It's been an odd journey for Lavelle since being drafted by the St. Louis Scarecrows with the #21 pick in the S37 SMJHL Entry Draft. Lavelle then proceeded to spend four seasons in the SMJHL with St. Louis which lead to a 4 Star Cup for the city of St. Louis, ending the drought since their last win way back in S29.

Lavelle just a year after his SMJHL debut, went on to be drafted in the S38 SHL Entry Draft by the Buffalo Stampede with the #12 pick in the first round. Just a single pick behind fellow teammate Kevin Hamilton who was picked up at the lowly pick of #11.

Lavelle continued with his time in St Louis but there's been a number of reasons Lavelle's draft stock suffered on that faithful night, many have hypothesized that GM's felt Lavelle would fall further or that he would be a tough locker room presence to work with and more suited to Buffalo who at the time and honestly still are villainized by the rest of the league as being essentially the SHL's version of the Mos Eisley Cantina. A depiction that the majority of us would feel unfair, as would you if you had to carry hostility just because of the color of your jersey in the Simulation Hockey League.

Realistically Lavelle fell due to an article that was released some time before the S38 SHL Draft, where it was noted that Lavelle in a shock move would be marrying disgraced former SHL and SMJHL star Matiss Kokins, who at the time was most known for his aggressive and homophobic statements before being thrown out of the league and banned for life.

Many have hypothesized if this was all just an act to launch Lavelle's career, stated as a "PR" move to try and get fans talking about Lavelle and to a lesser extent, Matiss Kokins. The article and story certainly achieved the desired effect and the backlash that people expected. To summarize, there was more controversy, aggressive actions and comments than at a Milo Yiannopoulos lecture at Berkeley.

Since then Lavelle has been limited in his press conferences and public appearances, only popping up a single time to discuss the development and recovery of him following an injury sustained at the climax of his S39 campaign.

Lavelle continued to keep his head down, limiting both his time seen in the public with hubby Matiss Kokins as well as team press obligations which he seemed to miss time after time yet with no backlash from Buffalo Stampede front office or even general manager Wannabefinn.

Lavelle's S41 season started the way many expected the previous 2/3 seasons would but nobody on Muhammad's green earth could have expected how it would end, nor the events that would occur mid season. During the mid season lull of S41, an out of shape Eduard Selich began to take shape or rather get in shape. Selich who started off with so much promise heading into S31, excited fans and critics of Buffalo alike but shortly dropped off. Nobody could put their finger on it, did he lose the love for the game? Is he carrying an injury? Can he handle the physicality at this level, the SHL level? Essentially Selich turned into for anybody who follows the sport of soccer, a Raheem Sterling type who many to this day still have glaring questions of suitability for the english premier league.

Selich essentially threw the monkey off his back, one that clearly had taken it's toll and hindered him for some time and believe me Buffalo couldn't be happier at the timing. After all the "Youth Revolution" was in full swing by this time in S41 for the Stampede and realistically Selich was an ideal mentor. Somebody with tons of experience in the league, even if he had taken a long absence mentally. They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks, but aging Selich didn't need to learn anything new, rather he just needed to relearn his pass lessons and slot into the Buffalo system, a system many figured would not benefit him despite his past natural talent. Oh how wrong they were, about Selich, about Lavelle but most of all about Buffalo.

Buffalo by all accords, smashed expectations and were it not for a late season slump they would've claimed the #1 seed in the eastern conference or rather by it's name in the S41 index, the conference 2 conference in the conference league. A rather clever name for the conference and one I hope we adopt officially going forward.

Buffalo finished with a 26-17 record one game behind the Minnesota Chiefs who would later go onto to outlast Buffalo in the playoffs after a first round exit to the West Kendall Platoon. The season finished with ugh to be honest with you I can't remember and am currently using the NetPen skin to save my sanity. Regardless even as Buffalo approached the series and we were happy for some regular season success we had some people who misconstrued our short term success after such a tough rebuild as I guess...arrogance? Most notably those from Toronto, obviously you can't paint them all with the same brush but it's clear Toronto had some problems with not just Buffalo as a franchise but rather the users behind the players. A clear feeling of animosity existed between the two groups, one of which I wasn't aware of until after Buffalo had been defeated.

Then came the reveal of the All Star Teams and apart from seeing Charles Walker on the all star 3rd team , (félicitations!). I checked the All Rookie team and before looking at it didn't realize they highlighted unanimous selections (which is cool). I checked the roster and seen Lavelle didn't have a unanimous selection despite having the most points, I scroll down the rookies area on the index, mark off anybody already selected and that isn't a center, so Bergen, Kraaijk,Smyth. Untill I find a name (Florence Clijsters (TOR) who also happens to be a center who had 8 goals, 21 assists combined for 29 points.... to Lavelle's 42 points. I'll admit I don't follow hockey or know the first thing about it with the exception of being able to read the index abbreviations so maybe there's one of them analytical reasons somebody selected Clijsters over Lavelle? Maybe it was ugh, points per minute? Or something else. Regardless I think the vote was for spite, and if I had to point a finger I'm guessing Toronto did it as a fuck you to Buffalo, a fuck you to Lavelle and a fuck you to anybody who plays for Buffalo. Was it really worth it? I get "voting" for your guy but at what point are you just denying logic and letting your vitriol for a fictional hockey franchise consume you?

Regardless we move onto the the Jesster award which Lavelle was nominated for, alongside Bob Bergen from Toronto. If I recall Lavelle had 42 points to 36 points of Bergen, but Bergen is a defense men which I was told hadn't been done in a while , to achieve that many points that is. I headed into the Jesster jokingly expecting to win but to be honest I wouldn't mind if Bergen one and even when I did win it he was a great sport in the thread about it. I think his username is ml then followed by numbers like 2002??? Anyway if you're reading this cheers for being a good sport about it all.

Regardless, Lavelle has had a pretty decent career thus far including four star cup ring, a jesster trophy, a whatever the really russian sounding one in the SMJHL is called and various IIHF bronze and silver medals. I hope that it continues and I can stay at Buffalo and make those who despise the franchise hate it even more, if they please so. Also surpassing @[kckolbe] in TPE would be great.

Good read dude. The tag on @kckolbe didn't work - so I tagged him here