Quote:TASK ONE: (worth 3 TPE)

Written: Pick any goal scored in the S29 playoffs so far and write the play by play for it. (150 words)

We've got nine minutes to go here in the third period. The Vancouver Whalers are down by two to the Kelowna Knights--this is a critical stop for them if they hope to recover.

Charlie Conway and Mikael Talo of the Kelowna Knights are setting up for the draw...and Conway wins the draw. He passes to Carl Farris, but the winded line needs a change and so they dump the puck in the Knights zone. Levi Kubrak and Strawberry Blake take the ice for the Whalers as Mikke Laukkanen retrieves the puck, passing it to Fedor Shirobokov to set up the next play.

Shirobokov passes to Mikko Linna, Linna back to Shirobokov and they drive it through the neutral zone and down to the Vancouver side. Shirobokov passes to Ziggler, who passes to Linna. Nothing going, Linna passes it back to Shirobokov. Back to Linna, who sets up Yanovich. Yanovich doesn't have a great angle on the shot, but he does have a lane towards Talo, who's right in front of the net.

Mikael Talo takes the shot--

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!! MIKAEL TALO SCORES!! HE PUTS THE KELOWNA KNIGHTS UP 3-1 AND THEIR CHANCES ARE LOOKING GOOD FOR A WIN HERE IN GAME TWO.

Quote:TASK TWO: (worth 3 TPE)

Written: Choose a standout player in the regular season, and write 200 words on how they’ve measured up so far in the playoffs. Must include at least three stats.

Frans Erichsen was obviously the standout offensive player of the regular season. A rookie, Erichsen came in and managed to outscore last year's top rookie, Mikael Talo, by seven points. Not only comparing to, but beating a strong second-year player is a significant achievement. In addition to being the top point scorer in the league with 55 points scored in the regular season, he was the best winger in the league by six points (ahead of Talo's teammate and linesman Mikko Linna), fourth overall in shot percentage with a 15.85%, and tied teammates Dos Diablo and Alexander Charlyb'y as the plus/minus leaders with a finishing number of +24.

Though his playoff performance was slightly less dominant, it was only by a tiny matter of top-tier degrees. In the playoffs, Erichsen tied Talo for first overall as a center, with sixteen points--but Talo got his sixteen points in only eleven games, where Erichsen played the full slate of 18 as the Scarecrows took the cup. He was second for wingers behind teammate Sebastian Strange, with 18 points scored, and tied with Mikko Linna, who had also played only eleven games. His shot percentage wasn't quite as good, both in terms of his individual performance (down to 13.33%) and in terms of who was ahead of him, unable to crack the top ten on the playoff leaderboard. His plus/minus is difficult to compare with the different schedule, but he was also out of the individual running there, the minimum score with a +/- of 7 required to be on the leaderboard and Erichsen himself at only +4. But he made up for those two with a brand-new stat--his first-ever hat trick.

So, is the rising sophomore looking good for year two in the league?

Absolutely.

Quote:TASK THREE: (worth 3 TPE)

Written: Choose what you think is a pivotal moment in any of the series’ so far, and flip it on it’s head. What happens if one team loses a game seven instead of wins? What happens if one goal isn’t scored, or is? How does the playoffs change, and how does the series change? (200 words.)

For me, the most pivotal moment in the SMJHL playoffs this year was the Vancouver win in Game 7 of the SMJHL Western Conference Final. Though it isn't tremendously likely with St. Louis's strength that Kelowna would've gotten past them for a Cup win, Vancouver was certainly not going to. Though they made the necessary adjustments to win the last four games, Kelowna had significantly better statistics throughout the playoff series. Kelowna's top line is still at or near the top of the charts of nearly all of the individual leaderboards, despite playing only eleven games. Talo, Linna, and Dominique were standout forwards for the Kelowna squad, and Landvik and Justice were both tremendous as the top defensive pairing.

Had Kelowna won any of the prior games, they would've gone on to face St. Louis in the final. Again, St. Louis had more roster depth with their extremely successful free agency deals over the course of the regular season. However, Kelowna had a high number of draft picks and three of the four had updated at least once going into the final round, meaning they realistically would have stood a chance to at least walk away with one win. Though the sim gets everybody sometimes, this season it got Kelowna hard, and despite the pre-Game 7 adjustment--changes that our GMs ran and we got a win with 7/8 times simmed--Kelowna could not pull off one win, leaving the final series with a worse matchup and an ultimate brutalizing of Vancouver, a team not set up to win, by the Scarecrows.

Quote:TASK FOUR: (worth 3 TPE)

Written: Your player has won the Challenge Cup! Write 200 words about what he or she does on his or her Cup day. (This applies even to players whose teams didn’t make the playoffs)

The cup would be flown to Rauma, Finland, Mikael's hometown and where he will be spending his summer. Rauma is a small fishing village, and Mikael would wake up early, take the cup out on the dock overlooking the thawed lake, and sit and relax with a book until it was time to go in and eat breakfast (naturally, a waffle breakfast with his own portion served in the basin). A post-breakfast nap with the cup would of course then be in order--he and the family cat would go back to his childhood bedroom and spend a lazy early morning and afternoon having a lie-in.

Though Mikael isn't tremendously social by nature, his mother and two brothers are, and they would probably feel like his Cup day was something to be celebrated with family and friends alike. The neighborhood would transform into a block party, beer in the coolers and hot dogs and hamburgers--and, of course, fried fish--served all afternoon and into the night. Other invitees would include Finnish brethren Mikke Laukkanen and Mikko Linna, who while they'd have their own day with the Cup would certainly join Mikael in his. And, anywhere Linna is, Landvik will inevitably show up and crash the party, hair tied back, sunglasses on and ready to get LIT--so knowing this, Mikael would've sent her a plane ticket and saved her the trouble. After that, bedtime with the Cup, and then buckling it into the plane the next morning to see it safely to its next destination.