the HOF itself. The fact I'm adding more words on top is not a slight on Poptart's work, just that the traditionalist in me wants to add the usual Builder blurb to align the article with the rest of the entries – a sort of personal touch which comes from being in the league for a bit longer. Of course, trust Green, the perennial sim league overachiever, to get two Builder articles instead of one.

 

I say overachiever very tongue in cheek of course – he's put in the hard work and has seen it pay off not just in the VHL but across multiple sim leagues and multiple sports. I am no expert in the matter, having been VHL-only for well over half a decade now, but I suspect Green is the most prolific modern sim leaguer by a fair margin, with his body of work (cups, trophies, Hall of Famers) across all the various leagues surpassing anyone else. But let us take a step back to his VHL beginnings first.

 

Green, as he was known for most of his sim league career, first joined the VHL for the S31 entry draft, on the eve of the league's first expansion. The VHL wasn't his first entry into hockey sims – his SHL player Ivo Willems had already made quite an impression in that league's first decade. In that sense, Green was not particularly unique as much of the VHL's recruitment from S18 onwards centered around attracting SHL members and it stayed this way all the way through the 40s, at which point recruitment dried up entirely. SHLers came in all in shapes and sizes – for some it was a side gig, several members ended up being converted to primarily VHL members. A number of hyperactive folk tried to tackle both leagues with the same level of activity and burned out very quickly to the point where I'm not sure I've seen them in either league for many years. Green appeared to be towards the latter end of the spectrum and he took to the VHL without any SHL-centric prejudice, but it would have been impossible to say how long this would last. Remy LeBeau, his first VHL player, was a highly-rated goalie in S31, a solid draft which was part of the reason the commissioners' team of the time felt the league was ready for expansion. Despite the obvious goaltending needs of both Quebec and Cologne, for a variety of reasons LeBeau fell to sixth overall and the Toronto Legion, a move which would greatly benefit both player and franchise.

 

I won't dwell too long on LeBeau or any of Green's other player careers – Poptart put together a wonderful list of accolades which I will include below which summarise just how good his VHL players have been. LeBeau made the Hall of Fame, as did his next two players, and within a few weeks of this article being posted, we all know Condor Adrienne will too. Thomas O'Malley is of course the most famous of these, a player with 339 TPE by the time of the S40 draft (this in the 9 TPE weekly cap days) who very much lived up to the hype and is the consensus second greatest player in VHL history (even higher among the Scotty Campbell sceptics).

 

Going back to that SHL connection, Green/OrbitingDeath isn't the only SHLer to make the VHL Hall of Fame but he is one of a very small contingent to be inducted as a Builder. He's put in a lot of time into the league, has seen it pay off in a big way, but has also given back a lot too, as for instance a lot of O'Malley's TPE came from Green being one of the leading recruiters of the late 30s and early 40s VHL. There was no well-oiled recruitment machine in those days and the individual efforts of someone like Green should not be underestimated. Would we still be around without the members brought in back then? It's best to leave that as a hypothetical question.

 

As a final point, but no less important to me as someone also based in Europe, OrbitingDeath is in fact Dutch. Now I don't know any other Dutch hockey sim leaguers and if we wind the clock back to when he joined both the SHL and VHL, I don't believe there were that many members outside of North America in general and certainly outside of other English-speaking countries. That's changed quite a bit since – we've seen a large Latvian sim league contingent move to English-speaking leagues and many other Europeans to boot. But Green was a pioneer in many ways and achieved all that he has while breaking down that cultural barrier. It makes it fairly obvious with that background why he was a unanimous addition as Builder in S73.

 

@Poptart's article below:

@OrbitingDeath

[OrbitingDeath 3,233]

As a sim league overachiever I couldnt ofcourse settle for 1 builder article.

 

Thanks for the kind words ♡

[Banackock 8,160]

6 hours ago, OrbitingDeath said:

As a sim league overachiever I couldnt ofcourse settle for 1 builder article.

 

Thanks for the kind words ♡

You are good G

[Baozi 1,664]

Yay Green!

 

Also so many things i didn't know...like Green's actual name lol (assuming that's what Ivo is).  Also that is a long list of hardware lol.

 

The formatting works, but is kinda boring in the sense it doesn't use anything to highlight the body of text. But good accolades and summary for Green here. Victor's takes is always fun to read on historical items of course.

 

8/10