Everyone's press releases have been fantastic! They've added so much flavor to each choice.

I think the only mild surprise in the top 6 for me was Winnipeg to Wallflower, but I'd figured on a Canadian franchise there for him. The rest were fairly chalk.

Obviously everyone knew I was probably choosing between Halifax and Portland. I actually live 3 hours from PDX and designed the identity while sitting in a coffee shop in the Stumptown / Pearl District of Portland. So that was a tough choice to make but Halifax really just seemed to fit me the more I looked into it. Especially if you account for the usage of cream, which if you follow my Torland series you'd know is a special little flavor of mine. (Fun fact, I hate cream in my coffee though) Boston, Chicago and Philly also got considerations from me.

Middle 6 is where things got immediately interesting with 287 getting passed. Stickman came in with the first real surprise. I thought for sure he was going Philly but chose LA instead. His press release was absolute gold. 287 swooped back into the scene to select Seattle in a little bit of drama. And Gritty followed with another surprise, choosing Montreal instead of one of his hometowns. I had a sneaking suspicion he might make an unusual choice. Balu followed with Philly, not really a surprise but there were no indicators on which identities might have been on top of their board.

Then we get to Edgeworth choosing Charlotte. I love the instant lightning rod of drama there. That's what rivalries are all about. The real surprise is that Charlotte fell to 12th, imo. Along with Toronto, I thought those were top-half identities and would be early choices.

I also just realized that the Eastern Conference houses all the AHS admins and mods. That should be a fun bit of rivalry!

Steelman wrote:

Everyone's press releases have been fantastic! They've added so much flavor to each choice.

I think the only mild surprise in the top 6 for me was Winnipeg to Wallflower, but I'd figured on a Canadian franchise there for him. The rest were fairly chalk.

Obviously everyone knew I was probably choosing between Halifax and Portland. I actually live 3 hours from PDX and designed the identity while sitting in a coffee shop in the Stumptown / Pearl District of Portland. So that was a tough choice to make but Halifax really just seemed to fit me the more I looked into it. Especially if you account for the usage of cream, which if you follow my Torland series you'd know is a special little flavor of mine. (Fun fact, I hate cream in my coffee though) Boston, Chicago and Philly also got considerations from me.

Middle 6 is where things got immediately interesting with 287 getting passed. Stickman came in with the first real surprise. I thought for sure he was going Philly but chose LA instead. His press release was absolute gold. 287 swooped back into the scene to select Seattle in a little bit of drama. And Gritty followed with another surprise, choosing Montreal instead of one of his hometowns. I had a sneaking suspicion he might make an unusual choice. Balu followed with Philly, not really a surprise but there were no indicators on which identities might have been on top of their board.

Then we get to Edgeworth choosing Charlotte. I love the instant lightning rod of drama there. That's what rivalries are all about. The real surprise is that Charlotte fell to 12th, imo. Along with Toronto, I thought those were top-half identities and would be early choices.

I also just realized that the Eastern Conference houses all the AHS admins and mods. That should be a fun bit of rivalry!

 
I was going to go with Seattle before 287 swooped in and picked it up. Charlotte was actually my number 2. And you know that this prosecutor is all about the twist of drama.

Section30 wrote:

I see QCS already changed his profile pic to match his team

They may not have been my first choice, but the Bighorns are my team right now!

The AltHL has officially crossed over into Phase 2.  There will be two main elements to Phase 2 that I will share with you all now.   

Element 1 - The Sandbox 

This thread is dedicated to the further development of our AltHL teams.  We will have form design elements like hiring a coach, building an arena, designing a farm team, etc.  There will also be informal design elements that owners can choose to do in order to develop the character and identity of their team.  All of that will belong in the “Draft and Beyond” thread. 

Element 2 - AltHL Legacy 

Remember at its core, the AltHL is a crowdsourced fantasy hockey league.  This October, the AltHL will start its first season with 18 fantasy hockey teams.  The future of our league will happen in real time. But the history from which our teams came from will happen in the Legacy Project.   The goal of the Legacy Project is to entertain as well as provide fodder for your designs, trash talk, and team histories. 

Here is basically how this project will work. I will explain the complexities of the process as it goes but the goal is to sit back, relax, and enjoy the story. Tomorrow I will share another video with a spinner with the names of NHL teams.  We will then match up one AltHL team with one NHL team. The NHL team will provide players as well as records for the AltHL team.  We will then take those records and find out who made the playoffs for a given season. Our playoff teams will be matched up with the corresponding teams of the AHL’s Calder Cup playoffs for that season.  Their results will drive our results. Throughout the narrative I will share with you items like important draft picks for each team, big free agent deals, blockbuster trades, devastating injuries and other notable league news.   Historically we will be able to track all time wins, build up our trophy cases, hang banners.  This style guarantees a natural evolution of a team's success and will give us a really authentic experience.  

This process will give some teams ‘championship banners’ to show off to the community, legends to call their own, and stories to become a part of their team’s history.  This project will cover the span of twenty seasons.   

Every professional sports league has been formed by a merger of some sort.  The NHL merged with the WHA. The AL and NL merged to form Major League Baseball, the ABA mixed with the NBA and the AFL and NFL merged to form the Super Bowl Era.  The AltHL will follow suit. We wanted the first season coming up to be the FIRST for the AltHL. This means that the history that we will create will be of two smaller leagues.  The first league will be a collection of our Canadian teams + Minnesota. And the second league will be the larger American league. Smaller leagues will ensure rivalries to spark up a little quicker.  Then the debate of which league is better will be a fierce one.

I will explain more on this during the premier of the Legacy Project. For now we have to decide which era we want to use as our historical simulation tool.  Check out the video for a more thorough explanation over this process and the need for a poll.  The poll will close at this time tomorrow.

 https://forms.gle/L3JoduUgZ1uMcBGZ8

Interesting..... very interesting!  This definitely wasn't where I expected this to go, and it's an really cool idea!  Kinda liked the 1980s to 2000 route since the NHL and WHA merger was right before then, which would go along with the AltHL's merger story.   But I'm definitely excited to see where this goes from here!