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thiefofcheese · 08-04-2019, 11:57 PM

Was just another random Tuesday at work trying to avoid doing any actual work and browsing reddit. It’s hockey off season but r/hockey is still rocking out regular posts – from player signings, roasts of each team (highly recommended if you are an NHL fan and haven’t seen them), and other hokey related goodness.   I hadn’t checked in a few days and saw a post about the Simulation Hockey League and did a quick skim. It was quite long and I almost closed the tab but in Reddit the real good stuff is in the comments so I poked around a bit and found that there were a number of people saying they loved it and had become addicted.   Well I have an addictive personality and can’t resist just getting a taste of this goodness they spoke of.   That click has taken over the previous 5 days of my life – much to my wife’s distress.

Initially I just drop into building a player.   It looks like a few options and pretty straightforward so I’ll waste 10 minutes here.   First I gotta decide what kinda player I wanna be.   I’m a huge Capitals fan so I modeled my player after Evgeny Kuznetsov. He’s a fast and extremely talented Russian center that can definitely put on a show. Sounds like a good idea and I figure most people are going to go heavy offense forward so maybe I can find a niche somewhere else. I then stack skating, passing, face-offs and the like and click submit. I’m quickly told via a response to my post that I should probably have more than the absolute minimum defense and end up pushing some things around.   Still very much with no clue as to what I am really doing here.

But hey – there is a video!   I follow along with the video and blindly do what I’m told with absolutely no fucking idea what I’m doing, I’m just doing it.   After a few steps I notice I have a PM from Pris saying I should join their discord server. Why not? I jump on figuring they’ll tell me how to start the game and quickly realize that I am not in a solo game, but an actual simulation where players work together on teams. Well shit – this isn’t what I thought I was getting into, but I’m already 30 minutes into the process so let’s see where this goes. I get a bit more information and pointed to another thread where the skills are explained and things start falling into place a bit in my head.   Higher values in skills makes you better.   TPE gives you points to put toward your skills. You get TPE through getting money.   Well now I’m cooking with gas!   How do I get money?   Well you can do “media”, get a “job”, create graphics (yeah right), and get a salary from a team.   Well what the hell is media?   I dug around and it’s basically fan fiction of hockey.   Well I do like hockey, but I’m not very creative but I put out an article in a terrible fake Russian broken English form of a turd and submit. And I already have a job I’m supposed to be doing when I fucking around on this site, you want me to get a virtual job too?   Hard pass. I can barely spell photoshop so I figure I gotta get on a team. This leads me to learning about the teams, SMJHL, and the upcoming Reddit draft that is happening 2 days later.

I BS around on Discord some more and between internet memes I ask around a bit (the Russian discord is amazing for newbies btw) and learn about the draft process coming up. By this time I’ve been contacted by a GM or two out of the blue, but learned about the Interested Prospects threads.   This lets the GMs know that you exist and want to get lots of money by playing fake hockey on their team. And best of all I get some of that all powerful TPE for every 2 you get done.   So I start filling these things out in alphabetical order. The first one being Anaheim and I had already talked to Gibbles a bit so I tried not to look like an idiot. I still didn’t know what the hell happens after the draft but I continue to knock them out one after the other.   I get a few more contacts from the GMs and talk a bit about the fact I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, but I’m doing it with enthusiasm anyway.   I figure if I’m going to play some fake hockey, I’m gonna do it right.   All the GMs were great and I spread my questions around to each of them so that no single one saw exactly how stupid I was.   Get the answer to question A in one thread then turn around ask another GM a follow up question in another.   The second GM thinks I knew about the first topic and the first GM doesn’t see exactly how little I know.   It’s a perfect system!

By this time I’m hearing about the Prospect Showcase.   I learn this is a fake season of fake hockey that will give us the chance to see how the process works.   I find the thread that talks about it – click a link to a 1997 looking website and see a bunch of blank tables. Well that’s a letdown. I close the tabs and ask around more on Discord and get passed a link to some of the prior season’s data and figure out what I should expect. Turns out there is a lot of stuff here and I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to analytics (don’t get me started on some of the shit I track in real life) so I decide this may be my type of thing.   So then I go back to the Prospect Showcase but… I can’t find the damned thread in the forums. I’m forever lost in trying to figure out what is where and why.   But the people on Discord save the day for me yet again.   Now 5 games have been simmed and I see I’m not doing all that bad. I’ve firmly decided that I’m going to want to be the best at this fake season of fake hockey. I can’t do shit about impacting that outcome, but I have no problem talking smack to the other rookies anyway.

Now that I have completely gotten hooked and avoided all real work for a few days we approach draft day. The SHL draft is the day before the SMJHL draft so I get a bit of an idea how it works.   Same as any other fantasy draft, but this time I’m the draftee rather than the drafter.   I up my talks with a few of the GMs that seem like genuinely good people and try to figure out what they care about.   Come to find out all the rookies basically suck and just putting forth some effort and not being an ass goes a long way. Those are two things I can do! So I just spend a ton of time on Discord shooting the shit and learning more and more about the way things work and I’m feeling pretty good.   We start doing mock drafts (more of that delicious TPE) and I see that my player’s name is actually on a few of the top 20 lists.   Most are in the late teens, but I’m not mad about that at all.

Then Thursday evening rolls around and I’m glued to my phone.   It’s right in the middle of full scale family chaos so I can’t actually join the stream, but I’m fairly regularly refreshing the forums to see how things progress.   There was a 4 way trade just a bit earlier in the day and the draft order got all screwed up, but I didn’t care much b/c I didn’t think I had much of a chance in the early rounds. They begin dropping draft picks in the forums and I see a few names I recognize from the Discord rookie group and the pace is really picking up.   The next time I pick up my phone I see that Ivan Maximus was drafted at number 9 on the first round by the Anaheim Outlaws. I couldn’t believe it. Not only did I actually get picked up I got picked up in the FIRST ROUND BABY!   It’s clear I’ve got all these people fooled.

