Asunto: US National Team

Howdy to you all,

It has been awhile......so I figured I would inform you all with some changes that can be posted openly. There are also some changes that I will not discuss in the public forum. Letting outside managers see our strategy for each year is not a wise use of this discussion platform.

However, if any of you has further questions/thoughts/ideas/general discussion about the team, please feel free to contact me by e-mail. I will do my very best to answer as best that I am able. You are my "employer" in a sense, so I feel that you should have the ability to know what I am doing with the team. This is your Countries Team.....so ask away.....test me. My reasoning is to be honest and gain your trust. We all need to work together to build this new youth infused team. Changes are happening faster and faster as we move into year 3 of this tactic. At any rate, here are a few topics of information for todays team;

1) I am guessing you all don't check the line up every week.....so you may question my reasoning for who plays where and when.

My rationalization is simple. I am focusing on assuring each player is getting the same opportunity and playing time for each game (As close as I can control anyways). Players who play more minutes per game are more fatigued than those who play less in a game. This has two different impacts for each player. The more fatigued player (played more), trains skills that day a little less (The better the Physiotherapists and Regeneration Facilities the team has) really helps to lessen the effect of fatigue on a players training regimen. Meanwhile, those who played fewer minutes in a game will train his skills a little better than the tired ones.

These players (with more ice time/more fatigue.....etc.) in spite of that small negative result for training, the players with more ice time receive extra points for Experience than those who played less in each game. The end result is a positive direction for every player......but in a different way......depending on Playing Time/Special Teams/Etc. Experience is a very important number for creating a better player overall. So both attributes are what I am working to spread throughout the roster.

With that in mind and to assure everyone gets the same playing time and is incorporated into the Special Teams (Power Play and Penalty Kill) equally, I have incorporated a simple line implementation for each week. To begin with, each current player distribution stays the same.....in other words....same players on each line 1, 2, 3, and 4......no movement in the individual line roster. Then, after each weeks game, I raise each line up one (So line 2 becomes line 1....line 3 becomes line 2....etc.). The big change is that whomever played on the top line that week....now drops to line #4 for next weeks game and the rotation starts again.

Regarding who is utilized for the PP & PK....the top line for that week runs PP #1 and PK #1. For PP #2 & PK line #2.......only players from that weeks second line (except the PK #2 winger....I use the other winger from line #1) fill those roles.

I do this to show each manager that there is no favoritism for the up and coming prospects. Since we have had to introduce a youth movement in hopes of winning some championships in the future, I find it important not to focus on what seems to be a better player at a certain point. In other words, skills can be compared against one another.....but experience and especially longevity is usually too early in the progression to determine who will really be our future stars. You can have the greatest training percentages......but if your longevity drops prematurely, it is quite often that the longer legged prospect will eventually catch up and surpass the early favorite. A greater longevity not only means more years of use by the club.....but it allows the development of experience and skillset to create a better player than the early star. Spreading things out this way allows me to administer changes as the players develop year after year. Once a prospect has shown a significant growth pattern and a much more consolidated estimate of his future returns......then we can add him to the Senior line up. In return, if a player starts to show that he is headed down below other prospects......he may be removed if a better prospect is available. I am assuming that there will be several moves needed in both directions......especially as our very young players develop. All these machinations are meant to try and find the very best USA players to create a sustained/highly skilled roster that can actually give our Country a chance to beat the best.

2) Using this particular strategy will make a better team, no doubt. However, as we increase our youth content for the future......spots have to be opened by letting our most aged players go each season. This will result in a team in transition and will suffer while the youth grow. Each season, I have dropped more and more of our significantly older players. This season was our biggest move yet. I anticipate this will effect our results in the playoffs in a negative way.....for now. We'll still give em hell, but the lack in experience/skills will be tough to overcome. Who knows, maybe the youth will step up with more energy and surprise us all in the Championships! No matter what.....the Bottom Line is.....patience. My hope is that by giving you as much information about where the team is headed and why, will hopefully give you the temperance and excitement when rebuilding a team of any kind!!

