EHM The Blue Line

Slak ended up on 41 points, twice as many as the nearest rookie. Walker was 6th and Miller was 9th

Yeah, Tony Hand rules. Just started a new game, offered Mike Blaisdell the job of Head Coach! Also got cotract offers out to several UFAs - offering them less than they ask for and trying to get players as cheap as possible. Released Gustavson, Lehman, and thinking about Maltby and Darby.

News: Just signed Tony Hand, cost 9k from Manchester and has a £20,000 contract, but I think the 1-2 punch of Tessier and him will be awesome. Also amazed myself with signing of d-man Terry Virtue from one of the CHL teams - surprised he was interested. Had a bid accepted for Jonathan Weaver, but he wanted crazy money. Struggling to find a keeper, just offered a contract out to ECHL goalie Jeff Weber, who looks OK (at least better than Lehman). Very pleased with roster so far, I've got Danny Wood and have Robert Dowd, Ben Morgan and Matt Towe on two-ways (may cut them later depending on other players signing). May have to release Shaun Sutter to stay under budget, but hope not. I'll post my lines when I have my full team signed.

Just Signed Joe Watkins. If he play the same level or better than Lehman, EXIT Lehman

The fans are happy that I signed local talent Watkins

Derek King out for the season: Broken leg

Arghh! My 16 yr old prospect Steve Lee just got drafted in the CHL import draft #77 Guess I won't be seeing any of him then!
My current lines in the summer of 2007:

Battaglia - Tessier - Thornton
Campbell - Clarke - Clouthier
Hemmings - Wiggins - Molin
(empty) - Walker - (empty)

Dervaric - Hendry
Basiuk - Mangos
Vychodil - Wishart

Magliarditi
Chamberlain

Signings in:
Damjan Devaric - Slovenian int'l LD, got him for £14 p/y which I thought was a steal because he's a lot better than Hecl, quite an offensive D-man with good shooting
Tessier - Need I say anymore, replacement for Hand
Steve Thornton - Brit/Canadian RW on £10,5 p/y which is a nice deal as well IMO good attributes
Thomas Chamberlain - Backup GK pretty naff but only a few grand a year
Chris Wiggins - Recommended to me by my scouts, Power centre good at hitting and very fast
Gary Clarke - Brit centre looks pretty solid, not expecting too much from him

Players out:
Joe Miller - Sold him to Steelers for £8k, decided to cash in after a pretty average season, played ok in the playoffs though
Matt Rich - A good playoffs wasn't enough for me to keep him, all but one of his technical stats are red.
Adam Radmall - Not good enough, down to the EPIHL where he belongs
Nathaneal Williams - Wouldn't sign a new contract, not looking too great anyway
K.C. Timmons - Not a bad season, but not good enough to keep him
Radoslav Hecl - Sold him for £12k, was getting on and was too expensive, he had a go at me when he left as well

So far my lines are incomplete and I am waiting for my final few players, but so far they are:

Head Coach= Mike Blaisdell
N/Ms:1. Stevie Lyle 2. Davey Lawrence
LD:
Neal Martin
Rod Sarich
Rob Donovan
James Morgan (Morgan is on 2-way from Milton Keynes)

RD:
Terry Virtue
Mark Thomas
Scott Ricci

LW:
Landon Bathe
Phil Hill

C:
Dan Tessier
Tony Hand
Ryan Finnerty
Matt Myers

RW:
Steve Thornton
Danny Wood


Pretty happy so far. I am unsure who my final wingers will be, will update when I know. I have played 2 proper games, beating Nottingham in the cup 4-2 and coming from behind to beat Cardiff 5-2 in the EIHL league. Tessier is awesome!

I have decided to sign up 2 better, more expensive players rather than 3 cheaper ones, so will roll with 9 imports only. The signings that complete my roster are LW Tony Tuzzolino and RW Tim Verbeek. My team is top of the league, I am delighted with it and I have just spanked Hull Stingrays 12-2!!! We're just, just under the cap, and I pray that we don't have too many injuries - my team lost in OT 6-5 to Panthers because I was only able to ice 4 fit D-men.

Just bought Hemmings, but on his second game with Sheffield he got severely injured, 4 months out. At least, he was signed for next season...

Ouch, 4 months....if you want a replacement I'd recommend Danny Wood, another young player has about 1 point from every 2 or 3 games, cheap and good cover for injuries, etc. I know I said my roster was done, but I'm still scouring the market for any really, really cheap import wingers, but they're all useless. This will be my last post of the day as I've got training tonight in the real hockey world.

8 games into my season and I sit first on 13 points, 2nd placed Manchester on 12 along with Belfast. In joint 3rd are Nottingham and Coventry, with Edinburgh and Cardiff jojnt last with just 3 points. In scoring, Tessier leads EIHL with 21 pts from 8 games. Dutiaume and Carlson are tied for 2nd with 15. My games seem to be ending with scores like 7-3 and 6-4, my defence is bad but fortunately I have a brilliant attack. Tim Verbeek has been disappointing and I'm considering releasing him. This could free up some cap room, and I think if I release him and Lyle I could get the recently released Marc Magliarditi. But that would mean getting 2-way contract players in to fill out some roster spots.... How are you guys doing now?

40 games played, 23-14-0-3. I'm fourth, three pts from the 2nd place.
My PP is okay at 18% but my PK is the league second worst at 80%..

