During my time with my very first player in the league with the Edmonton Blizzard during the S50's, we had to face the powerhouse team in the playoffs during that period which were the Hamilton Steelhawks. When we found out we were going up against them, I could sense our management team knew we didn't really stand any chance against Hamilton. In this deep dive, I'm going to look back at how good and dominant exactly they were during the S50's when I had the luxury of facing them quite a few teams in the playoffs.

We switched over to FHM 6 in S53, so I'll be looking at Hamilton's seasons from S53-S59 (S60 was when I got taken in expansion draft to Montreal and joined Hamilton in the North East division but back then Hamilton was part of everyone's favourite division known as the Great Lakes before Chicago got moved to the Central as part of Montreal and Philly joining the SHL for S60 with the league expansion).

S53:
In the first season with the switch from STHS to FHM 6, the Hamilton Steelhawks finished with a 40-7-3 record (each season only played 50 regular season games until the regular season got increased to 66 games in S57) HAM finished 2nd overall in the league behind the New England Wolfpack who had 2 points more than them. Hamilton eventually won the challenge cup in the first ever season of FHM and would usher in their dominance for many seasons to come. Hamilton would ultimately the Edmonton Blizzard in 6 games to capture the cup. Future hall of famers on Hamilton that led their team during this season included Flacko Lagerfield, Robert Phelps and Aaron Wilson.

S54: 
Hamilton once again finished 2nd overall in the league the following season with a regular season record of 38-10-2. They would also see themselves making it to the cup finals but would lose in convincing fashion by being swept the New Orleans Specters. We would see the same trio of players from S53 being Hamilton's top producing players in this season again too.

S55: 
Hamilton would see a decline in their performance this season by finishing with a record of 33-14-3 and losing in the second round to their great lakes rival the Buffalo Stampede in 5 games. 

S56:
After their early exit the previous season, Hamilton was on a revenge tour this season and wound up with the best regular season record in the league with a 40-4-6 record. Hamilton's Theo Morgan would win the scoring title too by producing an amazing 82 points in only 50 games. We would see more teams making the playoffs this season too, but Hamilton proved to be too much as they would capture the Challenge cup (their toughest test was in the 3rd round when they went to 7 games against the Edmonton Blizzard).

S57:
The first season for the standard 66 game regular season we see now and Hamilton adjusted quite steadily by being the best team in the regular season with a 53-9-4 record. They would cruises their way all the way to the cup finals, but would fall short by losing in 5 games to the Chicago Syndicate. Hamilton's Michael Scarn would lead the league in scoring with 93 points in the league's first season playing 66 regular season games.

S58:
Hamilton finished S58 with a regular season record of 50-13-3 and captured another challenge cup by beating the Buffalo Stampede in 5 games,

S59:
Hamilton once again crushed their opposition in the regular season by having a whopping 56-9-1 record, however they couldn't carry this momentum into the playoffs as they would eventually fall in 7 games to the eventual cup winners which would be the Texas Renegades. 

From S53 - S59 we saw the Hamilton Steelhawks accomplish the following:
- x3 Challenge Cups
- x4 Presidents Trophies

Hamilton even won the cup in S51 so the S50's were quite dominated by Hamilton and Great Lakes teams. It must've been a fun time to be part of Hamilton during this time as they had a lot of team and player success.

(687 words)

    

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