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Will3 · 04-10-2024, 11:52 AM

I love sim leagues. I have participated in a great variety of leagues of weird things from Rugby to Quidditch. No matter how many leagues I am talked into joining, my favorite leagues are always the hockey sim leagues. The Victory Hockey League is where I first started this ongoing adventure and remains the most important league to me. The Simulation Hockey League is another fun league that I have had much success in. Seeing what has happened to spring football lead to an interesting thought experiment, "What would happen if I were to merge the two best sim hockey leagues into one super leagues?" So I did. Over many pages of paper and much work with the old thinking cap, I merged the VHL and SHL into a ginormous league which I called called the WSH or World Simulation Hockey. These write-ups are a part of a three part series detailing my opinions and logic that helped me develop the technically possible but practically impossible sim league of my dreams.

Rules

A thought experiment this complex needs rules to simplify things. The rules I followed to reasonable combine two different league are as follows.

Rule #1. Only one team per city. No sim league has two teams in one city so my merged league can't either.

Rule #2 Major clubs erase minor clubs in the same city with the option for the major club to take on the minor club's branding. This rule result in an issue that will be explored later.

Rule #3 Best branding remains for cities that have a franchise in both leagues. I will explain my feelings the informed the identities I choose.

Rule #4 Brands not chosen can be considered for use with different cities. The purpose of this rule is to reduce the amount of new brands I have to create. No good ideas should ever go to waste.

Introduction to Minor Leage Teams

With the rules firmly established, I set to the task of fusing both leagues minor/junior leagues into a unified league. A quick explanation of each leagues and it's teams will serve as perfect a point of reference to compare against the end results. The VHLM is a ten franchise league split into two divisions, East and West. The clubs composing this league are listed below.

VHLM East

Halifax 21st
Mississauga Hounds
Ottawa Lynx
Philadelphia Reapers
Miami Marauders

VHLM West

Houston Bulls
Las Vegas Aces
Mexico City Kings
San Diego Marlins
Saskatoon Wild

The SMJHL on the other hand is a sixteen team league divided into Northern and Southern divisions of eight teams each. Those team are listed below.

SMJHL South

Carolina Kraken

Colorado Raptors

Detroit Falcons

Main Timber

Nevada Battleborn

Ottawa Highlanders

St Louis Scarecrows

SMJHL North

Anchorage Armada

Great Falls Grizzlies

Kelowna Knights

Newfoundland Berserkers

Quebec City Citadlles

Regina Elk

Vancouver Whalers

Yukon Malamutes

Results and Explanation

With all of the pieces on the board, I set out to my task of finding my reasonable mearger. The end product of my labor was a league I called the WSHJ or World Simulation Hockey Juniors. The WSHJ is a twenty-two franchise league split into Eastern and Western divisions of eleven teams each. A massive list of all teams is below.

WSHJ East

Carolina Kraken
Detroit Falcons
Halifax 21st
Maine Timber
Miami Marauders
Mississauga Hounds
Newfoundland Berserkers
Ottawa Lynx
Pittsburgh Forge
Quebec City Citadlles
St Louis Scarecrows

WSHJ West

Anchorage Armada
Colorado Raptors
Great Falls Grizzlies
Houston Bulls
Kelowna Knights
Mexico City Kings

Nevada Battleborn
Regina Elk
San Diego Marlins
Saskatoon Wild
Yukon Rush

The creation of the Pittsburgh Forge was an answer to the biggest problems I had to face. As per Rule 2, two minor clubs had to dissappear. The Vancouver Whalers (because of the VHL's Vancouver Wolves) and the Philadelphia Reapers. (because of the SHL's Philadelphia Forge) The loss of the Whalers created no problems but the loss of the Reapers did. When I boiled down the teams to available cities in compliance with Rule 1, I discovered two problems. The first problem was the fact I had twenty-one cities. The second problem was that western cities outnumbered eastern twelve to nine. To help fix both problems, I had these two different Philadelphia brands swap leagues so that the Reapers were the major club and the Forge were the minor club, then moved the Forge across the state, inadvertently doing the inverse of ancient hockey history history. A long time ago the was a NHL franchise in Pittsburgh that relocated to Philadelphia for a season before disbanding thirty-six years before both cities would receive the iconic clubs we know today. Relocating a Philadelphia team to Pittsburgh is strangely poetic, to me at least. Of corse several other location in the Eastern part of North America would have worked but I feel my reasons for doing so are sound, After having an even number of teams, I still needed even divisions so I had to misplace St Louis in the Eastern Conference. The was a snap judgment call on my end that does work.

