Season 39 was such a wonderful year. It was my first year in the proper SHL and I really didn’t know what to expect from my own player or my new team, the Buffalo Stampede. Rather foolishly, I’d worried that I wouldn’t get much time on the ice, buried behind players who’d joined before me. I didn’t realize how many of them were inactive. When negotiating my initial contract, I’d had <a href='index.php?showuser=1163' rel='nofollow' alt='profile link' class='user-tagged mgroup-13'>WannabeFinn</a> guarantee a minimum playing time of like 14 minutes a game as long as I stayed earning at a decent rate (I think it was 450 by the start of S39 or something like that). At the time I made the request, I was around 300 or so TPE. He was really cool about it, but looking back on the whole thing, and considering I averaged about 5 minutes a game over that mark, he had to have been laughing his ass off at such a ridiculous request.

I’ve written already about how Buffalo had the worst record in S38, not gonna re-hash that. I was one of four rookies to be called up to the Stampede, and led all of them in TPE. As such, I was the only rookie on the second line of forwards. I was not exactly an “impact” player. I averaged about 1 point every 8 games until finally, at the end of the season, I got demoted to 3rd line where I averaged about a point a game. I finished with 16 points, about half of what rookie of the year contenders were getting. I was arguably the worst rookie in Buffalo, and not higher than third with Bayley and Marko (who went on to win the award) finishing well ahead of me. Oh well, I loved it. As a team, Buffalo gained a few wins over the S38 mark.

Despite not doing well, I remained committed to my “high-speed finesse-checker” build. What I was really looking forward to was getting to play first line special teams. That offseason, we’d traded away Theo Kane to Texas, and lost Kian Hamilton to retirement. I was now the 3rd or 4th best forward (depending on priorities), but definitely one of the three best PP guys. I was expecting a breakout year. I was less certain about the team as a whole. As I said, we’d lost some significant talent, but also has some solid earners, and we were calling up some more talented folks from SMJHL as well. I figured we had enough depth to make up for lack of top level talent, after all.

To only my mild surprise, I was placed on the top line as well as first line PP. Not bad for only my third season since being drafted, right? Over a few games, some things got noticed. First, I was doing much better on points due to all the extra time on the ice (I was sitting at about 22 minutes a game). Second, over ten games I had as many penalty minutes as all of the previous season. Third, I had ZERO hits. The previous season I’d finished with 86, and that was with lower attributes and a lot less ice time. So zero after 10 was very concerning. Finally, second line was getting wrecked, with the team as a whole doing very poorly. Finn moved me down to second line after I bugged him about it, and while my points dropped off a little, my hits instantly took off. I finished barely shy of 100 despite the 10 games of nothing, probably because those hits were all I was good for in 5v5 play. Hamilton was contributing, just only in non-standard situations. I ended with 21 points, which was still well below our rookies had earned the previous year, but I was just happy to see improvement at all. The odd part was, only 11 of those 21 points were earned in generic ice time. 8 were in special teams (to include 1 goal scored on PK), which delighted the shit out of me. I had been nagging Finn all off-season to be put on first line PP, so having it work out like that was wonderful. Also, since I hadn’t been redistributing my points from penalty shot (I haven’t redistributed any gear, for that matter), I found myself with 2 goals from penalty shots as well. Unfortunately, Buffalo as a whole took a small step back, finishing better than S38, but worse than S39. I was hoping we’d hit 20 wins, which seemed a reasonable goal, but with 2 of our 3 1st line forwards under 800 TPE, I suppose that was too much to ask for.

Once again, I am optimistic for next season. I don’t know whether I’ll be first line or second line, or whether we’ll get any nice FA singings, but I do know that Buffalo will improve. Once again, we will be calling up multiple SMJHL players. The likely candidates this year include Dermot Lavelle, who will be a strong second line presence, and Connor MacGregor, who will tear up inactives on third (I’m a little jealous). I think he’ll be a strong candidate for rookie of the year. Hamilton will be above 90 skating, with a few more points in strength (his weakness) as well for burst speed, and will likely continue to be more effective in special teams and penalty shots than straightforward hockey. I have a goal of 30 points for this season, which would be a significant jump, yet I also think it is a pretty realistic target as he will be starting his fourth total season since the SHL draft at around 850 TPE, making him actually competitive on second line despite the wonky-ass build of his that I love.

When I created Kevin Hamilton, the former figure skater, I had no idea that he would become such a…physical player. He’s on pace to take the franchise record for most career hits dished out by a sizeable margin, and he’s already been in 5 regular season fights (all ties). The special teams focus has definitely been part of the plan, but penalty shots weren’t. Despite knowing nothing about hockey, having a below average player in terms of production, and being on a losing team, this league has been a lot of fun, and I don’t plan on abandoning SHL or Buffalo any time soon.