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FuzzSHL · 08-03-2019, 02:15 PM

(Ready to grade // 2507 words // 2x media)

I've been looking forward to this moment. I can't quite remember who it was, but I remember before my first draft I mentioned to someone that I wanted to one day be a part of management. Whether it was scouting or actually being a General Manager, it was an ambition. It was a goal that I thought would have been reserved for later in my career, possibly closer to my second player. I never thought I would be managing a team so soon, yet here we are.

The days leading up to the announcement were filled with anxiousness. This was a chance that I didn't know if I'd get again. An SHL spot likely wasn't opening up and even if it was, the Specters is where I wanted (and still want) to end Michael Fox's career. I was excited, almost too much for my own good. I had a few people telling me not to worry, just take things as they come. And then it happened. I got the message from @grok saying I got it, while another jokingly telling me better luck next time.. Thankfully the former was true, and I had a draft to prepare for.

But....I had some spots to fill, some questions to answer. Who would Co? Who would be on the staff? What did I have to work with? How would the team react? Those would have to be answered, and soon. Especially with the Reddit class looming.

First up, the team. From the members in the locker room, it was a warm welcome. Not much was said in the announcement thread outside or congratulations (which were very nice to see, by the way), so it was a smooth transition into the team. @BarnabasCollins and @gillon set me up with what they had kept track of. Things were starting to get set into place.

I'm not a person who likes confrontation. As impossible as it can be, I want to make everyone happy. That was, and will be, the impossible task in front of any GM. Not only in this league, but in other sim leagues and in real life leagues as well. Sometimes moves will be made that is an attempt to make one person happy, but it ends up making someone else upset, and we have to live with that. This is especially noticeable in job applications on the site, especially when you have deserving people apply who get passed on.

But life moves on, and so does the league. @SpartanGibbles deservedly got the Anaheim General Manager spot and despite what we saw from the announcement thread, @MCP_ deservedly got the Vancouver job. He's going to do well, and I'm sure the people around him know that. With @Winter is Coming getting the SMJHL Head Office position as well, I knew who I was getting as my Co. @"cpetrella" and I had been talking about this possibility for a while, and there was no hesitation in getting that finalized. Next up: the rest of our staff. With Halifax's staff making some cuts and a Montreal alum who was interested in joining, Trella and I instantly made the decision to bring on @slothfacekilla and @CampinKiller. Personally, I could not be happier with the staff we were able to get. Sloth is a close friend and is amazing with the rookies, and CK, well, who better to help with builds than a simmer?

Now that staff was sorted out, the next and biggest step in the process was the draft. And not just any draft, but a Reddit draft.

A few days of editing spreadsheets and sending messages and conversations all culminated in....a 5 minute delay to the start of the draft. No biggy, a few more minutes to get rankings together and try to set up a gameplan. We had a few guys in mind, I mean hey, we're picking 4th, right? We made a top 4, knowing that no matter what, we end up with someone we were very high on.

Then Kelowna......well, kind of took a lot of people by surprise. @Naosu is well deserving at 1st, but I can't say anyone I had talked to was expecting it. 2nd overall went as expected, and 3rd was one of the two we thought could've gone, but we were left with an interesting decision at 4. Our top two guys were available, we had to make a decision.

That decision was to try and trade for 5. We had discussed this possibility before the draft started: if our top two guys were there at 4, try to get 5. Lethbridge was a part of the big four-team deal before the draft and had 3, 5, and 6. Hoping one of their guys got taken, we tried to snag 5 to get both of our guys.

".....Maybe after you pick 4 we'll see..."

"With the Fourth Overall Pick in the Season 49 SMJHL Entry Draft, the Montreal Militia are proud to select......Bobby Lane!"
Our top guy dropped to 4. @Rich was our top guy from the beginning. As badly as I wanted to go first gen, I hadn't heard a single bad thing about him. He is a veteran of the site, and hey, this was a reddit draft. If my top rated first gen was taken, there were still a ton of players on the board after 4. If I could get Rich in the locker room, he would definitely be a guy to help out with any possible first gen who needed help.

With Lethbridge staying pat, picks 5 and 6 came and went. With one of our guys going with one of those picks, we had our answer for who we wanted at 7.

