Subject: young guns

that was a great pull for level 1 facility

Maybe I'm setting my standards low, but I'm with Obryantj... successful means different things to different folks. To me means getting to, and staying in, at LEAST division II. Side objective is to lend a helping hand to the US National team objectives by raising and training good quality players. If I can do both of those things, I'll be pretty happy.

Division I and winning the title would be nice and everything... but I'd rather enjoy the ride than worry about all that stress.

Anyways... the way I see it, division II is the minimum level where you need to be to have a league full of teams managed by people who actually play the game.

Hockey has gotten pretty boring for me, because I'm basically stuck in the lowest division. I only have 2 other "active" managers in my division, and while I'm not good enough to be in division II (without spending tons of money buying players), I'm wayyy too good to play against 17 "+" teams each season.

Having a consistent level of competition is success enough for me at this point. Maybe by season 10 in handball, my aspirations will be different. But I've got a ton of time to build up a "B" squad that makes me proud by then.

UFA's are your friend Lanky. You can upgrade your top 2 to 3 lines and goalies on the cheap within the first half of the season. Play them so they have the chemistry to match the experience and OTR ratings. You will win your league or at least be in a great position for the promotion battle. Leave the facilities alone for a season or two while you upgrade the arena. Then next season again upgrade the top line with UFA's as you continue to work on the arena. This will make you competitive in D2 within 2 seasons. Only issues are that you have to grind through a few seasons while you get your arena done, but the market is fun to play. Or just keep with your current system and develop within and snag a player or two when needed.

Yeah... I mean, I keep my eyes out for 15 year olds that are better than 300 OR with good quality and I try to snap them up for like $10,000. But I don't really bother with the UFAs. All that money I DON'T spend on players goes directly to upgrading my 'ish. I have better facilities than several teams that have been around several seasons longer than I have because of this strategy. Plus, I'm not the one who trained the UFAs, and some of them are pretty messed up.

I'm fine (in hockey) with playing the slow and steady (since I started so far behind, I might as well - "time" is the only enemy of the teams that started early on). That way, when I do advance and compete, it's more sustainable.

When I played hockey, I used to look forward to youth pull day. As it is upon us again tomorrow, I cannot help but dread it.

I know what you mean... It's like butterflies, but not good ones.

It's one of those things where you know that if you DON'T get a decent player, you're at a disadvantage going forward, because other teams out there will get one.

Very stressful indeed. It's usually finger crossing immediately followed by a heavy sigh or a shake of the head for me.

This youth pull was just so epic, I had to share...

oi60.tinypic.com/fmteh4.j...

I don't really care since it's the last pull of the season... but I'm pretty sure that's my worst pull, ever (at least in terms of quality).

I had about the same luck... had a pair of similar duds like yourself

you beat me by a hair, but just a hair
oi57.tinypic.com/2lcqqkk....


although i think mine could win it the worst pull as they are 5/6 CL

I think past 8 pulls, 7 of them have been like this.

Lee Huiskens

AvgQ 77 Q 81 93 78 94 84 64

So should I make him a Goalie or defensive back?

... you didnt list all of his qualities. Hard to give advice on those numbers alone.

Oh well thats because his speed and aggression were 60 and 63 so Im obviously not considering those.

both matter when trying to give advice on D or GOA though.

Assuming his stats are:

81 GOA
93 FiP
78 Shot
94 Blk
84 Pas
64 Tec
60 Spd
63 Agr

I'd probably train him as a defensive back (unless you're absolutely set there for the future).

You can do better than 81 GOA for a premiere goalie candidate.

What are his skills trained as right now? That would probably be the determining factor for me.

If he's currently trained as a field player, just keep training that. If he's trained as a goalie so far, it's more of a judgement call. If you think you need a goalie, go with that.

I seem to think you're fine in net though.

Yeah he is trained in field and I was going towards just training him for defensive back(which I need) but I wasn't so sure...

Seems like the definite thing to do now though.

(55 FiP 33 Goa)

i think his OTR is "too" low for you to consider not training at his initial position. If FiP is higher than Goa Id just train him as a back. Or else it will take much longer to develop him and you may never actually use him.

his shooting is good so Id train him as a balanced back with very high training ratio for both sho and blk. that would compensate the "low" technique quality.