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AJW · 12-04-2024, 09:09 PM

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen. My name is AJW and I am new-ish to this league, recreating for the second time after not having a player for quite a while. My return to the league has been super easy with a lot of helpful and nice members showing me the ways and answers any problems I may run into. Since first rejoining the league this past weekend, one name stuck out to me more than the others with his kind greetings and activity. I took it upon myself to interview this member, for one: personal benefit (media pay), and for two: to ask some random questions to one of the veterans in this league to get answers I still look for, and insiders on what this experience truly does feel like. Within this interview are 7 questions, each followed by my interviewee's response, and then a short bit of what I think about each answer they give me. Without further ado, please enjoy my interview with the New England Wolfpack's GM, @luke !

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1. Since rejoining the SHL after a few seasons away from the league, one username stuck out to me already with engagement on the SHL discord server, as well as even replying to my first media post since coming back. This user is obviously yourself, Luke, and it has made me feel a warm welcome since recreating my new player, Brett McMann. I notice that you are a veteran to this forum, joining 6 years ago in July of 2018, as well as having many successes with the New England Wolfpack. In your opinion, what is the greatest thing or things about this forum/discord? Personally I have extremely enjoyed the player portal with all the new updates I have missed.

"I think the pinnacle of the SHL is the Player Portal. It makes recruiting and keep players way easier. Was a huge labor of love and continue to be that labor of love to improve the thing. But for the most part, it has everything you need as a starting point. In my eyes is the best player portal out of the sim leagues. In terms of design and what's in it. Other than that I would say the index as well that we had for a while. In terms of how good the index looks, and the information in there. Compare our index to any other index's in the sim league universe. The design and navigability of it is super impressive"

- Myself and Luke can definitely agree, the player portal is AWESOME! I do enjoy the many different aspects of it, and coming from the VHL, I can for sure say there is a lot more to do on this portal than the one over there. Don't get me wrong, I love the VHL and it's portal, but I feel there is way more to explore with the SHL's.

2. As a member who is recreating for the third time, with two previous players having successful SMJHL careers and non-existent SHL careers (I’m talking about myself), what is your best advice for me to show GMs of both leagues that I am determined to make my current player my best one yet, and not just retire again?

"I think the best advice is to just say like hey this is why things didn't work out last time. This is why I'm planning on sticking around this time. Just something that shows that you are here to prove people wrong. I think this is a great way to try to reverse the perception of you I guess. Mention on what circumstance this time which would make you more consistent. Then at the end of the day, its just proving the GMs that doubt you. Best way to show GMs is just do it. Get involved in the league as well. I'm sure things will go well this time Smile

"

- Honestly my biggest fear when re-entering the SHL would be what my future GMs would think: "He goes IA", "He's not consistent", "He's not a reliable pick". But, Luke is right in the sense that I need to just show these GMs what I am capable of, and to keep showing them to earn that trust back that some may have lost towards me as a member. The biggest pain I still feel is leaving Toronto to go to Texas with my first player, looking for a new environment (there was nothing wrong with Toronto) and then once I entered Texas I still ended up going IA. I am hopeful that I will stick around here even if it's small contributions each week. I used to think these sim leagues were to be treated almost like a job with maximum earning each week... but in reality it's all about having fun, even if you aren't a max earner, or even if your bank account isn't one of the highest, just do your best to have fun.

3. With your veteran experience comes a lot of stories, experiences, and memories. Off the top of your head what has been the best experience so far since joining the SHL?

"My best experience is winning my first cup in the SMJHL. the S43 season where the Vancouver Whalers won that cup was awesome. the Locker room, how the season went. Just everything involved was the microcosm of what the SHL is all about. Having your player do well, the locker room is tight, and the GMs who care about winning. Just everything that makes the SHL great. My other favorite moments is my S52 cup win as co-gm of the Manhattan Rage. The final STHS cup. And then starting SHN in S53 was super fun. Outside of the sim and everything. Doing the SHN and doing articles with a lot of the S53 draft class was super rewarding."

- I still remember my first Four Star Cup with the Newfoundland Berserkers and I can say the same thing about being part of an amazing locker room with great GMs. I really enjoyed my time in the SMJHL with that team and all the amazing people part of the organization who weren't even part of the roster. It is cool to learn that this league used to run through STHS before changing to SHN, VHL still uses STHS and there are obviously ups and downs about that program... my least favourite is how it still does not track giveaways and takeaways.

