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Spartan · 12-12-2021, 07:25 PM

After a tough season that saw the Edmonton Blizzard fall to the Chicago Syndicate in the first round of the playoffs, the team decided to hold open exit meetings between the press and their players who chose to participate. Among that group was Leon Athanasios, the overaged, sophomore left winger who quietly carved out a full time spot on an SHL roster through relatively consistent depth play. Here is a transcript of the session between the press and the player.

Reporter: Leon, thanks for taking time to speak with us today. It's your first interview with the media this season, was that intentional? Can you tell us why you haven't spoken to us at all over the past few months?

Leon: I don't really think it was intentional, at least not out of some sort of feeling towards you guys, the media, whoever. There just came a point where I felt it would be more productive to just focus on myself, the team, what our coaching staff was trying to do with our team from an on ice and off ice perspective. It just happened to turn out that media time got cut out as I preferred to be working out or training or doing something a bit more productive. I can't really say that I'm a fan favorite either, so I doubt that anyone really missed those interviews with me either haha. I did try to be a little active on social media this season, posting here and there so hopefully anyone who wanted to hear from me saw those brief messages.

Reporter: Oh, I'm sure people would love to hear from you more. Now that you're entering your third season, do you think the game has slowed down for you more than it did before last season when you made a decision to not spend time on unnecessary things such as media interviews? Basically, do you feel like you're truly SHL ready yet, and if that changes your preparation any more?

Leon: I definitely have acclimated a bit to the quality needed out of an SHL caliber player, but I also have played against folks and even with folks who are in a different stratosphere. Bringing in Liam Slate was great for my development as well, he's just such a good two way winger who really understands the game. Kyle Sutton was also a great resource throughout the season to try and guide me on how to be an effective winger, and I think my underlying numbers showed that a bit, which I'm sure we'll talk about later. But if it changes my preparation, I don't think so. Maybe I'll try to carve out some more time for the media, public events and the such. It's not that I don't think you guys are unnecessary or a detriment, I just know that I need to spend more time training than taking hours out of that regiment to do something that may not develop me as much on the ice.

Reporter: Well it's nice to hear that you don't think we're completely useless. You did mention your underlying numbers, but let's focus on the ones everyone sees. 11 goals, 24 assists for a total of 35 points in 66 games along with 38 blocked shots and 73 hits. Compare it to last season where you had 13 goals, 18 assists for 31 points, 30 blocked shots and 67 hits. Where have you improved? Has all that time developing simply resulted in a 4 point increase across a season? Are you just making excuses for being lazy?

Leon: You see why I don't like talking to the media? You get paid to sit here and bait me with stupid questions like that. Am I being lazy? You go step on the ice and get tasked with winning hockey games against the top talent in the world and show me what your numbers would look like. What a fucking joke. You're a disgrace of a reporter, but for the others I'll address the numbers. Can someone get this fucker out of here? He doesn't need to put out a piece twisting everything I say here, can we remove him? Anyways, for the rest of you guys, yeah the improvement wasn't a massive jump but progress isn't some exponential curve. It's small steps, changing up small aspects of my game to be more efficient in the offensive zone, dictate possession numbers, be more responsible defensively. I had one of the team's worst goals against per 60 minutes stats last season but one of the best on the team this season. We didn't take a massive step forward, that wasn't to be expected when we replaced aging talent with young prospects. But to take a big step forward defensively like that in a season when we expected to face some defensive issues is what I consider good development. The points don't matter as much when you're on the third line. You chip in here and there and try and help the team with depth scoring but the top guys are there to put up the jaw dropping numbers. When we're on the third line, our job is to just not let goals in and to try and control the game pace. If we score, great.

Reporter: Hey sorry Leon, for the outburst. Security has let me stay, hopefully you're fine with it. If I ask another harmful question I'll leave voluntarily. There were definitely times this season when the third line looked like the most dominant line in their own way. How has the chemistry been between you, Tony Pepperoni and Artemius Nystrom? Tony is quite the veteran and Artemius was a promising rookie that is known for some solid defensive play. What was it like going from Kampainen and Boivin last season to the new duo this season?

