Note: This post, which I wrote a week or two ago in Google Docs, is both an answer to Fluvannia and Savojarna and a post explaining why I retired from NS ice hockey in the first place, which is probably why it feels so janky to read.
Normally I would've stayed away from this whole thing. I would've stayed happily retired from ice hockey and the only time I would've touched the sport on this site with a hundred-foot pole is in the megathread over in NSG. I didn't even want to retire in the first place but I just felt like I've had enough of everything going on with the IC version of this sport. But Quebec and I have been talking off and on for the past few months over on Discord and he's been telling me that things are changing and reminding me how I used to be a driver for this sport; I'm not sure how right that is but as a few people have used my idea of separate left and right defencemen (something I'm perfectly alright as I think someone else did it before me and even if they didn't feel free to use it anyway) I guess there's an element of truth to it. After mulling it over, and seeing that the 40th edition of the World Cup of Hockey actually went well, I've decided to try and get back into it. But not before explaining WHY I left this whole thing in the first place, along with my general dissatisfaction I was having at the time:
- Complete apathy from the community. When I tried to get a World Cup of Hockey going back in August 2018, I was rudely ignored (but more on that later) and sign-ups for the 38th edition opened in November, about nine or ten months after the last one. When Neu Engollon won that, only one or two people congratulated the host; I was apparently the only one to congratulate Ngol himself and and it was through a Discord DM in the middle of a conversation we were having. The HCL and WJHC had also been neglected for the longest time, with someone having to start their own tournament in the meantime just so there could be club ice hockey again. I was willing to accept someone apparently badly done rankings just so we could have updated rankings. What happened? Why did we all just give up on this? Ice hockey's one of the biggest sports on the planet, especially in North America where I assume the majority of us WCoH regulars and former regulars are from, so I don't get why we just left it to rot unceremoniously.
- Questionable hosting. I understand that iffy tournaments are part and parcel of NS Sports. I once won a cricket tournament by only posting a roster (which may seem like an achievement but I felt it was unfair, especially on Mattijana and Liventia who produced quality RPs and would've been more worthy winners), Neu Engollon and I think a couple of other people had to scramble to finish the 4th R7WC because the host left without warning mid-tournament and, IIRC, a Rugby World Cup had to be abandoned partway through because of how iffy the results got. But, for whatever reason, the WCoH saw a LOT of this in the 30s. We had ranked teams with rosters and RPs drawing or even losing to unranked teams who provide neither. We had hosts going AWOL mid-tournament without any backup plans. We had results that were less "Margaret" and more "shenanigans". And, while I still respect him a lot ICly and OOCly and felt like a proud dad when his side deservedly finally beat mine for the first time, we had Anthor accidentally proving why away@home outside of baseball and related sports is absolute donkeyshit and needs to die; I honestly apologise if this feels like I'm picking on you or anything mate as this is the only time I'm naming names but, if you end up hosting again, PLEASE leave the results as is.
And, while I'm not sure when exactly these happened so any of them may be before WCoH 30, I'm not forgetting about the last two WJHCs I was in. One saw the aforementioned problem of teams with no rosters or RPs quite easily beating those who had posted both, to the point where Quebec had to get up an RP about one of his refs engaging in match-fixing just to explain it. And the other one, sometime after that, saw the host give little to no indication that the IC thread was up until around MD1, leaving a number of people (myself included) no real time or mood to post anything. Again I'm not sure WHEN these were and, since they were years ago, they might've actually happened differently to how I remembered it. But they were still worth sharing. - Lack of elections for four real life years. This could easily go with the "apathy" point I made earlier but I feel like this is worth a special mention. Valanora and I were elected WCoH President and VP respectively in April 2016. We had another election in December that year and we retained our roles. After that, hardly anything until we had to force elections before WCoH40. We tried to get elections running a few years ago but the results weren't posted, presumably because hardly anyone voted or nominated people and, even if they did, it was probably to keep things the same. I tried to get elections underway at one point because Valanora decided to step down and I didn't want the top job but the post was deleted and things stayed the same; apparently she decided to stay on if I didn't want the presidential job but I didn't know that at the time because I wasn't told. I didn't even want the VP job in the first place because I had no real plans for the tournament and I wouldn't know what to do but went along with it because it could be fun. Oh God, how wrong I was.
With all that elections biz out of the way, I am going to apologise to Valanora for how sucky of a VP I was. While I feel like we could've communicated better, especially since I've been on Discord for a few years now, that does not excuse me for not pulling my own weight. I could've and should've done more than update sign-ups and I feel bad about leaving you with the heavy stuff. You don't have to accept my apology even if you wanted to and we don't have to be friends, as we never were in the first place. I just want any beef between us to remain IC if possible. - Being rudely ignored. This is an incredibly minor point, which is why I saved it for last. But this was the straw that broke he camel's back, the moment where I decided to give up on this whole sport. Before WCoH38 I wanted to get some friendlies done so my players could be warmed up and ready to compete. But, since at the time the friendlies thread had been quiet for months, I asked TWICE if I should resurrect it or start a new one. Both times I didn't get an answer, even though it was just a simple yes or no question that didn't need a multi-paragraph answer. The only thing that came close to an answer was an unranked nation misreading the question and offering a match. Eventually, I got an answer from Neu Engollon… after the tournament was over and thus there was no point in answering, though I still genuinely thank him for it. I also suspect for one reason or another that this point in general is why I sucked that tournament as, despite being ranked in the top ten and producing both roster and a pre-tourney RP (however copy and paste it might be because me), I got blown out of the water by S&T, lost in a shootout to someone ranked MUCH lower than me and only got wins against unranked opponents.
And before anyone asks: No, I'm not on the NS Sports Discord server. Even though it's not as bad as people have made it out to be, I'm still not going there even if you had the world's most attractive men and women offering me a lifetime supply of tuna footlongs, bottomless bags of yoghurt-coated Skittles and baskets of kittens and cats to cuddle up to.
In all seriousness, I don't want us to start tabula rasa with a new international ice hockey competition. I want the World Cup of Hockey to be the great competition it was years ago. I want the World Junior Hockey Championships and Hockey Champions League to be fun little side-tournaments. I have faith that Banija will be the man to do all of that and more, as I heard good things about him. But we all have to get back on the ball and keep it rolling. And, most importantly, we should all try and get ourselves out of this dark age.
I'm not also trying to be all "people trying to be the king but the ace is back" with this post either. Simply because a) there are some excellent people who are still taking part in this, some of whom are better than me and b) if there's anyone worthy of that plagiarised and sanitised Dr. Dre lyric, it'd be Havl, who I also want to apologise to. In hindsight, it was incredibly dickish of my guys to celebrate beating yours in group stage matches, simply because the power of retcon showed that my guys have been a decent force for decades. Even if they weren't that's still not a cool thing to do. Even if you're not bothered by it and it's not why you also haven't participated in a long time, I'm still going to apologise because I want to get it off my chest.
Right, unnecessarily long post over. If I suck at the upcoming WJHC but it's because I didn't do a roster or RP, then I might still mull over a WCoH41 sign-up.
Hope to see y'all on the ice soon,
- EJM