verification word: yeah


+3 Milestones


I chose Russia as my IIHF country mostly because I had a lot of fun with my previous player, Jerry Mander. When I got to Russia this time around, it definitely wasn't as lively a locker room. But to feel a little bit better about the selection, I made it clear in one of my initial posts about Donair that his mother is Russian and he is competing for Russia because he's allowed to and it means a lot to his extended family. I like having that pretty insignificant bit of lore around going there as opposed to making it easy and going to the USA. It adds something to IIHF for me personally, and it's clear that there aren't many other ways to get yourself interested in IIHF to be honest. (136)



One of the most interesting things about Russia that isn't exactly covered in mainstream media (and has nothing, directly, to do with their global diplomatic position) is that they have SIX different types of states throughout the Russian Federation. The most common kind is an oblast, and there are 46 of these throughout Russia. That means that they have a governor and locally selected legislature. There are nearly two dozen republics, and most of them have an ethnic minority residing in them; they defer to the federal government when it comes to international affairs. There are also three federal cities - that behave as regions, "krais" - which are older oblasts that sort of represent a much older frontier or traditional geographical border, and a single autonomous oblast - the Jewish Autonomous Oblast! (131)


Y'know, I was really sure that the Los Angeles Panthers, after all of the success of last season and the S56 gang just getting better, would at least make it to the Conference Finals. Instead, we lost a nail-biting, intense series to the San Francisco Pride (only to watch them get absolutely bodied in the next round). It really hurt because it was mostly based on one goalie standing on his head for five hard-fought games. As for the finals teams, I'm really happy for Atlanta; they're one of the newest teams in the league and they built very intelligently to give Chicago a run for their money. I'm not surprised the more experienced team took it, though. (124)


Well I think the easiest angle is to make SHL a purely pay-to-win experience. Inflate the update scale to something absolutely astronomical, make TPE able to be bought beyond the standard training and equipment, and remove the salary cap. THEN, make an exchange rate for SHL dollars and real dollars. People will absolutely be buying as much TPE as they can to have a dominant 30+ season career. It's sad, but it's true - look at FIFA and Madden! The less malicious angle involves an airtight bot system that handles all of the claiming/PTs/etc. No more forum! Just a very large set of Discord servers. I think that's how it has to go anyway, discourse-wise; there's too much fragmentation for all of us to come together. If bots controlled not just the PTs and activity checks, but a set schedule that doesn't rely on human error to change lines and simulate games - that would be really cool. But it'd likely require an actual fiscal investment into developers, rather than just keep letting those volunteers do whatever they want and hopefully get to it eventually. (194)



My annual thank you to the LA Panthers organization for being, without a doubt, the best place for me to end up in this new SHL era. I'm very thankful this season especially because I reached 2000 TPE and actually have to participate in a meaningful regression for the first time in my sim league careers (with the small exception of Ned Sommers, and I don't consider the Danny Foster regressions meaningful because I knew exactly what to do). I've thanked 7, AS360, and Faelax a whole lot, but I don't know if I have thanked @hockeyiscool personally yet? He's certainly the most light-hearted of our crew when it comes to ... everything? But whenever I feel like I'm getting too mad about stuff going on with the league, I try to channel my inner Dwight Knight and ask myself what he would think. It is very often a stupid joke, and for that, I appreciate him. He also cashed in a disc golf tournament for the first time ever last weekend so he deserves a big congrats. (184)