First of all, my apologies for spamming the SMJHL media section.

That's a lie, I'm not sorry, I do it all the time.

Second of all, I have no idea why this ended up getting to be so long. It’s become just like a history of what I’ve done on this site. So just don’t bother reading it. Or ctrl+f for “Then that changed“ and just read from there because that’s where the ponies start. Or there’s a tl;dr. ANYWAYS.

I originally wanted to title this "Why Joining the SHL Was the Best Decision of My Summer," but apparently that's a super long name, and there's a "character limit" or something like that so I can't actually name it that. But let's just assume for the sake of argument that I was, in fact, able to use that title because joining the SHL was the best decision I've made this summer.

"Why is that?" you might be asking yourself. More likely than that, you're probably asking yourself, "Why the fuck won't this guy ever shut up?" Well you're reading this right now, so clearly you're somehow interested in what I have to say.

Either that, or you're just here to yell at me for one of multiple things. If you're here to yell at me, let me cut that off at the pass:

Quote:Originally posted by Angry Person Number One+--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1' id='QUOTE-WRAP'><tr><td>QUOTE (Angry Person Number One)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Why do you always post so much god damned media?[/b]

Because I'm bored and have nothing else to do when it's slow at work, and media articles are fun.

Quote:[i]Originally posted by Angry Person Number Two@
Why should we care what you have to say?

I don't know, but if you don't care this isn't the article for you.

<!--QuoteBegin-Angry Person Number Three[/i]
Don't you have anything better to do?[/quote]

See my answer to the first one.

Now that that's out of the way, let's get started on what I actually came here to write. Why I love being a part of the SHL.

Our story today begins back in May. Based on when this site says I joined, it was probably the twenty-sixth of May, though there's a good chance it was the twenty-fifth because I know I took a while to decide whether to join. Either way, I was watching the NHL playoffs at the time. Two teams were playing at the time. I know the Lightning were one of them, so I'm guessing it was the Eastern Conference Finals against the New York Rangers. Whether it was or it wasn't, that's irrelevant to the story.

I was partaking in my usual NHL playoffs activity - only kind of watching the game that was on the TV in front of me, while actually diverting most of my attention to my laptop, which was currently open to reddit - a website which was, at the time, still run by Ellen Pao. I was in my favorite subreddit, /r/sabres. We didn't really have anything to talk about - our season had ended long ago, and all of the conversation about the season's end had already died down.

There weren't many new posts. A Jack Eichel highlight reel, questions about what number he might possibly wear when the season were to begin (as it turned out, he would pick his draft year of 15).

That was when I saw it. The top post on /r/sabres, which had been posted there Romanes Eunt Domanes X. Or something like that, I dunno. I'm not that great with latin. It's easier to just call him David Winter now that I actually know who he is. Or Old Man Winter. Whichever you prefer.

That post was about some website. The "Simulation Hockey League" is what it was called. Essentially, you created your own player, then you got to guide your player through his career. "An RPG for jocks?" someone asked, and Winter replied affirmatively. It sounded like a pretty fun idea. After all, what else was I going to do this summer? Most summers I just went to work, then came home and played video games alone. It’s fun, but it gets kind of monotonous when you’re never really dealing with other people outside of work.

So I decided to sign up. I didn’t really think I’d stick with it. I’d fool around with it for a couple of weeks, but I figured I’d grow tired of it by the middle of June. Maybe the end of June, but there was no way this simple little text-based hockey simulator could ever hold my attention for longer than that.

Boy, was I wrong.

When I first joined the site, I was pretty lost. I ended up contacting Winter on Reddit and asking him for help because I really didn’t know what the hell I was doing. He was really friendly about everything, and through messages back and forth on reddit I was able to figure out how to actually make a player. I made my player an offensive defenseman, because I’d always thought the defensemen that could put up big numbers from the blue line were some of the best players in the NHL, and waited for approval. In the meantime, I nosed around the site a bit. I did the first point task, fucked everything up, and had to get help from Winter again on how to do an actual update thread.

Then things got a little boring. There was nothing to do on the site. I think at one point I played one of those mini golf games we have in the arcade section in an attempt to get over 1,000 points. I forget if I succeeded or not. I think I did. Eventually, I decided I really didn’t feel like I was a part of the site. I didn’t like going to the general threads (and still don’t, just not my thing), and there wasn’t really anything else to do. I debated just quitting, and letting my player become one of the many inactives on the site. But then I got a message from some guy named princekyle. The message was something like this:

Quote:Something, something, something, something Propsects Tournament something something something Lions something something something Games something something something Will Talk To You Soon

I’m pretty sure I captured the gist of his message.