"With the Seventh Overall Pick in the Season 49 SMJHL Entry Draft, the Montreal Militia are proud to select......Joseph Weston!"
Now, we had heard very good things about some other first gen players, but @ACapitalChicago was one guy who instantly stood out to me. He had a good grasp of how things were going and was very active in the rookie discord. He was open to advice and constructive criticism and asked some very good questions. We didn't want to risk him not being there at 13, and we are very excited to have him on board.

The draft then kept on with more first gens being taken, seemingly all of our picks being snagged one by one. Before we knew it, we were on the clock again at 13. Another tough decision on our hands, it was a coin flip, but we made our pick and do not regret it for one second.

"With the Thirteenth Overall Pick in the Season 49 SMJHL Entry Draft, the Montreal Militia are proud to select.....Phineas Gold!"
@Z0REM was another first gen who stood out in our talks. Just like Weston, he had some very good questions and even better answers to mine. He's been every bit as active as anyone else we drafted, and the more he's been in the locker room, the happier I've been about making this pick.

We watched as......none of our guys went before 19. A few we had heard good things about, but our next guy just didn't go. Another decision to be made, but with St Louis looming right behind us, we knew there was one guy we wanted who wouldn't have made it to 26.

"With the Nineteenth Overall Pick in the Season 49 SMJHL Entry Draft, the Montreal Militia are proud to select......Zbigniew Pokrywka!"
With all the first gens being taken, one of our top rated recreates had somehow fallen to 19. @thebigschnoz came highly recommended from a close friend and mentor of mine. We had some good talks before the draft and the two other guys were were looking at we were almost certain one of them would be at 26.

And as luck would have it, our top goalie was.

"With the Twenty-Sixth Pick in the Season 49 SMJHL Entry Draft, the Montreal Militia are proud to select.....Mitchell Maverick!"
I could not believe my eyes seeing him still on the board. With us only having one more season with Mike Hunt, we needed a goalie. Quite honestly, my best pre-draft conversation was with @Legend. He was everything I wanted to bring into the locker room. He has been fantastic with the everyone in the locker room so far and should be a brick wall for seasons to come.

Our work was far from over though. We had a good first three rounds, getting 5 of our top 10 players in the process. None of us could believe how the draft was falling. And then it happened again. The picks kept going in and our guys were still on the board. With us back on the clock for 34, there was zero hesitation on who we wanted.

"With the Thirty-Fourth Overall Pick in the Season 49 SMJHL Entry Draft, the Montreal Militia are proud to select.....Tom Fiddler!"
@PremierBromanov and I had some really good talks before the draft. I know I sound like a broken record with every pick so far, but its true. Admittedly, I had clicked on the wrong player page in our original conversation (I'm sure that left a good impression on my part......), but he was understanding, it happens sometimes. Just like everyone else so far, he's been active in the locker room and is getting along with everyone. This is an absolute steal at 34.

As if the draft was following a pattern, we got lucky in that the next two picks weren't guys on our radar (we knew you were taking a goalie at some point @Nictox). We had back to back picks with 37 and 38 and we wanted to make them count.

"With the Thirty-Seventh Overall Pick in the Season 49 SMJHL Entry Draft, the Montreal Militia are proud to select........Ricky Bobby! We would also like to announce our Thirty-Eighth Overall Pick as well. The Montreal Militia are proud to select......Capp Hatter!"
@ImASurvivor reached out to me the day before draft day, said he was trying to talk to every GM. In a draft of this size, sometimes that's what makes the difference, and it sure did for us. We unfortunately weren't able to get in touch with @patodro prior to the draft, but he was online and we liked his answers in our interested prospects thread. We took the chance on him and started preparing for pick 50.

It was going to be a little longer of a wait this time, and it felt like an eternity. The picks started being sent in and.........our guy was still on the board? How could this be? We had gotten lucky throughout the draft so far in getting the guy we wanted where we wanted, was it about to happen again?

"With the Fiftieth Overall Pick in the Season 49 SMJHL Entry Draft, the Montreal Militia are proud to select.....Alexei Rykov!"
It happened again. @RaginCajun had been active in the rookie discord quite a bit, and we had kept a close eye on him. He hadn't filled out an IP thread, but he seemed to be pretty active with the other rookies. We came into this draft valuing activity, and with someone still active this late in the draft, it was a no brainer.

