01-25-2020, 09:53 PM(This post was last modified: 01-25-2020, 09:57 PM by ztevans.)
[READY TO GRADE - 3,683 words]
After inspiration from The Athletic's NHL player poll, I decided to bring the concept to the SHL. Using a google form, I gave users the opportunity to respond to several SHL-related questions, ranging from popular users and dominant players to the future of the league and copypastas.
68 users responded to the survey, one shy of a very nice turnout. Still, it was an impressive number of responses, and provided a fun and interesting look at the league. Here are the results from that survey.
Who is the best player in the SHL?
After leading the league in scoring last season and finishing third in that respect in S49, Tony Pepperoni has garnered the respect of his peers as the best player in the league. Obviously, this is an honor that could change from year to year, but Pepperoni ran away with this vote entering Season 52.
“He's right up there in terms of top earners and right up there in terms of points as well,” said one Eastern Conference player. “Seems like an easy choice for me.”
One user was so adamant with his ballot, which included Pepperoni as Best Player, he sent it in twice. I’ll blame lag. Nonetheless, that user said of Pepperoni, “Top 10 goals and assists last year, lock for MVP, he’s a beast.”
Second place went to the polarizing Cameron Carter II, but only two users were brave enough to leave a comment explaining their vote and only one attached their name to it. The “anonymous” user who interestingly voted either Cameron Carter II or Boomcheck for every applicable category said, “He lead the league in shots and hits, first time ever by a player. He did it in the same season.”
A recreate currently in the SMJHL said, “I have converted to the church of CCII. Jodan himself is poised to have a fantastic season.”
Others receiving votes: Hippo Passamus (2), Luke Thomason (2), Mike Izzy (2), Robert Phelps (2), Corey Kennedy, Daniel Bischoff, David Vent, Igor Volkov, Nicholas Williams, “Not you,” Peter Larson, Rex Kirkby, Tig Murphy
Who is the most underrated player in the SHL?
Frankly, I’m not going to spend a lot of time here because the votes were spread very evenly and the only reason Cameron Carter II (who apparently isn’t that underrated if he’s the second-best player in the league) pulled ahead of the pack were two ballots who voted Boom/CC2 for everything. Probably a question to retire if I re-do this poll. Moving on!
Who is your favorite SHL user?
Man, was this one WIIIIIDE open. There are lots of great people on the SHL, even if we have trouble remembering it at times during our dramatic moments. Thankfully, a ton of them got recognized in this category, to the point that the Izzmeister receiving four votes was enough to take the win in the category.
Honestly, more striking than the reasoning behind any of these votes was how many people expressed their dismay they could only vote for one person. One, well, Buffalo player said, "I have too many i love all my Buffalo brothers." Another user said it was a, "Really hard choice out of so many people."
"39alaska39, caltroit, blastmeaway, wannabefinn all deserve consideration" said the user who voted for Wozy. "Close second is Bilbo, they're both great really," offered a user who voted for slothfacekilla. It goes on and on and carried over into our next question.
Lots of folks have had nice things to say about several users in this section. It was actually quite wholesome and heartwarming. Maybe we should just have anonymous compliment boxes as a regular site feature to counteract the Thunderdome negativity.
Anyways, SDCore ended up leading this vote, narrowly edging ahead of DrunkenTeddy.
“This is a hard one,” explained one user. “On one level you have the likes of JR and Eggy who have been going long stretches as key members of the site. But the sheer effort and time SDcore has put in as a junior GM and as a Commissioner is amazing these last few seasons.”
“Man has such a thankless job and does it to perfection,” said another user about SDCore.
While SDCore’s work is mostly up-front as a member of Head Office, Teddy often works in the shadows of making the forum work despite the best efforts of the Chinese and Rush. Those efforts have not gone unnoticed.
“The work he does behind the scenes is crazy, but I'm sure everyone knows that already,” said one user about Teddy.
Asked another user, “Who do we all turn to when the site goes down?”
Which user would you most like to drink a beer with?