Leon: Fine, stay. I will personally drag you into our boxing ring to smack the shit out of you if you ask pesky questions for no reason. But I think that we had a pretty clear direction this season and having Tony on the line helped the most. When you have a former first line, star player grinding it out alongside you on the third line, it's definitely eye opening to the work ethic you need and the cohesion your line needs to have. We didn't really score much in the final portion of S61 with Kampy and Boivy, but we definitely turned the screws up a bit this season and the third line was getting a bit more point share than other teams' third lines might have gotten. Arty's a really talented young winger, I wouldn't be surprised if he gets moved up into a scoring role next season. But compare last season's week 2 breakdown to this season's. Last season the first line was putting up 50+ combined points while we were under 20. This season the first line put up 31 combined points while we put up 22 points and 9 goals. Yes, the top line lost a bit of starpower, but our line stepped up when we needed to and got points on the board. I don't know if we'll have the same look next season, but if I'm the sole remnant of the third line, I'll be continuing the mentality and play that we established this season with whoever we bring onto the line.

Reporter: Rumors have flown around that there may be some front office turnover in Edmonton in the near or distant future. Is this because of a lack of results? Have mistakes been made? Are the rumors even true?

Leon: I have no desire to be commenting on rumors regarding our team. When news is true, it will be reported appropriately. I just can't see anyone offering a reasoning of mistakes being made or results not being there. This was an aging team two seasons ago that made a huge youth push since then, bringing in at least 4-5 rookies in the past couple of seasons. On top of that we've made playoffs twice, once last season when no one thought we would make a deep run. Then we reloaded with even more rookies this season to get their development going. There's no way you can look at this team and say that it's been mismanaged at any level.

Reporter: You weren't chosen to play for Sweden in this season's IIHF tournament. Does that sting at all? Did you think you would make the team? Do you ever expect to play for Sweden in the IIHF, and when do you think that'll be?

Leon: I think there were more talented options as of right now, so I'm not that disappointed in not being selected. It's a reaffirmation that I need to get better if I want to represent my "country" on an international stage. Of course at some point I would like to make the team, as I elected to play for Sweden in IIHF/WJC competitions instead of one of the miscellaneous teams that wraps Greece into them. I still train with some of the folks on both their WJC/IIHF teams in the offseason, and we hold a small friendly competition in Sweden during the offseason. It's a good way to practice together before the actual games begin, so I'll be making a trip out there in the next few days for that. I think that in time I'll make the team, but it's time for others to represent Sweden for now.

Reporter: The Newfoundland Berserkers, your old SMJHL team, has made the Conference Finals and are playing the Kraken. Any words of encouragement for them?

Leon: They're a good team led by Ham and Yosh, and I'm sure those two will get the team ready for play as they always have. It's a good squad this season, so I'm always rooting for them to win another cup. I'd argue that they've been one of the best organizations to play for since I came to the SHL/SMJHL, and a lot of credit especially goes to Ham for the way he's run the team. He was a rookie GM that signed me and has since won what, three top GM awards? The front office there is fantastic and they develop players exceptionally well. They'll perform in the conference finals as they have all season, never count them out.

Reporter: Thanks for your time Leon, that's all we've got for today. Thank you for a good season and looking forward to how next season unfolds. Enjoy your offseason!

---

Unrelated to my player presser, but I need some more words and could also talk a bit about myself in the SHL as well, from a user perspective. I don't really know what I covered in my last media article, but I'd assume most of what I say here is unique and doesn't overlap with what I've said before, so hopefully it's an interesting perspective on a lesser known user in the league.

Since last time, I've actively tried to take up some more positions around the league, or to just get a bit more involved. I generally got better at doing tasks without getting hounded to do so, although some weeks I just slipped and missed some pretty important things. Last offseason, missing some larger tasks and then Week 1 of PT's definitely didn't help, but that was also around the same time I was told that I wasn't likely to be more than a third liner in the SHL. It was blunt, and I'm not upset that I was told that way. I prefer to hear things that way, but it was definitely a bit of a wakeup call and made me think about how I was engaging in this league and why I wasn't really amounting to much from a player perspective. Obviously the answer was simply that I wasn't engaged enough, being inconsistent with PT's, not really earning much money, and also just having a non-existent site presence.

To remedy that, I decided to apply for a WJC GM position last offseason since Sweden needed a GM. Despite having no FHM experience, and not even owning FHM, I figured it'd be a good intro experience to a league job here in the SHL since I've been a GM in the VHL since like, April 2020. However I quickly realized that I was better suited to leaving the FHM stuff to a co-GM, and frankly took more of a back seat role. I wasn't very engaged with the actual strats portion of it and Granny ended up doing most of the work, so I won't be applying to straight GM positions in the future. Maybe Co-GM depending on the requirements of the position and the expectations the GM has for me as a co-GM.