My current lineup:

G:Watkins - Lehman

Hill-Tessier-Sutter
Oliver-Maltby-Clouthier
Savaria-Greig-Phillips
Owen-Hewitt-Newell

Tait and Hay backup

Manzano-Ricci
Sarich-Darby
Defty-Thomas

Bell is usually my 6th D-man, but he's injured for now..

How is Watkins playing? is he going to force out Lehman? My roster's changed a bit, I've completely altered it from what it was at the start of the season. Unfortunately I lost out on the retiring John Leclair, who had attributes in the 90s for coaching, but at least I have now got 10 imports:

N/Ms:
Jeff Weber
Davey Lawrence

D:

Neal Martin and Terry Virtue
Rod Sarich and Mark Thomas
James Morgan and Paul Hendry
Daniel Scott
Emergency defenceman : Chad Reekie

F:
Allan Sirois---Dan Tessier---Jeff Campbell
Tony Tuzzolinio---Tony Hand----Steve Thornton
Phil Hill---Ryan Finnerty---Tim Verbeek
Spare RW: Danny Wood

Tony Tuzzolino has just been injured for 2 months, so I'm trying to get a replacement. Jeff Campbell is thankfully versatile and can play LW, so I'm desperately trying to get enforcer centreman Pierre-Luc Sleigher, who looks brilliant. He's been released by a CIS team and put up bad stats for them in 5 games, so it's a gamble, but I lack a fighter.

If only you still had Clootch

Oh the irony!!! IRL I was gutted when Cloots left, nowt wrong with Finnerty but we could have released someone else. Must have been something behind the scenes, maybe he nutted Dave Simms?! I can't get Pierre-Luc to sign for Sheffield, pity since he would have had the awesome nickname "The Slayer"...Trevor Gillies, in the NHL IRL, is interested, as long as I pay him £70,000 a year! Maybe I'll have a look where Cloots is...

Chris wiggins is a hard hitting centre and he has a cool name

Good point, but I'm after a LW. Amazingly, Clouthier has sat untouched in free agency since I released him, so I'm going to offer him a deal. He'll be massively unfit, but as he'll be a 3rd line goon for me it won't really matter. Robin Big Snake is interested, but once wanting too much money. Another player, although not a fighter, with a good name is Wacey Rabbit, who apparently is real...By the way, after 35 games I've qualified for the playoffs!!! Just seen that Cloots has accepted my offer of a 4 week tryout; my board is being tight so I'll have to wait till Tuzzolino and his salary leaves before I can make Cloots an offer. Still, at least he'll get some training in.

EDIT= I've failed in my bid to sign Clouthier, who I could probably get but keeps rejecting offers. So, as a compromise, I've signed another legend. Paxton Schulte is now a Steeler.

Nooooo!!!!
On the same day as his arrival, Paxton Schulte has been injured for 2 months! When did this unfortunate event have to happen? Just as the EIHL transfer deadline comes into play!

Crisis? What crisis? Just won the regular season championship. Edit - and also the first leg of the Challenge Cup final, 10-1 vs. Newcastle!

A nervous 2-1 win in the Playoff final vs. Coventry Blaze means I am Grand Slam champion! Tessier was league top scorer with 90 points, but Giants' Magical Mark Dutiaume pipped him to the post with 88. Bring on the Continental Cup!

Watkins isn't better than Lehman, but he is more consistent so I put him as my #1 and cost me only 19K and, best of all, he's from UK!

If I were you I'd release Lehman then, he may be better on attributes but the last thing you want is an inconsistent goalie in EHM. Release/sell him and get a top skater in if you can. Personally, I'm unsure whether or not to carry on into next season...not wanting to sound cocky, but it's a bit easy! (although not for you I suppose, seen as it is a totally different experience to what you're used to.) I've got revision and homework to do, but I'll probably end up continuing my game!

Am now into my 2nd season, conquering Europe after finishing top of my group in the first round in the continental cup 2 wins and a draw was enough to see me through. Had a couple of minor problems in the shape of Mangos and Tessier getting injured in the same match with the same problem. Both getting separated shoulders and out for 4 months each Replaced with some guys who are probably better though so I'm happy with that, can't remember Tessier's replacement name but he's got better stats overall than Tessier and I signed Burke in defence who is also better than Mangos(and cheaper). I've lost internet on my own computer so updates will slow down a bit but I've just got rid of Battaglia as his attributes were getting pretty bad and replaced him with Jonathan(I think!) Peaver.

If you are seeking a young promising centre, try Liam Greig.
He's a miniature (5'10'') powerforward. 29 pts in 40 games so far, playing 3rd line with Michel Savaria and Brett Clouthier!!

First regular season finished. Steelers, 2nd place, only 3 pts behind Blaze.
Best scoring team (194 gf), second best PP (19,4%), so so defensive.

Watkins filled up well Lehman spot. Even my Swede supercoach likes him
Tessier finished 2nd best scorer with 77 pts, he exploded on second half when I teamed him with Phil Hill (19th best scorer, 50 pts)
Darby was the league most punished player with 271 PIM
L. Greig 2nd best rookie, far behing Slak.
Ricci 6th best scoring D-man with 43 pts.

I'm playing versus Bison on the first round. During the season, it was really tight 3-3 wins , 20-18 goals.
Hopes Tessier and Watkins will crank up their plays