This one was a little more complicated, because a LOT of people tried stuffing in the ballots with multiple names for this category. Cheaters! All of you! My favorite vote cast, which TOTALLY DID NOT COME FROM A SPECTER, listed “JoeK, Blast, Slash, TDZ, Sloth, SpartanGibbles, Luke.” TOTALLY NOT A SPECTER. I’m sure the other active Specters WHO ARE DEFINITELY NOT YOUR TEAMMATES, NOT SPECTER GUY will be very pleased about their omission, especially at the expense of guys like Luke who ACTUALLY AREN’T SPECTERS.
Now that I’m done burying SOMEONE WHO IS NOT A SPECTER worse than someone is going to get buried by Braun Strowman on Sunday, let’s focus on who did end up winning the vote (or at least to the best of my abilities to rectify these cheaty votes), Slappydoodle! As one half of The Big Slappy Hour, which often features beers shared with a Specter somehow left out of the above list in Bonk, it’s hard not not to imagine what it would be like to share a few cold ones with these guys when the mics aren’t hot.
“I just want to be on the big slappy with him and bonk,” openly admitted one former SHL GM.
This ended up being fairly evenly split. I fully expected this to be a resounding negative response, but the Yeses took it by a final tally of 35-31.
Those who voted No and took the time to comment still seemed open to the notion of their place in the league, and admitted it was a personal taste.
“Mostly out of laziness,” offered one user. “I am a stats guy, but I just haven't had the time/attention span to really look into it.”
Another user on a Western Conference team acknowledged they do not look at the raw date but, “I'll read media about it though.”
Only one user came down harshly on the advanced statistics in their commentary, labeling them, “Made up algorithms with dubious value.”
Most of the people who voted yes tied their response to awards voting, an often-discussed topic each offseason.
One voter, who cleverly called themselves “An Eastern Conference player ” said they look at advanced stats, “a bit, mostly because of awards stuff.”
Another user offered a Yes vote with some caution, saying, “They shouldn't be the main deciding factors for awards, maybe with a few exceptions. But many people have been robbed of a title just because the stats behind the stats favored someone else. But they are interesting stats.”
And, of course, one of our two BOOMCHECK FOR EVERYTHING VOTERS didn’t have the option to vote for Boomcheck here, but did take the time to write, “Cameron Carter II is the best player in the SHL.” Thanks as always for your valuable contribution.
If you could change one SHL rule, what would you change?
I’m not even going to bother putting up official “results” for this one. This question really didn’t work in a poll format rather than a conversation with voters to explain their stance and clarify what they’d change, and many people simply wrote one or two words about the rule they would change without actually explaining what they’d change.
Some of the gems in that category include…
-40 cap tpe max – Did you want to increase it? Decrease it? Get rid of it?
-Backup goalie rule – Increase the required starts? Decrease? Get rid of it?
-Minimum salaries – Increase the … you get the idea.
Still, a quick word cloud of the responses and comments (thanks for the idea, @tomasnz!) makes it clear what some of the pressing issues are.
Perhaps the recent Anaheim sanctions brought this to light just before the poll and there is some recency bias involved, but tampering has always been a controversial and divisive subject so it’s still not terribly surprising to see it feature prominently.
“Needs to balance that this is a multi-conntected community of users and players against the rights of GMs,” said one user. “Controling communication too tightly creates insulation and weakens the ties people have. Slightly looser tampering rules would boost activity I think.”
“It’s so unclear and contradictory,” said another.
The “cap” in the word cloud gets a bit of an artificial boost because the word applied to two common but very different suggestions – removing capped TPE and adjusting salary caps.
“Not sure if it's a rule per se, but capped tpe is a burden,” said one user. “Other successful leagues manage to operate just fine with having some tpe capped.”
One user wrote a whole damn essay on why there should not be a salary cap in the SMJHL, which may be an issue to address in an SMJHL edition of the Player’s Poll in the near future.
