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Deliberate Yapping #1 or: What a Great Media Piece Sees Before It Dies
#1
(This post was last modified: 01-19-2025, 02:52 PM by Lime. Edited 1 time in total.)

CHAPTER 0
???

I was reading through Troy McClure's "Random Ramblings lucky number 22" a few days ago when I felt something wasn't right. This was fake, plastic drama that the media was feeding us to keep us distracted. The lengthy advertisements at the bottom urging me to do a podcast (ew) or drink Lima Bean IPA. Now Lime a be-in serious when I say that this type of inorganic media is bad for the cultural health of the league. We need to hear the stories that the silent majority don't have the opportunity to get circulated in big weekly publications like Ramblings. So, I have decided to create my own independent publication with a unique ethos: find the story, don't wait for it to come to you. Luckily, I already have my first supporter in the form of McClure himself.

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With Troy's--can I call you Troy?-- approval, I set out to find what's really going on in the league. This is Deliberate Yapping #1.

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Timestamps are removed as not to confuse Americans because I use the 24 hour clock and everyone freaks out about it. Screenshots are otherwise unedited.



CHAPTER 1
THE GREAT DECEIVER


The first thing I noticed was that nobody wanted to talk to me. Scared of judgment, scared of repercussions, or just scared of the power that their words may have, many of the users I reached out to were unwilling to have a conversation.

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Some users even started to get suspicious of me.

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Clearly, something was keeping them from an open and honest discussion. I needed to get past the veil. Infiltrate the simulation bourgeoisie to find out what makes them tick and who is really running things out here. I had a hunch, but I needed to confirm it.

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Digging deeper, I found out that I actually didn't have much more money than he does, and people should probably mind their own business when it comes to other people's personal finances.

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But the implications were already clear. What the commissioner hadn't said spoke volumes about the power dynamic in the Simulation Hockey League. It was time to follow the money.

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The story was blown wide open, and the scheme was as crystal clear as ever. The rich mainstream media elites were conspiring to control the entire narrative of the SHL. Their first objective was to eliminate outside ways of disseminating information and questioning the status quo. The free-thinkers of chirper would be silenced and the only outlet would be dominated by the crushing weight of oligarchy-backed power-user infodump media.

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Delusions are evidently rampant in the upper echelon of the league. It was clear now that Deliberate Yapping was the only way to fight back, and I pressed on.



CHAPTER 2
PROVIDENCE AND THE MOONCHILD


The answers I was truly looking for were never at the top of the mountain anyway, they were buried in the dirt with the rest of us. It was time to do some serious investigation. What inspires us? Where are we going? What am I doing? My first stop was veteran user Artermis. He had recently retired his player, Petr Svoboda. Svoboda had a relatively quiet, but undeniably solid career hoisting the cup with New England and garnering two third-team All-SHL appearances and a Razov nomination. Still with 966 TPE, Svoboda could certainly have made a spot on an SHL roster if he wanted to. So why retire now? On the day of his retirement, I noticed something interesting--the moon was a waning gibbous. Researchers Gokhale and Kumar found that "There have been beliefs that the moon affects human behaviour in various ways" (1). The significance of the waning gibbous is remarkable. Self-styled "Moon Maven" Katherine Lee tells us that the "phase is associated with release, letting go, and surrender". Could Artermis have been influenced to finally give up on his aging player by the mysterious energy of Earth's closest celestial sibling?

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A dead end. However, I still wasn't convinced that everything was just as it seemed. I noticed that one SHL team in particular was having a surprisingly good run as of late. The Tampa Bay Barracuda were up 3-1 on the regular season titans in Atlanta. It wouldn't be the first time that a team looked to the occult for help. In the 1980s, Houston Astros player Jim Deshaies reported buying a spell book and reciting an incantation to break a losing streak (Calcaterra). With this in mind, I talked to the one man that could give it to me straight: Cuda GM Dwight Knight. Dwight and I go all the way back to 2023 when the Barracuda scooped Harrington up from a short stint in Toronto. As a huge fan of waterdog franchise legend Michael Fitted, I was elated to be there and I owe Dwight everything for the opportunity. If I had any chance, this was it.

