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**JamesT** · 06-21-2020, 08:48 PM

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It is hard to believe that I have been part of the SHL for over two years now after seeing a reddit post advertising a simulation hockey league. I have never been part of anything like this before and when I saw the reddit post and read what the SHL was all about, I thought I would give it a shot and see how it is!

I joined in December 2018 and have been pretty active ever since joining. At first things were pretty overwhelming for me with learning how to navigate through the forums, how to do my training (this was before the current bank system we have now), filling out the interested prospect threads and knowing how to allocate my TPE into my player (this was when the SHL was still using the Simon T sim engine). Thankfully, the S45 rookie discord server had helpful members who were more than eager to answer any questions I had. If those members were not so helpful, there was a good chance I would have gotten lost and have quit the SHL all together.

After learning more how to navigate through the website, how to update my player and ways I can get more TPE I thought I was in good shape to be a great rookie to the SMJHL team that would end up drafting me. That team would be the Montreal Militia (now the Carolina Kraken

). I struggled for my first two seasons there, but in the S47 playoffs I managed to breakout and produced 4 goals, 9 assists in 12 playoff games. My next season (and would ultimately be my final one in the SMJHL) I produced 38 points in 50 games for the regular season. My biggest disappointments in the SMJHL would have to be not capturing the Four Star Cup and not staying in the SMJHL longer as I had become an important team in Montreal. If I do end up recreating a player, I look to spend as much time in the juniors as possible because the jump to the SHL is a big one and I found out quickly that once you're in the SHL, you are playing with the best of the best.

The Edmonton Blizzard

would draft me in the 4th round and 54th overall in the S46 draft. I was disappointed that it took four rounds for a team to draft me, but at the end it does not matter where you get drafted, but how you are once you are drafted and if you will be a good fit for your SHL team. Similar to my experience in the SMJHL, it took me a few seasons to get adjusted to the play style in the SHL and I struggled heavily. Edmonton is a marvelous city and has become my second home (my home town is Vancouver) the extreme cold weather is something that I wish wasn't part of Edmonton, but it is something that I have grown accustom to.

S49 was the season where we captured the Challenge Cup and that will be a season that I will cherish forever. I got to see key players such as Tommy Tuck, Tor Tuck, Hercules Rockefeller, Teddy Cuddles, Willy Mack, Tony Pepperoni, Terrance Nova and Brady McIntyre leading the way for a stacked Blizzard

team. Nobody expected us to even be a contender that year, but we silenced all the critics and proved that as long as you get into the playoffs, anything can happen and Cinderella stories do happen in the SHL.

The past two years I have gotten to see how dominant Tony Pepperoni and Julio Tokolosh have become in the league and the league has gotten to see first hand in S54 with Tony and Julio being in the top five of league scoring. I hope that one day I can produce as much as they can, but I know I have a lot of more work cut out for me if I want to be as dominant as they are.

S51 saw the Edmonton Blizzard

once again making it to the Challenge Cup Finals and this time we were up against the Hamilton Steelhawks

who had a stacked roster of lethal scorers. We came up short against the heavily favoured Steelhawks

but showed a lot of heart in our series against them. We would get a chance at redemption in S53 where we would face them in the finals once again, but they proved to be too much for us and defeated us in six games.

With the recent switch to the new sim engine with FHFM 6, I have been able to contribute more towards the team and with the helpful insight of @"TommySalami" he has helped our roster with recommended builds and how to best allocate our TPE when we got the chance to re-distribute our stats. Tony has told us which attributes are more important than others, but that is something that will remain a secret within the Blizzard

locker room.

This has been a summary of my history on the SHL thus far and I hope to continue being the best player I can be for the Blizzard

on and off the ice. Something off the ice that has been interesting is that I am a SMJHL media grader as well and have gotten my first taste of job experience on the forms. Initially when I first joined here, I only foresaw myself using the PT tasks to gain TPE (along with my player contracts). However, I would eat up my weekly training very quickly and unable to improve my player. Now that I am taking a bigger role on the Blizzard

and want to see myself improving, I have taken my first job on the SHL and getting to learn more about the SHL and the different ways people contribute to the community.

I believe I have a few good more years left in me, before regression starts kicking into me (around S60 according to Tony Pepperoni) so I need to make the most out of my prime years and help produce alongside Tony and Julio.

We have a good crop of young talent in the Blizzard

farm system and I am extremely excited when they get called up and get to see them in action. Currently this season we started out guns blazing, but we knew that was not going to be sustainable and we are now in a tight race with three other teams competing for first in the Western conference. However, the main goal is to secure a playoff spot and defeat each team we are matched against in the playoffs on our way to the Challenge Cup finals. I still feel very fortunate to have been drafted by a contending team each year and sometimes I wonder how differently my experience would be if I got drafted by another SHL team. Would I even still be in the SHL if I got drafted by a team that was in re-building mode or a team that had a lot of drama or shady management.

The present and future are looking bright for me as I am now a key player for the Blizzard

and have scored some playoff overtime goals. I hope to keep improving and help the Edmonton Blizzard