4. As an SHL GM yourself, what are some of the top qualities you look for in a prospect throughout the drafting process?

"The top qualities I'm looking for is pretty simple. Is the user a good person and someone who would fit well in the locker room. The locker room is everything. Curating one makes it much easier to keep players on your teams, keeping players active, and just making the SHL fun really. Then I'm looking for their TPE earning ability or potential. Letting them know what it takes to be a max earner, and if the want to be that. Its great if they do, but I've spent a lot of 1sts and 2nds and those who don't max earn but just earned consistently across their career."

- It is nice to hear that personality goes above anything throughout the draft process as let's be real, you're interacting with the person behind the player for the next however many seasons, not the actual player itself. I've GM'd in the VHLM (minor league of the VHL) and the biggest thing I used to always tell myself is to draft people with personalities over anything. The TPE will always follow behind if said person is in a good environment, and I always tried to create the best environment for my team! I do feel your pain as well with 1sts and 2nds not being used to their full potential, but I also think it is good to have someone not max earning but staying consistent instead of going IA (literally me when I was drafted to Toronto R1 P12, went IA after that).

5. What has been your favourite season in the SHL so far and why? Has it been with a player you have created? Or has it been with the SHL team you GM?

"My favorite season would have to be S70. Just because we were the underdogs going into the playoffs. We were just starting to become good. We traded for R1cebowl and Artemis in order to be that next push into being good in the playoffs. We had a good season! Then heading into the playoffs. We went to game 7 in all 4 rounds. and all of the game 7's we came out on top. Beating teams we had no business of beating. But for some reason we found a way."

- Going to four game 7's in one playoff and winning them all deserves a massive round of applause. I feel the sim must've been giving your team a tease before revealing the trophy at the end. That sounds like a blast as well as a rollercoaster not only for yourself but the whole team part of it. At the end of the day you have to be good to be lucky, so even if those game 7's were luck... then there you go.

6. When I joined the SHL I was exploring the Create a Player Page and was hit with a bunch of attributes to choose from when upgrading my player. Obviously certain roles come into play when choosing which attributes to upgrade, but in your opinion, what are the top attributes to upgrade?

"Top attribute to update is a couple ones. I would say Getting Open, Strength, Offensive Read and Defensive read are important for any player. But Overall a balanced build is the way to go until you have enough TPE to specialize. The role that you play that we set in FHM is more important than everything."

- It's good to hear that of the top 4 attributes you listed, I have 2/4 at 13 (my highest current attribute), and the other 2/4 shortly behind at 11. I would like to create a Power Forward build and I'll be following the helpful exclamation marks that the Portal offers, but if my GMs don't play me in that role I won't be unhappy... I'm trying to upgrade a balanced build like you said until I reach the SHL much further in my career.

7. Lastly, if you had to choose one source of income in the SHL forever, which would you choose, media or graphics? Is there an advantage to either one?

"The #1 source of income is podcasting. Podcast is the easiest way to earn money when you are all about earning as much money as possible. For the amount of effort it takes vs the money output is the best. 1 hour of work for 2.8 mil if you do it with another person. or 4.2 mil by yourself. For 1 hour of work, you can get the money you need for a season in 3 or 4 hours."

- Honestly I've never been a podcast guy since I never know what to say or more importantly know enough about the topic I'm talking about. Maybe once I dive my nose a little deeper into the SHL I could take a crack at podcasting. For now I would 100% say that medias are my go to as it's a lot easier for me to put words onto paper once they get going through my brain, and of course I can correct my mistakes after unlike speaking.

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And that concludes my interview with Luke! To Luke: I want to say thank you for being open to this interview and I hope the questions were fun to answer, I appreciate you taking the time to help me out with it. You gave some great answers and I even learned a couple things about the league while doing it!

This was fun for myself and maybe I'll interview someone again in the future. My questions to Luke didn't take a long time to think of and are pretty generic, so I'm hoping the next one can have more personal questions, if I do a next one! Thank you for reading if you did!

**Lime** · 12-05-2024, 06:32 PM

hi aj

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