1. Written, 3 TPE (150 words min)
VIP Status babyyyyyyyy - your player has been invited to attend one of the first homestands of the CC finals as a VIP guest - all expenses paid, front row seats, any hotel you want - and it's all on the Commissioner's dime! Are you going to Games 1 and 2 in Tampa or Games 3 and 4 in Calgary? Why are you picking there? And what are you going to do in that city to run up Eggy's tab?? (This is the same prompt as last year but we've got different cities! be creative! Don't re-use what was written last season)

CC2 will obviously be invited to the CC finals as a VIP guest given his elite status as a player-- but he hates Tampa with a passion and hope they fail unless offering him a big money ticket when he hits free agency. This goes all the way back for hen they traded him and since then CC2 has cursed the organization to never win the cup and that they would regret moving him instead of paying up. This means that CC2 has a vested interest in Tampa's down fall even if they still have Blue on their team. CC2 would secretly vandalize the Barracuda arena and destroy their property, all the money lines will be linked through to Eggy so CC2 should be free of any criminal charges. He would use the Commissioner's money to buy out as many seats as he could for the Tampa home games so they would be empty.

154 Words

2. Written, 2 TPE (100 words min)
After a slow start to the regular season, the Dragons have surged of late and have rallied around the #CalgaWe notion of togetherness. On the other side, the Barracuda battled through a difficult East and are led by a very strong young core. Which team are you personally rooting for to take home the Challenge Cup and why?

I mentioned this before but I still hope this Tampa Bay squad doesn't find any success so naturally I am rooting for the Dragons-- As sickening as that sounds. I'm not quite a fan of the Dragons since they stop New Orleans from actually winning and get in the way of my predictions. They are also what I consider a system team and one of the few teams i'd be hesitant to play for. Regardless I still hate Tampa for dumping me off to Hamilton and hope they have their hearts ripped out in a long drawn out game 7 series where they believe they have a chance to win and then lose it all.

115 Words

3. Written, 3 TPE (150 words min)
Are there any changes to the playoff format you'd like to see implemented? More wild cards? Move to a single-elimination to bring about even more chaos? 999-game series to minimize chaos? Be creative!

A strange question since I am perfectly fine with the current format. The wildcard match is relatively interesting and enough teams make the play offs that the lottery matters in a way. Some folks really despise the wild card matches but I don't feel that way about them. Is home ice advantage truly enough though? Currently the split is only 4/3 but perhaps we should look into bolstering it even further for the team that put in the work in the regular season. 5/2 seems pretty reasonable and i'm not saying that I hate upsets, it's just that I want to see the best product move on and maybe even turn a profit. Double elimination could be pretty interesting but lends itself to many complications due to it taking so long to sort out. People aren't exactly patient in the SHL since that is another complaint about the WC games so we should keep it as short as possible without drawing out the post-season.

166 Words

4. Written, 3 TPE (150 words min)
Alternate Reality: Physicists and other smarties believe that this reality is just one of infinite realities existing alongside this one in parallel. Take us over to one of those realities in which everything is the same but these S50 playoffs have unfolded differently. What happened in this reality's playoffs and who's in the Challenge Cup over there?

The best time line is quite clearly the Planet CC2 timeline. Cameron Carter II is considered the undisputed GOAT in this era and has put up multiple 100 point seasons and is the first ever player to be inducted into the HOF while still being active in the league. He is so incredible in S50 that he somehow is elected President of the United States and launches a conquest of the entire world, renaming Earth to Planet CC2 and the states as the United States of GOAT. He wins MVP, the Dar, first team all star, Razov, and Challenge Cup unanimously as everyone else is so much worse than him. Dylan and Ferda are his linemates in this alternate future and Darnless Johnson is CC2's personal water boy. Loki has been deported to whatever god forsaken place he has come from an Cuddles has been arrested by the FBI on charges of trying to obstruct CC2's greatness.

157 Words

6. Written, 3 TPE (150 words min)
Who's the best player that you have witnessed in the SHL never to make it to the Challenge Cup finals? Or what player that hasn't made it to the finals is most deserving and why? Were they close? Was theirs a story of hearbreak? Is there still hope in the future? (150+ words)

Cameron Carter the II is the greatest player ever witnessed to never make it to the Challenge Cup finals, in fact he has only made the post season once in his career. Why so? The entire league is blatantly conspiring to keep him down and to make sure he can never win. He is the fastest player in the league and has explosive skating speed, jumping off the page. His shot is deadly but teams have been cheating by using new technology to track CC2s shots and feeding the information to goaltenders through an ear piece-- Or that is what CC2 claims. Satellites have been watching his every practice and CC2 believes that he no longer has privacy as the league does nothing to assist him in combating these evil doers that don't want CC2 to succeed. He has cracked the all time 100 hits leaderboard and is the player with the fewest number of games to do so-- Many believe him to be a future Hall of Famer but it would be sad to see him retire 50 seasons from now without a cup so he will remedy this ... NEXT SEASON!

192 Words

13. Written, up to 5 TPE Pick up to 5 Challenge Cup related topics to write about! Each topic is worth 1 TPE. Each answer must be 50+ words to qualify.
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?
Mike Izzy. Gunnar Soderberg is too young to withstand the pressure and I have always suspected them to be weak willed after Tampa had to move CC2 to make room for them. With a personality so fragile they likely won't do as well in the CC finals as they are also cursed to fail for the team tossing CC2 into Hamilton naked. Mike Izzy has been a consistent two way force and quite easily a hall of fame player. He will show up and be prepared to lead the troops, especially since he has already won before.

113 Words

B. Kata Vilde and Benjamin Blue are two of the best goaltenders in the league - which team has the advantage in net?

I'll say Benjamin Blue. This is interesting since the two are close to each other in age and have both seen success-- But I personally believe Blue's short resume to be better in comparison when you look at seasons dominated. That said I have a lot of respect for Vilde but I have to pick my boy Blue since he is a positive person that support the CC2 take over.

70 Words