3) I have worked hard to contact most of you throughout my term so far. One of my main concerns revolves around skill distribution for a player. As you know, I have posted a somewhat simple player development model to get the most out of each prospect/possible NT player pick ups. There are still some of you who have great facilities/staff that are choosing to train your players in a "non standard" skill distribution (at least as mentioned in the guide). Now I am not saying these non typical training regimens are useless. But what I am saying is......I will need to see what they are bringing to the table for team USA. I obviously mark all the young prospects I can and try to catch up on their development and especially how they are progressing in your own team games. If you can demonstrate to me.....or I find some different advantages for these players through watching them compete and grow.....they will certainly have a chance at making the USA Senior National Team. It really would help if you would communicate with me your thought process for these players. I do not know it all by any stretch. So I am open to other ways of competing. Unfortunately, I cannot follow all prospects as close as I would like to. So having you bring me into your team/player world will get not only my attention, but an interest in watching for a possibly new strategy that I have never thought of. I know the current team does not capture a wide array of players from teams all over the world. But I have not found other prospects to compete with them yet. I know there must be some out there. Bring them to me and I promise an open analysis/opinion/and especially the ability for you to exhibit your player from your perspective. You have a reason for what you are doing.......let me know if it's something we can incorporate into the National Team. If I can't find them......understand why they are developed a certain way.......then I cannot add them to the squad. It's not any kind of set in stone mindset that I have. My mind just hasn't seen what you have. I am quite possibly missing some of the best future players. If you are in doubt about one of your prospects, let's talk anyways. It just may turn out to be an idea that can work for the team.....or even a possible specialty assignment that meets well with his build.

4) Tactic development for the team is ongoing. Each year brings us closer to our potential and future ability to match opposing teams with an equal or better tactical percentage/advantage. We are getting their. My reasoning for the development of these tactics are not able to be posted here.

With all that said, I will sign off for now. Every time I post......I hope to hear from all of you. Again, this is your team......and if you desire.....you can walk along with those already on board and know what the teams development/strategies/thoughts/experiments/ideas are. The more eyes that are involved only helps broaden the brain power base needed to analyze and develop the strategies of the future.

Thanks for all your support and we'll talk soon,

HH

A note.......

I wanted to add to my last message regarding prospects. Obviously, I am looking for the best prospects no matter the position. However, if we happen to get a glut of players at a certain position, it makes it difficult to add a promising player to that particular position. I need to have a fairly even distribution of each position to allow for the maximum dispersion of playing time. As an example.....I can only play so many RW's lets say.....but we are short on LD. I have to choose the possibly lesser player to fill out the roster spots. This is due to our chosen strategy of playing our youth on very high. I need at least 8 full lines at every position. In the end, there are usually 9 players at each position. That's 45 spots.

I leave 4 spots for our two top goalies and 2 for our best prospects for when the older guys retire.

Now that leaves only one spot open. I keep it that way just in case a team folds and I need to pick up a player, that may make the team. If that player is not picked up by me, he will not go to the market when the manager leaves. He will be stuck on a dead team and never develop. By putting him on the National Team, he will automatically go to the market and hopefully live on with a good team who develops him.

Just more information for you to understand why certain choices have been made. If any of you has any questions, please feel free. Thanks,

HH

Just a quick note regarding the team. I have removed some players on the squad, to make room for guys from Medvescak 1983. I am afraid his team will become managerless soon and I don't want to lose his prospects to a dead team. If one of your players was removed, it does not mean he may not return at a later date. We'll just have to wait and see what happens. More to come soon. Thanks,

HH

All,

So here is my recap for year 3 of managing the Senior USA National Team.

There is no need to go too deep into the regular season.....as I have posted my ideas and implementation already. However, as the playoffs began, I did research the background of all the teams we could face in the tournament. With this information, I developed a path that I hoped would give us the best chance to win the title. As you know, our team is slowly losing it's veteran make up year after year. This season made a significant step in picking up more youth and removing veterans.....to make room for the newcomers. After looking at our schedule, I could see that Slovenia and Finland were head and shoulders above the rest of the competition. Our team had one player with over 3000+ attribute distribution.

Slovenia had 10 players over 3000+ attributes and in the last 28 years had played in the Top division 23 times.

Finland had 11 players over 3000+ attributes. They had played in the Top division from season 25~51 without demoting.

In my eyes, they were ready to jump back into the Top division this year. Of course, both teams were in our group for the playoffs. That meant we would have to win our remaining 3 games to get into the world championship rounds.

Therefore, for our first game against Estonia, I played the best line up we had and used very high energy for every period. I also chose to use 4 lines in an effort to keep some energy for later in the tournament. In the end, we controlled the game for the most part. We out shot them 47-14, Caught them on both special teams tactics and came out with 4 Power Play goals....and none against. Rudolph Tinsley sniped two goals.....while Cody Mecier, Adrian Garfield, Greggory Hubbard, and Caleb Modano all contributed with a single goal each. Meanwhile, Buster Cusik put up a 92.86% save percentage. End result was a 6-1 victory!

Our next opponent was Belgium. Again, this was a must win. I again chose to play our four best lines, and kept the energy usage at Very High. He chose 3 lines with very high energy use throughout. This game was closer than our last outing. We out shot them 38-21, caught them on both special teams tactics again....however, we both had one Power Play goal for the game, so no real advantage came out of it for either team. This time it was Greggory Hubbard, Rudolph Tinsley, Freddie Schultz, Ed O'Rourke, and Terrance Rosen who lit the lamp once each. Buster put up a 90.48% save percentage and the result was a 5-2 win.

