The 1st half, or more specifically, 61.20427% (because Sheds will ask the exact number) of the 2022/23 BRHL season is officially in the books.  It’s been a wild ride.   What have we learned and what have we done right or wrong so far?  Here are some of the hottest topics that are either plaguing or blessing the league...

PODCASTS…. So last week, Greg must’ve finally got fed up with sitting on his sofa watching Boston area sports teams never lose, because he finally mustered up the motivation to edit and release the magic that was created 2 years ago by Kato, Steph, himself and I video chatting each other from across the continent while our biggest fan, Sumit Purba, chimed in from his Boy Scouts retreat trying to spoil both the podcast’s chemistry and audio.  Some things that the podcast revealed or reminded us of were as follows:  Joe B has the best nickname in the league, several GMs want to take credit for building his roster, a lot of GMs hate scouting for the draft, overspending in free agency is a terrible idea, Sumit’s intensity ratchets up during free agency, gender reveals can land you in prison, Kevin’s trades are confusing, Sheds is apparently sarcastic, Rob is a fake GM, and Sober Ty is the favourite GM.  The biggest takeaway I got was that BRHL podcasts must become a regular occurrence… and that maybe waiting 2 years to release them is actually an epic idea… because with hindsight we got to learn how stupid we all sounded.  And I don’t just mean the tone of our voices when recorded either. 

WEBSITE… the new dot brhl dot net site has become a hot topic of discussion lately in the slack chat.  Maybe all the bright, shiny colours on that app, along with the cool graphics of the CCHL website has people feeling like the BRHL site experience could be taken to a whole new level.  It seems as if the top and bottom GMs are busy trying to better their rosters and prospect pools respectively, while the GMs of the middling average teams are those adamant ones wanting to see bright shiny pictures and graphics when visiting the website, rather than working on their franchises.  Whether Sheds obliges or not will be a story to monitor, as we really are all just non-techy peasants living in Sheds’ world.  He could say he’s building a new site and not be, or conversely, could say he’s not, and actually be working on one and we’d never ever know. 

RATINGS AND SIM RANDOMNESS… What is DF, why do teams love it so much, and how does Bryce’s magic calculator calculate the calculations to figure it all out?  These are questions that GMs have been asking forever.  Maybe it’s the most important rating or maybe it actually means nothing and it’s just there to distract us.  Lately the discussion of how PH is calculated arose too, which seems to have something to do with PP TOI.  However they’re all calculated is irrelevant once a new season begins and they’re all released.  Then we are at the mercy of SimonT.  This season the anti-Simon outrage has grown to new proportions.  The emotional outrage began to fester with the endless playoff upsets that occurred last spring.  This season the movement has spread amongst several teams, with some of our favourite GMs like Greg and Richard (maybe Doc and Junya too soon.. we’ll see) ready to track down Simon in a back alley and rough him up a bit.. or a lot.  There is undoubtedly a lot of random NHL/real life results almost every night as hockey seems to be the most unpredictable North American pro sport. So, maybe the randomness is accurate… or to bring this topic full circle… maybe it’s not all about DF or SC when there are about a dozen other rates to consider.  Or, in this age of growing AI, maybe Simon T is just conducting studies on the behaviour of us dumb humans. 

THE MASON MCTAVISH LOTTERY… Is my wording even correct here?  If a lottery company had to go door knocking to beg people to purchase their lottery tickets because none were selling, would it really be a lottery anymore?  All jokes aside, it is nice to see a name bigger than Brady Skjei on the daily trade block.  But has Sumit severely hurt Mctavish’s trade value by reaching out to teams and trying to trade him to GMs who aren’t even interested?  Time will tell.  But he’s definitely in a “win now” mode, so expect the young centre to be moved soon.  And because he Sumit’s last young stud available, hopefully he gets a killer return. 

LARRY’S CHAT… Where to start with this one?!  Early trade blocks, fights of the night, babes of the day, memes of the week, all in a safe spot for those who choose to join to enjoy.  You can find it all there for free ninety-nine a month.  Even better than the Wordle channel, this one is certainly a must join.  Thanks goes out to Steph for the incredible idea of creating a hate free zone, while the emoji happy people get to stay in the regular chat where they belong… or they can join the Larry one if they'd like… Larry doesn’t discriminate.  All are welcome.  Just remember to be respectful.  

STATE OF THE BRHL AT THE 2023 ALL-STAR BREAK....…

The league to me appears to be in absolute turmoil… Ken constantly questioning Sheds’ Wordle scores… Tony and Larry becoming best friends… Rex not being able to move goalies or D-men for forwards… The Cordell bros winning games at the worst time… The Hansford bros maybe being the same person… Vardy’s prize RFA being moved to a low scoring team where he won't be killing penalties... Steph still owning five 2023 picks with only 4 months until the draft... Sumit keeping the same user name for more than a week… Rumpy not making any moves period… Papa Cordell about to murder Simon T… Sober Ty going for it while only 22-22-8… two of our three East Asians struggling terribly and destroying the stereotype of them being smarter than white folk… good thing 1 of them’s a doctor… Jesse coming out as a soccer fan… Kevin not buying or selling draft picks… Joel not giving out as many thumbs up emojis… Al showing that being a homer can work… Bryce not trading for any Avs players or Oilers prospects… Joe running a team he didn’t build… Other Joe ruining Nuge’s value waiting too long to move him… Ferraro getting stuck in blizzards in the least snowy place in Canada… Greg trading all his assets within his own division… The GEGMITHOTBRHL having to switch channels to name his goal scorers… Eric and Jared not posting cat pictures in months… What’s next?  We find out the Rangers and Canucks have actual real GMs?  The league is in shambles.  Good thing we have #larrysteamupdates to keep us all sane.