Speaking of which I have applied for a couple of SHL jobs that I think I could handle: Latvia co-Fed head, and player update auditor. Latvia mainly because Ragnar is the current fed head there, and I've got some good experiences with him from back on Buffalo where I was initially drafted. We also spoke a bit about the requirements of the position, and I think it would be one that I could handle. For the player update side, I suppose it's a bit ironic to be applying for that position considering how horrendous my updates get, sporadically updating or dropping a single massive update per season. I'm trying to be better, but I just don't usually see a point to be claiming the 12 tpe I earned in a week when an update at this point costs like 25+ to upgrade. I'd rather just wait until I have multiple claims that total 30+ TPE before claiming them, but that's beside the point. I figured that a job that pays on time spent doing the job would be nice, as it's flexible in time needed and can be done whenever. I handle updating in the VHL so it seems like it could be a mildly parallel job here, checking folks' builds and whatnot. I've yet to get a follow-up message regarding a formal interview, but hopefully I can be at least considered.

From an activity perspective, I would say I've been more active in Edmonton's locker room, trying to pop in more from time to time to see what's going on. Drama on the forums or around the league always piques my interest, or significant rule changes/league changes, of which there have been a few.

I particularly liked the discussion around the community about punishments and how they're levied. I first questioned the severity of punishments when an S60 WJC GM was fined his entire job pay for having illegal lines, or rather too many of a specific player role on his lines. I was shocked to see the announcement considering that the WJC is a place for GM development. Mistakes in that league/tournament shouldn't be getting punished that harshly, as it seems like the perfect way to turn people away from GM'ing if they can get punished so severely for such a overall, inconsequential mistake. It was rectified pretty soon after, with the WJC commissioner rolling back the punishment a bit. Even in other punishment threads over the past couple months, I've seen a lot of similar thoughts from the community about how punishments get handled. HO seems to have noticed, with some changes to punishments getting rolled out slowly over time. However it seems like there are still lots of jobs that aren't receiving applications or interested candidates. I still think that there is more room for change, especially with a backup simmer who stepped in on late notice getting fined for missing a backup swap. Someone who steps in on late notice shouldn't be getting slapped with fines for mistakes, they're doing a favor for the league. I think there will always be more discussion about it and how to balance out punishments so that they still dissuade mistakes but don't turn people away from even wanting to do the job.

The other and final community topic I liked to see and chat about were the recent changes to regression. I always thought that careers in the SHL were wayyyy too long, but that's rooted in my experience with the VHL and their 9, formerly 8, season long careers from the time you're VHL drafted. To spend 4 seasons just in the SMJHL seemed long, and then there were like another 10+ seasons before I'd realistically retire. The recent change to attempt to shorten careers by essentially a full season had very mixed reviews when it first was announced. Most folks were generally supportive of the idea of change, while quite a few others were concerned about the execution that would disproportionately harm a couple draft classes in their prime. At the end of the day, another set of changes were created to alleviate the initial pushback, which I found pretty damn pleasant. A HO that listens to concerns and makes adjustments is always nice to see, and the change seemed to pacify those who were up in arms a bit. All in all, I am glad there are changes surrounding regression and that folks are aware that our current system is just sucking up way too much time in IRL years on a single player.

Anyways, I've just about hit 3k words and I don't think I'm going to be able to hit 4k. How do folks even manage to write so much at a given time? I feel like I've written enough to cover all my SHL thoughts for the next couple of seasons. Maybe I need to try and write 1k words a week along with twitter to slowly build up my bank account without weekly trainings decimating it. I've been thinking about retiring Leon a lot recently and to start fresh on a new player, but I know that people really like to see solid bank accounts from players they eventually draft. Maybe from now through Leon's eventual demise, I'll make that my main goal - not to become the best earner possible, but to at the very least, make enough money that I don't burn it all on coaching and trainings. It'll be a difficult, but likely pretty damn rewarding challenge if I can execute it successfully. Wish me luck, I'll certainly need all of it. Thanks for reading if you got to this point, sorry for shit quality.

3,211 words

GrannyPanPan · 12-12-2021, 07:55 PM

Best co-GM in history <3

Sopath · 12-12-2021, 11:23 PM

Can we get a name for the reporter? Would love to see a Leon v. Reporter boxing match. Absolutely adore the personality of Leon Athanasios. Such an aggressive character.

Spartan · 12-13-2021, 10:17 AM

12-12-2021, 11:23 PMSopath Wrote: Can we get a name for the reporter? Would love to see a Leon v. Reporter boxing match. Absolutely adore the personality of Leon Athanasios. Such an aggressive character.

Leon gives 0 shits about who the reporters are. Simply annoying gray faces in the crowd to pester him with questions Biggrin

***WannabeFinn*** · 12-13-2021, 01:46 PM

Nice season boo

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