Now to explain the reason for the branding I chose. Ottawa was a toss up between the different brands.The Lynx are the slightly stronger brand and thus won out. Also I do have other plans for the Highlanders branding. In the Vegas area, Aces may be the high card, but the victory belongs to the Battleborn. For San Diego, Tidal branding would have won out if the proper name for the ocean wave and not a name born of an incorrect notion was used. That bothered me more that it should have. Something I will have to rethink in the end. Yukon was the only team I rebranded completely from the original brand because name and logo given seemed. to be a legally distinct brand from a certain basketball college. Also the Rush were a successful VHLM team that was moved to the VHLE and later contracted that many have wished to return.

Conclusion

I feel like I have achieved what I hoped to accomplish with this experiment so far. I discoved challenging problems and found ingenious solutions towards building a technically sound but far too massive fusion of my two favorite simulation sports leagues. As my conclusions will not be the same as others, open discussion on what can be changed is always welcomed below. That or rant about my choices, either one will work. Next week, I will start the mearger of the major teams to create something massive.

Will3 · 04-10-2024, 11:57 AM

Yes, this is a copy of an article in the VHL forms I wrote, because it involves both leagues. If this breaks some rule, I don't need media pay. I just want people in this form to see this. That is all

***Frenchie*** · 04-10-2024, 12:59 PM

04-10-2024, 11:52 AMWill3 Wrote: Now to explain the reason for the branding I chose. Ottawa was a toss up between the different brands.The Lynx are the slightly stronger brand and thus won out.

Open discussion on what can be changed is always welcomed below. That or rant about my choices, either one will work.

Lynx over highlanders is a choice. On one hand, you have a random animal of no significance to the city (and is also the name of an already established minor league baseball team), on the other you have a storied military unit that goes as far back as the 1800s and that is synonymous with the scottish legacy in the city and the military tradition of it,. Bias aside, I don't get it. The general idea of the media is interesting nonetheless!

Also, the SMJHL is split in two conferences : North and South if that helps

***sköldpaddor*** · 04-10-2024, 01:00 PM

IDK I think a team identity that ties into the entire state has the edge for me over one activity within one city that also has ties to an addiction

***sve7en*** · 04-10-2024, 01:01 PM

The SMJHL is divided into two conferences.

***hockeyfan*** · 04-10-2024, 01:18 PM

Big San Diego shade

Will3 · 04-10-2024, 01:20 PM

I didn't know SMJHL had divisions. I appolgy and will correct it shortly. The Highlanders name will appear in this series later. And the Aces name also references ace pilots with Nellis AFB close to Vegas. The logo shows that clearer than I explained.

*NaomiMannequeen* · 04-10-2024, 01:38 PM

I think not going with the Battleborn is a take. While Vegas is known for its casinos and as you mention the ace pilots, the logo of the Battleborn being the state animal, the name being a reference to the history behind the state's creation and its importance in the Civil War makes it a much more impactful branding in my opinion even if it doesn't seem like such at first glance. Heck while I may not know too much about the branding of most teams, I think NBB has one of the best brandings in the entire SHL and J combined. Probably top 5 at a glance.

Will3 · 04-10-2024, 02:04 PM

Perhaps should have made it the Las Vegas Battleborn instead. I am not perfect. Also tidal waves have nothing to do with tides and my scientific side could never accept that as a brand.

I need to better contextualize my decision, do I?

**PapaSorin** · 04-10-2024, 02:19 PM

I'm also gonna call you out on the NBB snub. I know that you are in and are familiar with both leagues, but NBB is literally in the video ads for the SHL. The reach on that name/logo alone irl probably takes it.