Things were significantly changed after these two games. First up was Finland. I re-arranged the line up to have our worst players on the first line, then the next lesser group on line 2, etc.....to line 3. I even used our back up goalie as a Centerman for the first line. I then went with a 45%/40%/15% line usage distribution to keep our better players from using as little energy as possible. Lastly, I played the game on very low throughout. I felt that we could have used our best on very high and still not have a high chance of success in this game. This was my main reasoning for using this strategy. He ended up going Very High the entire game. This resulted in us being outshot 67-8, having 8 penalties to his 1. Somehow we did not allow a single Power Play goal throughout. Ted Swartz was our lone hero with one goal, while Sam Cuellar manned the net to preserve Buster's energy.....and came up with a 95.52% save percentage. No matter, the end result was a 3-1 loss.

Our next test was Slovenia. I again employed the strategy from the Finland game. Our worst line up, playing time heavily leaning towards the lesser players and finally a very low energy usage. Slovenia used Very High/High/Low for his energy deployment. The result was us being out shot 48-15, having 7 penalties to his 2. We won the PP vs PK tactic set up and he still dropped 4 power play tallies. This time, no hero's showed up and we lost 8-0. Sam Cuellar dropped a horrendous 83.33% save percentage. This was a good ole butt kicking! The question now became.....was it worth it?

The last playoff game was against Spain. We could get in even if we lost, but I had no thoughts of giving this one away. A win guaranteed an entry to the top 8 tournament. I enlisted the best players we had left/including energy left, in a 3 line configuration. I wanted to put pressure on from start to finish.....this was a must win for me. Spain was a better team on paper. This is where my energy reserves would hopefully come into play. He started the game on very high and 4 lines through the first 3 periods. In overtime, he switched to 3 lines. Spain out shot us 37-26, we had 4 penalties to his 2. Luckily we won more tactics on special teams than he did. Bottom line, no Power Play goals were scored by either team. Ernesto Smith hammered home our only regulation goal and we went into overtime at 1-1. No goals were found in the OT, so a shoot out would decide it. There ended up being 7 rounds of shooters before a winner was declared. In those 7 rounds, Dylan Macon scored once and Gregory Hubbard scored on every shot attempt he took.....for a 3 goal super human effort....and winning the game 2-1. Of course, let us not forget the other superman in this game.....Buster Cusik came up with a 97.3% save percentage!! At this point, we had now made the World Championship playoffs!! We finished 3rd in our group and ended up with Brazil as our first opponent for the tournament.

For Brazil, I decided to play our best remaining 4 lines on very high. Again, I wanted to distribute any energy advantages we had, while still trying to keep enough for the next game.....if we won :0! We outshot Brazil 37-26, won the penalty battle with him taking 5 to our two. We did well on our special team tactics, but in the end, each team potted a PP goal. Once again, Gregory Hubbard showed up to play and slipped two goals past their tender, Ted Swartz, Charles Gann, and Rob Murphy lit the lamp once each. Buster threw up a 92.31% save percentage and the end result was a 5-2 win for the good guys!!

At this point, we were now in the top 4 group of teams left. 2 of these teams would advance to the Top Division. So, if we won our next game.....we were in.....however, waiting for us was our old friend Slovenia. This time I was not going to lay down. Again, rallying our best remaining troops, I chose to go very high with 4 lines. My thought process was that our 3rd line was not much better than our 4th. In addition.....using a 4th line can sometimes become an advantage as the game wears on. Your players tire a little less and can come up big late in the game. He went 3 lines on very high......and I knew if I tried to match him line for line.....we would be crushed. The talent he possessed outstripped us immensely. He won the shots on goal battle,37-12, the penalty distribution was 3 for him and 4 for us. No PP goals were scored. Rudolph Tinsley scored our only goal....but we lost a close one 2-1. Buster put in a heroic 94.59% save percentage. It just wasn't enough in the end. So close.....but the better team won. It was a worthy effort and I was proud of the team for coming this far.

So now we got bounced to the 3rd/4th place game against Bulgaria. In my tenure, I had not gotten the team to a 3rd place finish.....so this was an all in game for me. I did my best to study our opponent and got lucky....we hit him all three periods on the main tactics. We out shot him 36-20, won the penalty battle, 7 for him to 5 for us. We ended up with a power play goal from who else?......Gregory Hubbard. Jamal Lindsey completed the 2-1 victory with a goal of his own. Buster stepped into a 95% save percentage and the tournament was over.

