Draft has come and gone, fast. After a few weeks in game with almost no scouting messages, things quickly changed in the week leading to draft, that happened last saturday. In what was a very hyped draft due to the size and participation of draftees, with recreates, including General Managers, and new users, the Season 61 discord was buzzing for the event, with everyone wanting to know where the most coveted players would end up.

After my last media piece, where if you remember correctly, i had spoken to 8 teams, the final count stopped at 11. Out of the 20 teams that are a part of the Simulation Hockey League, 55% of them thought that Center Jay Cue could very much become an important part of the team in a couple of seasons time. I am happy for this, as i joined the league a bit later than most of the top prospects, so i am behind them in TPE a fair bit, especially now with some early season tasks that i could not get to when i created my player. So, behind mocked as a first rounder, ahead of a few "better" players, made me feel really good and even more motivated to show the team that would take a gamble on me that they made the right choice.

Now that everything is behind us, i decided to just take a look at all the scouting messages i received, to see where those teams finished the past regular season, and there was something pretty interesting about that, even though some might think that it is pretty normal for that to happen. Ok, so let us take a look at the teams that sent me some kind of message directly, with the person who messaged me in front (sorry if some usernames are from discord, and some others from the forums:

2 - Hamilton Steelhawks (Hallway)
7 - Calgary Dragons (Steelhead)
10 - Atlanta Inferno (hotdog)
12 - Tampa Bay Barracuda (Dwight Knight)
13 - Minnesota Monarchs (Kluster)
14 - Philadelphia Forge (honkerrs)
15 - New England Wolfpack (kenvald)
16 - Montreal Patriotes (dankoa)
17 - San Francisco Pride (ThatGuy91)
18 - Manhattan Rage (Toast)
19 - Winnipeg Aurora (Ace)

So, like i said, if you look at the numbers behind every team, you see a nice pattern there. 82% of the teams i talked too finished 10th or below on the regular season. Obviously that regular season standings only mean so much, as we just need to look at Atlanta for example, who managed to sneak into round 3 of the eastern conference playoffs after finishing only 10th, but i find it very interesting that the 11 teams i have talked to shaped this list like this.

The 9 teams missing from the list, i am going to guess that either they did not have any picks on the first round of the draft, or if they did, they were picking way too early to consider me at that point, like the New Orleans Specters for example, or even the Manhattan Rage with 3 picks in the first 11. I was definitely a bit surprised to know that the Seattle Argonauts decided to completely pass on Cue, while having 3 picks in the second part of the first round (10th, 12th and 20th), that was the area where most mocks had me going. The Edmonton Blizzard had the 13th pick, but they were probably completely focused on other options. It is cool, it will be great to take a look at this draft class in a few seasons to see if there were some reaches or big busts, with users being taken very early without the correspondent production on the ice. Sim is going to sim for sure.

Looking closely at any of the 11 teams, i knew 1 thing for sure, that if i was available when the Atlanta Inferno were on the clock, they were going to pick Jay Cue. Looking at most mock drafts submitted, being there at #17 was very unlikely, as most mocks had me going with the 14th overall pick to the Minnesota Monarchs. Many of them had me going to Atlanta really, as i was not very shy to share the info with my fellow draftees, and i guess the Atlanta General Managers also had no problem with being vocal about it. I think the highest someone mocked me was at #8, to the Tampa Bay Barracuda, but with me sitting at around 20ish in the TPE class leaders, i think that would be a very big reach if Tampa decided to pick me.

Pretty much every scout talk i had was cool. Some GMs/Scouts like to talk a bit more, some others kept things to a minimum, while others decided to just ask me a few "random" questions that had no impact on my league journey (at least none that i can think off), but i guess they do it just to check new users reactions the most. Everything is fair if you keep it respectable, and as a scout in other leagues, i can understand pretty much any question you would want to throw at me. At the most, i would just not answer at all and decided to talk about anything else.

Back to the list, eventually i got drafted by one of the teams i was definitely not expecting, #2 Hamilton, with their #16 OA pick, right after my Maine Timber teammate Big Newff. As a center, and not knowing any of the SHL rosters whatsoever, i decided to go and check their roster at that position, and holy crap, it is going to be really tough to be able to break out on the canadian team. Their top one is non other than Mitchell van der Heijden, probable Most Valuable Player winner this past season, a tremendous player that even though is regressing, will still be able to contribute a lot for seasons to come. Another centre, Rikard Hammarberg, that had a great season also also plays for Hamilton, with Michael Scarn, so all in all, 3 fantastic players that will be joined this season by no other than Dogwood Maple, a season 58 player still on the rise. Looking at all this, the future is bright for Hamilton, but Jay Cue will have to work a looooot to be able to become an impactful player for them. Nobody knows what will happen from now on, but what i can assure you is that Jay is going to be working extra time for a couple more seasons in the minors and then we will see what happens.

In the end, the draft process is a lot more exciting than i was used to in the ISFL, i do not know if it is because the scouting messages come a lot later (i got some messages on draft day!) or if it is because the draft is live and teams have to pick players on the fly, all i know every draftee was buzzing on Saturday. And another great thing was the "group" mock draft channel, that had people trying to guess the way teams were going, pushing GMs to leak their ideas and all that, to make it a very interesting draft.

To finish it off, i really want to thank every team that contacted me, i would be delighted to play for any of your teams if i had the opportunity, but either you chose to go other way when you had the chance, or you did not even get your chance to get me to your team. Either way, maybe we will cross paths in the future.

Pretty interesting to see which teams had the closest eye on your player. Glad to see the experience seems to have been a good one for you, and I think you'll be real happy in Hamilton.

S79 | Jeff Kirkstone III  |  G  |  Ottawa Highlanders
=============Transactions==============
- Drafted 15th overall by Ottawa (S78)
- Drafted 35th overall by New Orleans (S79)


S60 | Jimmy Larkin-Conway | LW | Retired
=============Transactions==============
- Drafted 19th overall by Nevada (S59)
- Drafted 27th overall by Baltimore (S60)
- Traded to Winnipeg Aurora (S63)
- Traded to Toronto North Stars (S64)
- Re-signed with Toronto North Stars (S65)
- Re-signed with Toronto North Stars (S68,etc.)
- Signed with Seattle Argonauts (S76)
- Signed with Winnipeg Aurora (S78)
================Trophies================
- Aidan Richan Award (S65)


S42 | Charlie Schieck | D | Retired



S31 | Jeff Kirkstone | G | Retired | Former GM