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Though I had little reason to distrust Dwight, the initial evasiveness irked me enough to prod just a bit further.

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I feel in my heart of hearts that anyone with slightest of unsavory intentions would have easily fallen for the t-rex trap, and I relent. We spend the rest of the evening on more academic, philosophical topics before parting ways.

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CHAPTER 3
EASY MONEY?


Though I wasn't much closer to understanding or uncovering the league's deepest secrets, something good was happening. The conversations were starting to flow and things were just starting to make sense.

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I wanted to get into some more difficult topics to see how much I could get out of this emerging tailwind. Stalwart SHLer Puolivalmiste had recently put out a media piece titled "Is 66 games enough?" where he controversially located an expansion team in a place that many find utterly detestable.

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I felt good about reaching an understanding with Puoli. It was nice to be tangibly working towards a better media ecosystem. But what can we reasonably do to even the scales against Big Media and give smaller voices a turn at the microphone, preferably that also benefits me? I know when I'm looking for some kind of media to ingest, I tend to find myself clicking on videos or articles in all caps, or all capitals, that insist I urgently need to find out about something I hadn't previously ever thought about. This is commonly known as "clickbait". A 2021 study found that "the levels of arousal and curiosity of clickbait headlines are significantly higher than those of traditional news headlines" (Pengnate et al. 11). Could this be harnessed to give small-time content creators like myself an edge against the house? I asked someone that kinda looks like they know what they are doing, the Montreal Patriotes' very own Vice.

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A strike-out. Maybe I'll leave the media alone for now. This wasn't supposed to have an agenda anyway. Deliberate Yapping was just supposed to be going around and talking to the people that matter, viewers like you. Thank you.



CHAPTER 4
PEACE - AN END


It turns out that the SHL is full of incredible people. Who knew? Turns out we have some talented users in our midst. I was browsing the SMJHL media forum when I came across such a list of talented individuals, Fluw's "S79 Yukon Awards". I spied something interesting and ran with it.

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The conversation was quite confusing, but after a while it seemed that the Mount Logan trophy was possibly a misunderstanding... Fortunately, Kybel is in fact still a talented musician deserving of an award!

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It was about this time that I realized I had forgotten about an absolute goldmine of users to chat with and prebaked topics to approach them about. Chirper. Though it may not be here for long, it's still the most accessible route into the minds of SHLers. A post by ztevans caught my eye, and I'm glad it did.

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It turns out that ztevans' player Zach Evans used to play for the Detroit Falcons in the S30s. In S32, Evans and the Falcons would face the Kelowna Knights in the playoffs. During a presser prior to the series, Evans reportedly offered cookies to the Kelowna team as an attempt to "ease tensions". Fearing duplicity, Kelowna GMs warned their players against accepting the cookies. The Knights would ultimately prevail in the series and go on to win the Four Star Cup that season. Evans would never get another chance to best them.  48 seasons later, ztevans' newest player, Aslak Hestnes, would face a series against Kelowna as a defenseman for the Quebec City Citadelles. Hestnes was careful not to fire up the oven or get too tempted by the delicious world of baked goods in preparation. With an impressive 4-0 sweep in the series, ztevans finally secured his series win against the Knights. And so, the (theoretical) cookie curse was broken. Let this be a lesson to all: Leave the cookies for the regular season.

Well that's where the story was supposed to end. When checking the story out, I found no such playoff series seemed to exist in the S30s. According to the index, in S32 Detroit Beat Kelowna 4-2 and they went on to win the cup. I showed this to ztevans who denied this and produced the official history subforum post proving that the Knights were the victors that season. ztevans also noticed that the new timeline was identical to the S34 season. After discussing the issue with Luke, it became apparent that somewhere along the line the original STHS index for S32 was overwritten by the S34 index. A clumsy mistake, or an angry Detroit faithful determined to change history?

I wanted to find something nice to end on, and I found a chirp by Jess that I really liked the vibe of. I know I'm guilty as everyone of a quick nonsense chirp, but if we all tried to take the time to read and respond to each other's chirps I think that'd be neat.