The end result was; Slovenia and Finland both promoted to Top Division. USA finished 3rd overall, my best finish to date. It was not an easy road, but we seemed to close out the games we absolutely needed to have to move upwards. I want to thank everyone of you for the support and help along the way. It was a lot of hard work and especially fun this year.

As always, if there are any questions or concerns regarding the team, just ask. Lastly, as you may or may not know.....Medvescak 1983 seems to be leaving the game. He has a ton of USA talent on his roster. I am going to have to get creative to try and salvage as many prospects from his team as possible. This means I will need to make room on the squad to carry his prospects until they are sold. Depending when all that happens, will determine what I can or cannot do moving forward. I am hoping to have his players go to the market soon.....get them on their new teams.....and still leave me time before the second week of the season to pick up the players I want for this upcoming year. Unfortunately, we can't just lose his prospects and move on without trying to save them. We are already severely restricted on our National Team player pool. It is very important that we at least try to get his future USA National Team prospects to new teams (Hopefully good ones also). Yes, this could impact the Senior team negatively this year. I am making decisions I feel are best for the team in the long run. If there are issues or questions on this path, please bring it out so the community can discuss the problem and hopefully agree on the path to take.

If you have not noticed....our Under 18 and Under 20 teams did great this year. Make sure to take a look and give them a thumbs up. They both represented the USA community very well!!

OK, enough said.....Good Luck in the new Season and Thanks again for your support!!

HH

Great recap as always, keep up the excellent work!

Just a quick note here. According to the team folding rules......Medvescak will fold after 50 days of inactivity.....due to his pro pack ownership. By my count.....that means his players (who are on a National Team) are headed to market as early as tomorrow. If there are any under 20 or under 18 players still out there......you have today to pick them up. Try to put the word out and be ready.....as he will have some excellent players for sale. Ultimately, keeping them in the USA side of things would be nice. However, just as long as they go to a team with full staff and facilities is all I can ask for. Good Luck in your bidding......

HH

Another heads up.....this weeks line up is not what I would have liked. However, having to carry players from Medvescak has thrown off our L vs. R player types. I am having to play players not meant for their position to fill the line up out. Also, I do not want to play our very best players in a friendly game and lose even a small amount of energy. I am balancing the roster to get those with higher longevity the roster bonus. However, once his (Medvescak) players hit the market, I can get back to work on a balanced line up. Any questions....just ask.

HH

Well that was fun!

Got through the Medvescak sale......lot's of them stayed here.....which is great! Lost some to weaker teams.....but we did the best we could.

I also made final cuts before the deadline the next day. (Note: Just because these players were left off the USA team this year.....does not mean they may not be picked up in the future.....once they develop enough). We are starting to see some of our youth take great strides and move up the depth chart. Unfortunately, as the team becomes younger and younger, the number of available slots for new youth are becoming less and less. This is a good thing and was always part of the plan......but this leaves some great prospects on the sidelines. For those.....know this.....as the current USA National Team players age, their longevity may become an issue for some of them. If and when this happens, I will continue to switch out those who fall below our standards with any outside prospects that end up developing better. So, if you have a great prospect and he did not make the cut......don't sweat it too much......if he keeps his longevity/training/etc. up......and one of the present prospects takes a down turn (which happens all the time).....he will be selected at a later date. (I Hope that makes sense?).

Final player selection for this years team has been completed. I removed several players that aged out due to rapidly failing skills and strong competition from younger members. I had a few issues with fielding players exactly where I would prefer, due to Left vs. Right playing preferences. I do not consider this a problem because at this level......they are all relatively close in overall skills/strength.

I carried an extra forward this year as I could not find a good young defenceman that fit the mold/playing side/strong enough. In addition, for some reason last season, I had issues with our Centermen losing energy faster than our wingers during the playoffs. With that in mind, I chose to carry an additional C instead of a weaker defenceman. I am still looking for a left defenceman with the right combination to put into our friendly line up.

I have, as in years past, put the players with the best longevity remaining on the bench for our friendly line up. These are the additional 6 that should not see any friendly playing time.....but will still receive the training bonus each Saturday.

As in years past, I have left one spot open for possible pick ups later in the year.....in case of a team folding....or whatever need may arise during the season.

As always, If anyone has any questions or concerns, regarding any aspect of the team......or just wants to chat.....please feel free to contact me.

Lastly, I would like to Thank You all for supporting me as the National Team Manager for another year. I have chosen Manager Capsaicin, from team Momentum, for assistant manager again this year. His help has been invaluable to me. Know that he provides a significant amount of time and effort into all aspects of the team! With that......Good Luck to all in the new season!!

HH