“think it results in teams being conservative with draftee contracts so they can chase down a contested FA with a huge offer and variance in contracts can lead to some rookies having a harder time starting than others purely based on what team they are with. Before the cap was reinstated, a flat maximum of 3M was sufficient and since it changes to accommodate the number of send-downs and rookies each year, nobody really has cap issues now unless they go hard on a FA. The ostensible object of a cap is to force teams to allocate a limited resource, but unlike real life, you never lose a player because of cap concerns, even if you've been fined. This makes the cap essentially a make-work obstacle for GMs that doesn't even succeed in getting all rookies paid more. A higher standard base salary for all rookies gets them paid and makes one less hoop for GMs to jump through.”
I have no shame including that whole response to throw myself an extra 100k or so. None whatsoever.
Which team in the SHL is best managed?
On the surface, it’s hard to argue with the three teams that emerged near the top of this poll based on their consistent success in recent seasons. However, I definitely should have phrased the question as “Other than your own, which team in the SHL is the best managed?”
Roughly 30 percent of votes were cast by someone who listed their username on their response and then voted for a team they were clearly connected to, either as a current or former player or GM. It’s safe to assume somewhere between 35-50 percent of you assholes voted for yourselves once you factor in the number of people who left their responses anonymous.
The end result? More teams received votes as the best managed team than we even allow in the league playoffs, and the teams with the highest number of actives (which, to be fair, is a sign of good management) clumped together evenly at the top, probably only artificially limited in their votes by silly things like “You can only have a certain number of players on your roster to vote for yourself.”
I expected better from you all, class. I’m terribly disappointed. Moving on!
Which SHL user is the best chirper/trash talker?
This one quickly turned into a runaway, and I don’t think anyone will be surprised. Love him or hate him, WannabeFinn is always bringing the heat on the forums.
“He’s been at it for a while and is very savage,” said one user. “He cracks me up lol. And IIRC I usually agree with him,” said another who apparently has memory issues and can’t actually recall whether or not they usuall agree with Finn.
Pretty much everyone else was an honorable mention in this category, but a few users received multiple votes. Regarding jruutu, one user said, “I swear he's 90% just trolling but he gets people so riled up.”
HI, yes, written media still exists. Congratulations if you’re still reading at this point.
In general, the media categories generated some of the weaker response rates. Written media isn’t plentiful, and not everyone wants to sit through an hour-long podcast about fake hockey, forget all of the podcast offerings the SHL has. But Luke rose above the shit to be the least shit … and then nobody even said a single nice thing about his media, such as his elaborate trade trees or detailed analyses. So yeah. Media is thriving, y’all.
Others receiving votes: aaronwilson (2), Boomcheck (2, yes, still the same two jackwagons who voted Boom for everything), 5ympathies, Alex Mack, BDonini, bilbo, Ferda, FinnRhys, jRuutu, karlssens, Leoben, Lunatyck, “Me” (2), PenKnight, RomanesEuntDomus, Roastpuff, Rush, sharksisback, Shiny, Tate, TheHockeyis, ToeDragon84, uhh (At least I’m assuming this was a vote for the user and not one of the many variations of ‘idk’ or ‘people write media?’ I received).
What is the best SHL podcast?
T
This was a particularly fun category to tabulate, since everyone has a different name for their favorite podcast or couldn’t decide whether to list it by show name or host name(s). Still, it was clear that the longest-running podcast in SHL history was also the site’s favorite.
“Two old dudes drinkin beers shootin' shit,” said one user. “Fun stuff.”
Coming in second was the JoeKast, carrying the banner for the easy to record but difficult to master solo podcast format.
“Not normally a fan of one person shows,” said one user. “But I think his is surprisingly engaging.”
That’s a very subtle way to throw shade at me, sir and/or madam. I respect it. I also respect the one user who was definitely brown-nosing with his vote for the Podcast of Regret.
“You're the only podcast I know of so you've gotta have the best one.”
Keep it that way, partner.
Lots of podcasts received singular votes. Even podcasts that have only recorded one episode. Or podcasts that hadn’t recorded an episode yet when their vote was cast and totally not by one of the hosts. Or one that I’m pretty sure straight-up doesn’t exist.
Others receiving votes: Class of 52 Podcast, Czech Mate Podcast, Cuddles and Cain, Drive Home Podcast, The JR Cast, Life on Autopilot, Notorious Nerding, Old Man Jokes, Taterade, The Boats, “The one that talks about CC2.”
