In my favourite alternate reality, the Jets relied on some en fuego goaltending from Vivian Leblanc to nip Calgary for the 5th playoff spot in the West. Winnipeg then beat LA in the Wild Card Round in 6 games, leading to Winnipeg vs Edmonton and New Orleans vs San Fran. The Pride took out NOLA in a hard-fought 7 game series that featuring Aleister Cain not blowing it but just getting outdueled by a sturdy defense protecting Chris Partridge. Winnipeg beat Edmonton in a close series, then somehow squeaked past the Pride when Partridge disintegrated and got pulled 3 times.

In the East, New England and Chicago squared off in the Wild Card with New England winning, but the Wolfpack fell to the next hurdle and lost to first-seeded Buffalo. Hamilton lost to Manhattan in a tough series, giving us a Manhattan/Buffalo final won by Buffalo.

The cup finals featured Cedric Robinson havign a rough outing, with the Buffalo skaters unable to keep up with the offensive output of BIG DICK NICK en route to the Jets winning the shocking Cup final in 6 games. Nick Brain won playoff MVP with 35 points in 24 games.

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It'll be tough, cause a lot of franchises are either missing crucial pieces or at risk of losing necessary pieces to free agency or trades. I would be inclined to say that Calgary should be the odds-on favourites, as they should have strong goaltending, good defense, and a tough forward core. Manhattan also warrants consideration if they keep the gang together, although they could use another elite defenseman to round things out.

Secondary favourites should include New Orleans (although the blueline is questionable), Edmonton (who have a good core but the goaltending is a notch short of elite), Buffalo and San Fran (who have great setups for success but average at best goaltending), Hamilton (who has great goaltending but a few key forwards in decline), New England (great core but a slightly below elite goaltender), and maybe Los Angeles (same deal as a lot of teams: will the goaltending be strong enough)

Chicago and Winnipeg are on the bubble of credibility and being worth a long shot bet, but Winnipeg may need a couple teams from the West to fall apart to get in the playoffs. Minny, Toronto, and West Kendall will probably occupy the top lotto spots, and Texas and Tampa Bay are in a weird transitional phase.

So to me theres four clear tiers that should have the odds closely grouped together within the tier........... but anything can happen.

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I'm not going to focus on one attribute above the others. I'm getting the sense, talking to people in the know about this game, that with our TPE scale being well-rounded is the way to go. I do intend to be slightly better at some things than others, but I don't intend to push one attribute super-high. I will be better at scoring, better at the defesive side of the game, slightly better at skating and physical attributes, and weaker at passing. Nick will fight a little, but not a lot, and won't be hyper-aggressive because that might lead to a premium of penalty minutes.

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I would like to see Luke Thomason of the Manhattan Rage get some sort of lifetime achievement award. Dude got to the fabled promised land of 2000 TPE with his player, has had some reasonable success as a manager (which may be capped off with a Cup win this season), and does some really good quality media pieces for the site. Not to mention, hes put together several very important Google documents that record things such as vast trade histories (that also document what each traded pick became in terms of the player they drafted with it.), and a TPE leaderboard segmented by draft class. I'm not sure if the SHL has a lifetime achievement award or something akin to the Bill Masterson, but Thomason and luketd should get the gig.

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First of all I'd just like to say this would have a fairly negligible impact on carbon footprints in the long run, cause cutting the amount of jets in the sky in a given week from thousands to thousands minus maybe a dozen isn't going to make much of an impact. But regardless I'd say no to this, as sports does not seem to lock a city into a series of games, and usually its either an entire tournament (like international events), or just a big one-off game (like the Super Bowl or the Champions League Finals in soccer.). Doing this host series bit would also be bad if the host city is a team in the finals, creating an unfair home ice advantage for 7 games.

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1. I'm inclined to say Manhattan has the managerial advantage. Jay seems competent enough and luke is a very smart guy who should be well respected. I have no beef with San Fran, but they've underachieved many times in the past with a lot of the same talented players, and ones gotta wonder if the finger should be pointed at the tacticians involved after a while (although honestly this is all RNG anyways and probably barely affected by tactics laid out by the head men).
3. Sorry but the Specters beat both of them by a considerable distance. I like the Rage's colour scheme as it translates to the jerseys more than the actual logo, which seems like a pretty big rip-off of the Chicago Bulls. Pride colour scheme I'm not a big fan of and the lion's always looked off to me. I'll take the Rage's logo I guess.
5. I have no idea what JayWhy's qualifications are to hold a chainsaw. Is he a lumberjack? Is he a Portland Timbers ultra? Who the hell knows, I certainly don't. I'm on the fence with Gritty but maybe it'd be cool to hang out with luke. Grapes are the kind of snack that should only be eaten in small quantities, but maybe if we had some cheese and other stuff to balance it out it'd be fine, and I'm not sure I'd want to view anyone's internet history for an hour (unless its the greatest hits of their meme section or some cool articles). I'll take B for lack of better options.

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