An even longer wait was ahead of us this time, our next pick not until 66. We took a look at our board, and saw a few guys that we liked that hadn't been picked yet. We made the decision to try and trade up to get one of our guys, or two if possible. We made the decision as pick 54 was being made, and sent offers to every team from pick 55 to 65. No one bit at first. Then one guy went, then another, but our top two were still there. Halifax didn't see our offer for 55 until too late, but gave the thumbs up on 63. Then, our top two were taken at 61 and 62, so we nixed the trade. I hated to do that to @"Flareon4043", but I wasn't about to trade for 63 when we didn't know who we wanted at 66. We needed a new guy. We weren't about to call our draft now, right?

The Twitch stream was starting to die down. Most of everyone who was watching had been picked.....except for one. He wasn't on our radar to begin with, but he was active in the stream and was disappointed to not see his name get called yet. We knew who we wanted.

"With the Sixty-Sixth Overall Pick in the Season 49 SMJHL Entry Draft, the Montreal Militia are proud to select.....Ryan Daly!"
We hated seeing @RyanDaly4545 active and not picked. He had a decent build, there was no glaring reason to not pick him. The pick was in, and we needed another pick for 76.

Teams started passing and we wanted one more guy to round out our draft. We combed through our list, trying to find someone who had been online that day to snag. We found someone who had been online that morning and, well his build was fairly good. Why not give it a shot?

"With the Seventy-Sixth Overall Pick in the Season 49 SMJHL Entry Draft, the Montreal Militia are proud to select.....Antti Halonen!"
We took a shot on @anttilahest and that was it, we were calling it. Our first draft as a team had been finished and we were, and still are, ecstatic about how this draft went for us.

This whole experience, as stressful and busy as it was, has been wonderful. I am extremely excited, not only for the management team we were able to bring on, but for our draft class and for the future of this team. I would like to take a moment to thank @grok for all the help he has been and for all the work he was able to do in his short time as commissioner. I would also like to thank @Nictox, @TML99, @TheDangaZone, @"luketd", @Blastmeaway, @esilverm, @Scrufdaddy, and last but definitely not least @JKortesi81 for all the advice and support heading into this. I know I haven't been here that long but you all are huge reasons as to why this was even a possibility for me. With the draft officially over and the season almost upon us, we've got some work to do in Montreal.

Aleksi Kettu

slothfacekilla · 08-03-2019, 02:23 PM

Great read dude, excited to be on board!

**esilverm** · 08-03-2019, 02:49 PM

Ur doing great sweaty!!!

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Kraken

Special thanks to Blitz, jhockey, Ragnarr, and sulo for the gorgeous sigs <3

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Huck24 · 08-03-2019, 03:02 PM

You’re killing it @FuzzSHL! Good luck on your first season, except when you’re playing the Crows!!!

***JKortesi81*** · 08-03-2019, 03:40 PM

Foxxxxxxxyyyy!!!

You’re doing great work in Montreal. Maybe they’ll actually be relevant soon!

Legend · 08-03-2019, 03:48 PM

Awesome article!

**OrbitingDeath** · 08-03-2019, 05:10 PM

Nice read and also picked up as some gems, glad that part of our convo came true.

***ACapitalChicago*** · 08-03-2019, 05:25 PM

So happy to be a part of this team, I already know it's gonna be something great

S66 Damian Littleton

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gillon · 08-03-2019, 05:28 PM

08-03-2019, 03:40 PMJKortesi81 Wrote: Foxxxxxxxyyyy!!!

You’re doing great work in Montreal. Maybe they’ll actually be relevant soon!

Wow, hey, we went all the way to the wire with Anaheim in S47 finals. :(

EDIT: Oh, and we took the current champs to 7 games this season as well, even if we lost a lot of the finals run from S47.

***PremierBromanov*** · 08-04-2019, 01:30 PM

Quote:Admittedly, I had clicked on the wrong player page in our original conversation

And then again later when discussing builds XD
Ill try not to rub it in Wink

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