Which SHL user is the best at graphics?
One user voted “No idea” but offered as commentary, “I’m sure a certain GM will get annoyed if he doesn’t win this.”
We won’t get to find out. He won in a landslide. Long-time resident Sig God Wasty simply ran away with this question, effectively taking half of the submitted votes.
“He has some sexy graphics and not just sigs,” said one user. “The logos he has made are killer.”
“I like that he pays attention to jersey details,” offered another.
While he hasn’t been as active lately, all around good guy and Macao Sharks logo creator Karey still had a strong enough body of work to slide into second place.
“Only name i can really relate to graphics,” said one Karey supporter. “There's a lot of good folks.”
Do you approve of the current format for Play-by-Plays?
The results here are a bit deceiving. "Yes" was the leading vote-getter, but ultimately 57 percent of responding SHL users want to see changes to the play-by-play system in some capacity. I'd have to admit I was surprised to see so many affirmative responses.
"It’s closest thing to a real event," said one user who voted in favor of the current system. "It drives interaction (a video game sim would not), and allows for creativity. The only tricky part is blocking out an hour of your day to watch your team slowly lose.
"It will never be perfect but it is what it is," added another. "I'd say maybe give stricter guidelines on how presentations should be done."
Those who want them removed entirely lament that it is TPE for a select number of users over a product that, in their eyes, isn't that entertaining.
"Move the +8 tpe somewhere else so everybody has a chance to earn them," said one user. "PBPs are dumb. It's like watching a game via push notifications on your phone when someone scores," said another.
Many people who believe there are too many TPEs shared the sentiment that some are done with minimal effort by those hungry for TPE.
"Some are good, some that drag on for hours need to go, people that do it on their phone is a big no no," said one user. Another added, "A little annoying when you have someone who signed up for a PBP do it on their phone for whatever reason, so I would say limit the chances for that."
"I think PBPs are cool when the right user does them. You get the guy who only does it for the TPE and it’s not a good read or too slow."
On a scale of 1 to 10, how optimistic are you ahead of the league's potential move to a new sim engine?
The poll respondents are overwhelmingly positive regarding the potential move to Franchise Hockey Manager in the future.
"Too low of a number," said one Eastern Conference player. "Needs to be 9999999999999999."
"Looks like a great opportunity to bring some build diversity to the league," offered another user. "Looking like it'll be really fun."
There was definitely little middle ground on the topic, however.
"We're fucked," offered one ray of sunshine.
"Same people that created problem responsible for fixing it," said another.
What is the worst SHL copypasta?
This one proved pretty impossible to tabulate, but I really just wanted a fun question to wrap up the survey. Some highlights!
A large number of responses started with "any" or "anything." As in, "anything from boom or whatever that dudes name is" or "Anything Nipplenuggy does."
Long lost user mpclardy's University of Houston rant still has staying power, with four people referencing it even though it happened before I ever joined the SHL.
The leading vote-getter, with nine people referencing it?
LIFE.
"It's overused as fuck. Not funny," said one user.
"Dude its just so long," said another user, as well as the infamous She.
If you've made it this far, thanks for joining! I hope you've enjoyed it, and plan to make future (and probably shorter) surveys for other league aspects such as the SMJHL and IIHF!
01-25-2020, 10:00 PMLeppish Wrote: Not gonna lie, kinda dissapointed people don't want to have a beer with me, i'm great beer company!
I know the feeling
Sad but true: Every vote I included for "Bonk" in that question was a response that actually said Slappy and/or Bonk. Nobody even wants to drink with you if Slappy's not there apparently.
01-25-2020, 10:05 PMBonk Wrote: I know the feeling
Sad but true: Every vote I included for "Bonk" in that question was a response that actually said Slappy and/or Bonk. Nobody even wants to drink with you if Slappy's not there apparently.
ztevans![[Image: chart.jpeg]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/508650774289448962/670780369833820245/chart.jpeg)
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maybe seasonal or once every couple seasons
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PROFILE
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