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That about wraps up Deliberate Yapping #1. If you have read this far I want to apologize to you. I would also like to apologize to the media graders and everyone that I annoy on Discord. Especially Luke.



Works Cited

Calcaterra, Craig. “The Time the 1980s Astros Used the Occult to Stop a Losing Streak.” NBC Sports, 28 June 2013, www.nbcsports.com/mlb/news/the-time-the-1980s-astros-used-the-occult-to-stop-a-losing-streak. Accessed 19 Jan. 2025.
Gokhale, Mihika V, and Sunil Kumar. “Moon and Health: Myth or Reality?.” Cureus vol. 15,11 e48491. 8 Nov. 2023, doi:10.7759/cureus.48491
Lee, Katherine. “Spiritual Meaning of the Waning Gibbous Moon Phase in 2023.” The Moon School, 12 June 2023, www.themoonschool.org/moon-phases/spiritual-meaning-waning-gibbous/. Accessed 19 Jan. 2025.
Pengnate, Supavich et al. “Effects of Clickbait Headlines on User Responses: An Empirical Investigation.” Journal of International Technology and Information Management (2021): n. pag.


1702 words (not including works cited)
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Germany Berserkers Stampede Stars Barracuda syndicate Blizzard
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#2

Glorious

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Czechoslovakia PROFILE || UPDATE || RAGE. Rage 
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#3

Move over Luke, there's a new media king in town

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sig credit: Ragnar, Sulovilen, Enigmatic, Bayley
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#4

I

Uhh


I've been outdone.


You are the John Oliver and I am the Ed Helms

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Colorado Raptors Capitan S42-Until Forever!
Czechia Wants you! Ask about a transfer!!




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#5

The Ohio part what elite Media Shithousery

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#6

Incredible

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Florence Amélie Mackenzie | Vancouver Whalers | Player Page
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#7

MLA? I need to take a shower

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Credit to enigmatic, Merica, tweedledunn, and jaypc8237 for sigs



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#8

I read this in Chang's detective voice from Community and it added 15% extra comedy to an already amazing piece, great stuff Lime

“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. ... There are neither beginnings nor endings to the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.”

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#9

This is god tier media

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Thanks Jove for my sig
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#10

Amazing detective work, a modern-day Sherlime Holmes.

01-19-2025, 02:03 PMLime Wrote: [Image: l3Tg7un.png]

This last screenshot looks, fittingly, like you were aggressively interrupted


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Never forget
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#11

Kudos! This was an awesome read, also very fun talking to you :D

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#12

Didn't reach out to me, both a banker and member of HO, for the money section. Imagine what I know smh smh smh

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#13

01-19-2025, 09:03 PMUptownCord Wrote: Didn't reach out to me, both a banker and member of HO, for the money section. Imagine what I know smh smh smh

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Germany Berserkers Stampede Stars Barracuda syndicate Blizzard
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#14

dropping a works cited page like this was a college essay is peak

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#15
(This post was last modified: 01-20-2025, 10:55 AM by ztevans. Edited 1 time in total.)

An important follow-up to the cookie saga I shared with @luke.

https://simulationhockey.com/showthread....pid2152283

While it's difficult to say with 100 percent certainty without more context, it appears that at some point in the early 30s, our glorious SMJHL simmer at the time Allen, may the gods bless his journey wherever he may be in 2025, did an uh-oh and erased the STHS index from the S32 Kelowna Knights' championship run.

It was also while conversing with @Lime that I realized the Play-by-Plays from that era have either been archived or, as the kids say, yeeted entirely, so I couldn't show him the evidence of myself, Jenny and EJ (may the gods also bless their respective journeys) yelling about cookies while Kelowna kicked Detroit's ass in game four.

What might have been? What might still be? What never can exist? Truly thought-provoking stuff thanks to Lime's intrepid capital-J journalism here.

WITH THAT SAID: I do feel an obligation to note it wasn't a "curse" per se, as QCC's S58 Four Star Cup run with my third player, Zdenko Beranek, on the roster included a 4-1 series victory over Kelowna.

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