So after receiving his message, I decided to stick it out for a bit longer. I mean, a tournament? Does that not sound like fun? It certainly did to me. Most importantly, it meant that I was going to finally get the chance to play a game, and see how this whole league actually worked rather than just trying to fumble my way through the darkness.

So the tournament started, and I got to see how we did in the first games. Well, to be completely honest, trying to figure out what was going on there was miserable. I had absolutely no clue what was going on. But eventually I stated to realize that game readouts weren’t all that bad to understand, and I began to pick up on things. I started recognizing player names, and noticed that I was synergizing really well with this other defender named Colin Wood. I wrote a few media articles (they were probably around 500 words or so, god knows they weren’t anywhere near as long as the stuff I wrote now), and those player started showing up on my articles and commenting on them. “This is pretty cool,” I thought to myself. “I should write more of these things.” So I did. Then I started hanging out in the rookie chatzy, where I realized a lot of my teammates were hanging out. I ended up really bonding with two of them in particular, two guys named Luke Fleming and Zack Hoover. Other Lions would show up in there, and we all grew really close as a team. Prince himself would show up in the chatzy from time to time, and everyone always greeted him excitedly – to us, he was like a legend. He seemed to know everything, and he’d put together a team of players who loved to play together, and seemed to be almost unstoppable.

Well the prospects tournament went on for a while. I got to do my first play by play, which was so much fun. But of course we lost that game, so that was it for the tournament. On to the draft, then. We really didn’t know what to expect, but come draft day we were all crammed into that Chatzy talking to one another, trying to figure out who was going where. Whenever someone in the Chatzy was drafted, the entire thing lit up. Every single person started spamming that guy’s name (or in Hoover’s case, just “Hoooooooov” and it was so much fun. I felt like I was a part of the group for the first time.

I ended up going to the Falcons, and there I met some of the greatest people. Mook, mpc, carousel, burkie, Pejonis, Kekkonen, Lemieux, everyone. They were all so helpful along the way, and I was so glad I got to know them. We didn’t talk much at first, and we really weren’t close at all. Like, we didn’t say more than two words to each other.

Then that changed. The first point task went up, and Carousel was the first one from the Falcons to get to it. The words he wrote have since been immortalized in Falcons history, but let me summarize that for a moment:

Quote:The Detroit Falcons had a hazing incident. There were pony costumes. Everyone had to wear one and dance around. Clayton loved it, and without hesitation put on a costume. It was weird but here’s a picture of us

The entire team sat there reading that, and was like “. . .what the fuck.” Then I wrote mine, as a continuation explaining what happened to me since I didn’t care about the original hazing incident. Then Lemieux wrote his re-telling of the incident. Then Stonehands (who we all miss dearly) wrote about how afterwards he was hazed further by having to dye his beard in a rainbow and had a weird night with mpc.

And our team bonded around the fact that we all found Carousel’s hazing incident hilarious. Girard made a sig that he wanted us all to use, and while only one person actually used it the My Little Pony hazing has defined the Detroit Falcons as Team Brony for now and for always.

And now I’ve continued getting to know people on this site, but not just their player personalities. I’ve been talking to a lot of people from the SHL on skype, and spending time with them playing various games – some of which I’ve played before, and some of which I haven’t.

I spend just about every afternoon and evening after work now talking to people both on the site, and people from the site through means that aren’t the forum. And I’m loving it. Without this site, I’d just be going home every night and going nothing, alone. You guys are great, and I’m so glad that I found you and that you’ve accepted me in as a part of this wonderful thing you have going on here.

I love that everyone on this website is so friendly and welcoming, and that’s pretty much what I’ve been trying to get at by telling this long story. I wouldn’t still be here today if not for people reaching out and helping me, and people trying to make sure that new players can get involved in the site as soon as possible.

I look forward to entering the next phase of my time on this site as the SHL draft draws nearer and nearer by the day. If the people on my new team are anything like the people on my current team, being a part of the SHL is going to keep on getting better.

Thanks to everyone for making this such a fun place to be!

Tl;dr: SHL is good time.