I, Aron Hernadivic, am personally rooting for the Tampa Bay Barracuda for a wide and long variety of reasons. The first reason is that the Tampa Bay Barracuda are a name that actually makes sense. Barracudas are saltwater fish that live in a variety of waters off the coast of Florida. Since Tampa Bay is in Florida, this makes sense. The Calgary Dragons do not, and will not ever make sense. Dragons don't exist, and if they did, it wouldn't be in Calgary. They should name them something more realistic, like the Dinosaurs, since Alberta is home to a shit ton of fossils, and Dinosaurs are old like the Boomers that make up Calgary's roster. (118)

Although the playoff format is good and has served us well, I think the SHL should go bold and make home-ice advantage something worth playing for. By this, I mean having every single game be played outdoors in order to provide the home team with an actual advantage. Imagine the home ice advantage Tampa Bay or SFP would have playing in 25+ degrees Celsius every home game, and then when they're on the road having to play in -15 to -30 degree weather in Buffalo or Minnesota? Teams would be uh fucked to put it kindly, and would make the regular season more important. Buffalo would have to hydrate a shit ton when travelling to face the West Kendall Platoon or the Tampa Bay Barracuda, forcing them to have to use the bathroom constantly. TBB or WKP on the other hand, would have to wear bundles of layers underneath their equipment, slowing them down and changing up the style of play they're used to.
Since the Earth is flat, physicists and scientists that think other realities exist with us are in fact, wrong, and there is only one alternate reality that exists, hereby referred to as the Upside Down. In the Upside Down, heavily favoured Buffalo doesn't play hockey like a bunch of buffoons, and in fact, beats a subpar Hamilton team. Since they're actually good in this dimension, they actually beat Tampa Bay as well. On the other side of the bracket, the Augment remains the same unstoppable force, since he's elite in any dimension, and so Calgary cakewalks to the finals like they did in the main reality. In this series, Monkey D. Luffy remembers he was worth a 10 x 10 contract and plays decent, making all my predictions come true and Buffalo wins the Cup!


A. Each team enters these finals with a red hot superstar - longtime league legend Mike Izzy for Calgary and surprise breakout star Gunnar Soderberg for Tampa Bay. Which of these players will have a more dominant finals?
This answer is easily Mike Izzy. Mike Izzy is the greatest and fairest player of the last 10 or seasons or so, and as proclaimed by himself, with his 99 skating, is one of those elite, all-time skaters. Only fools think Gunnar Soderberg could compare to the Augment. Soderberg and the rest of TBB would be better off folding than playing against Mike Izzy.

B. Kata Vilde and Benjamin Blue are two of the best goaltenders in the league - which team has the advantage in net?
Benjamin Blue washes the floor with Kata Vilde. Blue is the elite of the elite, the cream of the crop, the apple of Tampa Bay's pie. Both goalies were taken in the S41 draft, but as a late bloomer, age and injuries are already catching up to Kata Vilde, as he will be able to qualify for Freedom 55 Financial shortly, if he isn't already qualified.

C. Do you expect this to be a high-scoring series or a low-scoring series? A mix? Do you think it'll be competitive or will one team run away with it?
With how elite these goalies are, even with Vilde approaching the age of retirement and starting a part-time job to keep himself busy, this will be a low-scoring affair. Real talk, both these goalies have had good seasons, and will likely continue this on in the Finals, as everyone knows playoffs hockey are generally played tighter and more defensive.

D. What's your favorite player NAME on either team? why? (note: not who's your favorite player. which player name)
If I, Aron Hernadivic, had to pick my favourite NAME on either team, I would have to select, from the great country of Czechia, Bernik Vrzala. With a V and a Z thrown in there, Vrzala would be a great 6-letter play in Scrabble if names were allowed, especially if you could get it on a double or triple point tile would be a huge play and a total game changer.

E. If you could choose any one of the following four options, which would you pick? 1. A chicken parm sandwich from Esa 2. A tray of cookies from c00kies 3. A custom feet pic from JSS 4. An hour long stick and puck session with Jepox
As a huge chicken parm guy myself, I would love to have the Big Parm make me one of his world-famous chicken parm sandwiches. Cookies from c00kies would be ight, but could be awful depending on the type of cookie. JSS proll has some stinky feet so that's a hard pass, and although Jepox is talented, I only need advice from those that know how to make the ultimate 425-capped SMJHL god.


DMed