I’ve now had a few days to talk with the team and I’m enjoying it immensely. Now that the fake fake games are over, I’m getting ready to play some real fake hockey! Clearly TPE is still king and I’m steadily working my strategy to get all of that lovely TPE as soon as possible.   I’ve gotta show these other internet strangers that my fake hockey is better than their fake hockey.   So what’s the logical thing to do? Get a fake hockey job! I got lucky and saw a post needing some tracking of the SMJHL budgets and I have an odd love for Excel so I spend my Saturday night reading the rulebooks, learning about the leagues salary caps, and creating a sample spreadsheet for submission.   I kicked it over quite late on Saturday night and go to bed hoping I’m a contender.   Sunday morning I wake up (too damn early for going to bed so damn late) and refresh Discord and the forums expecting them to tell me that my work is the best ever.   No messages…

Good things come to those who wait though. I did end up getting that job and looking forward to working with everyone to get the data needed and help out the league a bit.   I may also be wondering when I get that money so I can have some sweet TPE, but I haven’t answered that one yet.   Can anyone help me?? And please don't tell my boss I'm asking about pay on the first day. I'm looking forward to the upcoming season and hope to kick some ass in the fake hockey!

(1705 words x2 for draft)

thiefofcheese · 08-05-2019, 12:00 AM

***Vandy*** · 08-05-2019, 12:00 AM

This is my new favorite article

BDonini · 08-05-2019, 12:01 AM

08-05-2019, 12:00 AMthiefofcheese Wrote:

uhh · 08-05-2019, 12:02 AM

this guy fake hockeys

thiefofcheese · 08-05-2019, 01:44 AM

08-05-2019, 12:00 AMVandy Wrote: This is my new favorite article

And you are my new favorite fake hockey player

*Carpy48* · 08-05-2019, 02:23 AM

I can totally relate to this article about a fake hockey experience.

**OrbitingDeath** · 08-05-2019, 08:50 AM

This was definitely one of the best fake hockey fan fiction articles I've read.

DeletedAtUserRequest · 08-05-2019, 09:44 AM

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***luke*** · 08-05-2019, 09:48 AM

Hahaha, now this is a great story of someone getting addicted to online fake hockey, don’t look at my time online please I swear I’m not addicted at all.

thiefofcheese · 08-05-2019, 10:23 AM

08-05-2019, 09:48 AMluketd Wrote: don’t look at my time online please I swear I’m not addicted at all.

Please tell me this doesn't actually exist. I'll be quite ashamed

Edit: I found it. You have a quite impressive 4 Months, 1 Week, 5 Days, 21 Hours, 14 Minutes, 21 Seconds. That's some serious commitment.

I've only spent 1 Day, 1 Hour, 31 Minutes, 54 Seconds on here. In 5 calendar days... I don't have a problem!

**OrbitingDeath** · 08-05-2019, 10:28 AM

08-05-2019, 10:23 AMthiefofcheese Wrote:
08-05-2019, 09:48 AMluketd Wrote: don’t look at my time online please I swear I’m not addicted at all.

Please tell me this doesn't actually exist. I'll be quite ashamed

Edit: I found it. You have a quite impressive 4 Months, 1 Week, 5 Days, 21 Hours, 14 Minutes, 21 Seconds. That's some serious commitment.

I've only spent 1 Day, 1 Hour, 31 Minutes, 54 Seconds on here. In 5 calendar days... I don't have a problem!

Thank god for taking breaks between players, helps brings the average down :D

***luke*** · 08-05-2019, 10:31 AM

08-05-2019, 10:23 AMthiefofcheese Wrote:
08-05-2019, 09:48 AMluketd Wrote: don’t look at my time online please I swear I’m not addicted at all.

Please tell me this doesn't actually exist. I'll be quite ashamed

Edit: I found it. You have a quite impressive 4 Months, 1 Week, 5 Days, 21 Hours, 14 Minutes, 21 Seconds. That's some serious commitment.

I've only spent 1 Day, 1 Hour, 31 Minutes, 54 Seconds on here. In 5 calendar days... I don't have a problem!

Totally not a problem, though if you like stats and stuff I got a bunch of them, a lot of useless ones but they are interesting, we also have a user who does advanced stats every season

thiefofcheese · 08-05-2019, 10:43 AM

08-05-2019, 10:31 AMluketd Wrote:
08-05-2019, 10:23 AMthiefofcheese Wrote: Please tell me this doesn't actually exist. I'll be quite ashamed

Edit: I found it. You have a quite impressive 4 Months, 1 Week, 5 Days, 21 Hours, 14 Minutes, 21 Seconds. That's some serious commitment.

I've only spent 1 Day, 1 Hour, 31 Minutes, 54 Seconds on here. In 5 calendar days... I don't have a problem!
Totally not a problem, though if you like stats and stuff I got a bunch of them, a lot of useless ones but they are interesting, we also have a user who does advanced stats every season

Hit me up on discord

[Image: 37ahel.jpg]

Sean · 08-05-2019, 10:44 AM

08-05-2019, 10:23 AMthiefofcheese Wrote: Please tell me this doesn't actually exist. I'll be quite ashamed

Edit: I found it. You have a quite impressive 4 Months, 1 Week, 5 Days, 21 Hours, 14 Minutes, 21 Seconds. That's some serious commitment.

I've only spent 1 Day, 1 Hour, 31 Minutes, 54 Seconds on here. In 5 calendar days... I don't have a problem!

The scary part is Luke has only been on the site for a little over a year.

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