EHM The Blue Line

My first story but fourth serious career game. With bitter memories from spells in charge of the Stars, Koln and most recently Bjorkloven..*pauses, stifles a tear* ....Right..Basically I have found myself in charge of the Seattle Thunderbirds of the WHL. I am patched up to 2.1.3, unfaked to the latest v3 degree and 'skinned' with Minstrel's sleek ice option. After studying archi's guide (and having hopefully successfully implemented Minty's 'week of hell' training policies) I felt ready to go. I am wary of rushing anything this time, and despite several nice but meaningless wins in the pre-season i am prepared for tears and tantrums to come...

On the trade front I did an unusually large amount for me in the opening weeks. Firstly I fired a couple of rubbish scouts as we had a ridiculously large number taking up both roster space and funds. In their place came the promising looking Timotei Arsov, who I had targeted to try and balance up our personnel a bit more with some disciplinarian tactics..


On the player front I had a look at Spencer McAvoy, recommended on SI's website. He looks pretty decent, and to get him I offloaded Greg Scott (not likely to regret) and a maybe pricey 4th round 2006 draft pick (could well turn out to regret). However, McAvoy looks decent enough to hold down a regular place in the team. In goal I traded our second choice Gavin McHale with the wonderfully-named 'Brandon Wheat-Kings' and got the fairly decent looking prospect for the future, Kurt Jory:

I have also been chasing left-winger Jordy Black and have signed him twice, only for the deal to fall through because I apparently have too many over-age players in the squad already...I shall attempt to shift some out to bring Black in, as I am confident that he could do well...

[

P.S
I was wondering about this:


and I found this...
CMC 2006
..which pretty well explained it...
Hope you enjoy the story!

Timotei Arsov?! Hehe Timotei is a brand of shampoo, isn't it! As for his surname, I'm not gonna make any comment

Btw, the Sleek skin is actually Rubbinio's creation.

Good luck - it's surely gonna be better than your Bjorkloven experience!

A disappointing start to the season-a close loss to the Giants at home and then a poor performance in a shoot-out loss to Prince Albert, again in front of our own fans.
I decided to organise my lines a bit better rather than leaving them to my coaches. I promoted McAvoy to the first and dropped the agressive defender Olson to the second. The perfect way to make up for our earlier games arrived with a trip to the Giants. I paid for my 'week of hell' training sessions, but foolishly I decided to go ahead with playing two lightly injured players, one of whom, defender Scott Jackson, went down seriously injured in Overtime....
However I had learnt my lessons from the last shoot-out and chose McAvoy, the on-form Gibbons and reliable forward McEwan to try and settle the game, currently tied at 3-3....here is what happened...


Maybe only a small result, but for me an important one.

In other news I traded surprisingly sought after Center Mitch Fadden (a back-up) with Tri-City for their reasonably solid looking Kyle Peters. On top of this I got their 4th and 10th round 2006 draft picks whilst sacrificing my 12th round pick. I am fairly happy with this. I still await the opportunity to try out Kurt Jory, as Bryan Bridges has been a solid choice in between the pipes. However, given the severity of my training regimes registering somewhere near the 'work-camp' end of the scale it may not be too long before Bridges has broken his leg...

Great story.

BTW, where did you got your Memorial Cup logo?

Glad you like it...
I got the logo from here...
logo
It looks good in game....


More updates to come every evening I hope. I couldn't last night because I was watching the football...

After losing away at Kamloops 5-3 I was somewhat disappointed. I felt that it was a game that we should have been able to play far better in....
On the transfer front I rashly accepted a trade with Red Deer for my rarely used but perhaps needed back-up defender Thomas Hickey. However the offer of Devon LeBlanc-check his stats from the first four games (!)...

..swung the deal. I also got a center by the name of Alex Poulter thrown in, so I by no means did badly...
updates later...

EDIT: An excellent win against an Everet side who had lost all of the opening five games. In my heart of hearts I knew that this was already a must-win...amything less would have been totally unacceptable...

I thought that we would face a tougher challenge against the 6-0-1 Wheat Kings but.....

I feel like this smiley...


On an even more positive note I have realised that the US Division is possibly the least competitive. Like Seattle, the other teams win one week then lose the next. Everett are still glued to the bottom, so as long as I keep beating them then I will guarantee myself a play-off place

Update-lost a heartbreaker to the Tri-City Americans 4-3....so, the perfect time to come up against, you guessed it, Everett again ...the good news-won 7-3..the bad? super-keeper Bridges out for a week with a shoulder contusion...


UPDATE: Just won a crucial divisional game away at Spokane 5-3. We play them at home again in the next game. Here are the current standings:



On the transfer front I have attempted (more in hope than any real chance) to lure star player Peter Mueller away from Calgary with one of my unused Centers Yashar Farmanara and another, Lindsay Nielsen.
I have also brought in this promising looking guy from Knights of Columbus Pats as a free agent (was just browsing really):


Right, a much needed break now...

Do you like it so far? Suggested improvements/screenshots you'd like to see?

I'll post my memorial cup logo up later for anybody that wants it...(and I don't mind if you don't like it (joke))

Here is the logo:

Copy to data/pictures/logos/comps/large/Canadian Hockey League Memorial Cup

Nice story so far BlackCats101!!!

I like the screenshots in your stories.....too bad I dont know how to take them

Keep it coming!!!

flea wrote:Nice story so far BlackCats101!!!

I like the screenshots in your stories.....too bad I dont know how to take them

Keep it coming!!!

Cheers...regarding the screenshots, I was unsure too a couple of days back (hence the number of them now )..see this thread to help you out...
help
scroll down a bit for the info...

BlackCats101 wrote:

flea wrote:Nice story so far BlackCats101!!!

I like the screenshots in your stories.....too bad I dont know how to take them

Keep it coming!!!

Cheers...regarding the screenshots, I was unsure too a couple of days back (hence the number of them now )..see this thread to help you out...
help
scroll down a bit for the info...

Cool!!!

Thanks BlackCats101 for telling me....and Archie for posting it!!!

Will try it in the next episode of my story....

I am adding a few more news graphics to my game to make it look a little better...

Those pics are cool! Good Job!

If anyone is interested I have put together a jersey news graphics set for the WHL. As the screenshots following show I am afraid that the quality is not always that good, with size and picture quality varying (depending on the sites that I could get them from). If you like them post here and if Minty can tell me how to compress them properly etc I'd be grateful...
Calgary:

Everett:

Kooteney:

Phew..feels like a while since I have been here...Just trying to get back into the groove. Right-winger Gibbons scored a hatrick in an excellent 5-2 win over Spokane in the return game. A good start...

I lost the next in a shoot-out to Tri-City. A positive has been the relatively solid performance of Jory. I am thinking of putting MacDonald (the youngster who's profile I posted somewhere above) in for some third line action. Loads of teams are attempting to prise current position battler McEwan from me, but for the moment I have stayed strong and refused. I now have three players who could claim the left-wing position-McEwan, regular performer Tomanek, and the two I have brought in-LeBlanc and MacDonald. Something will have to give-I have too many centers and left-wingers to keep happy...

Nice jerseys.

I hope they will get uploaded on to the site.

Lost to Saskatoon in another shootout following a 5-5 draw. I have just scraped a win against Tri-City to end the mini-slump.

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EDIT:ok that's weird-it is just the one post that it won't let me post??!

Well, this would explain Durand's form...
Durand profile

I may transfer the story over to the SI Games forums as it won't let me post stuff here whilst on my home PC...

That sucks. I'm trying to get this fixed.