I think we'll see a decent amount of consistency with this season, especially in terms of the very top and the very bottom. I expect NEW and HAM to make playoffs again, and I'd bet EDM and LAP are right there in the west as well. I do expect the disparity, especially in the east, to come down a bit. NEW and HAM's rosters are not severely regressing, but I do think some of the other teams will end up being a little bit more competitive, which will cut into the points for those conference leaders a touch as well. Manhattan and Buffalo still have solid rosters, and I'd expect the playoff picture to look roughly the same, with poor chicago left on the outside looking in once more. Tampa will likely be even worse, and Toronto could see some slight improvement but not enough to get them out of the bottom tier. I could see Texas, Minnesota, and Winnipeg being all closer together as well.


Indeed, what a well-presented question. I feel like most people think the "dominant" nations in terms of roster size (i.e., United States and Canada) will be leading the charge in IIHF, and I'd have to agree with that prediction. While strength of roster wasn't always a determining factor in STHS, as we well know, the expectation is that it will be in this FHM-run IIHF, and thus the expectations of US and Canada to do well. It'll be especially interesting to see which of the teams in the next tier can make some noise, and that's difficult to assess without fully knowing what that tier is. I'd say Germany should be expected to perform quite well. GB is loaded on defense but not so much on offense, so they're a bit trickier to predict. Without looking at rosters, I feel like there are a few teams who could contend for a bottom-of-the-group spot, including Latvia, Russia, and Japan. Excited to see how it all plays out!


No bias here but I think the best form of intermission entertainment would be lubed up otter races. You set up a track going all the way around the perimeter of the ice; think like a makeshift bobsled track or something, inflatable or made out of plastic and lined with tarps or something. Next, the entire track gets lubed up so it's super slippery. Then you line up 4 otters (like how baseball stadiums do with mascot races) - you'd have to find some way to distinguish them so fans can pick an otter before the race and watch them slide to glory! Now that I think about it it may be difficult to get the otters to run in a circle, so we may need a floating rack with some fish on it; as long as that rack stays in front of the otters it can be their target, so you bring that rack around in a circle and make them follow it. Also in this world the otters have all consented so it's not animal cruelty and you give them extra fish at the end of the lap!


c. If we're going off this previous season, give me Flacko Lagerfield, Tony Pepperoni, and Julio Tokolosh at F, with Karlstrasse Scholtz and Brady McIntyre at D, and Hamilton Goalies in net. This isn't the best possible team in terms of fantasy points, but it successfully avoids having Gabe Johnson on the team, which has to be priority number one, and it has the added benefit of Tokolosh at the forward spot. What we lack in points we'll make up for in heart!
d. Absolutely not, it's terrible and it sucks, and people who like snow are LOSERS. I'm from boston so i've seen plenty of snow - if you've never really seen snow before, I totally get it, and you're allowed to like it. But if you've dealt with snow your whole life and you still claim to like it, that's a no-no imo. Warm is better than cold, dry is better than wet, warm and dry is better than cold and wet, and I don't know how you could argue otherwise.


Congrats, team, indeed! The blizzard put up more of a fight than I expected, but the Steelhawks were always gonna take this one home. I'd probably pick Kryyst as playoff MVP, if for no other reason than no single skater on Hamilton stood out in the playoffs in terms of on-ice production. Their team system worked pretty well, and though Lagerfield stood out in the regular season, the distribution of points in the finals was much more even. Kryyst was excellent in all three rounds, and I think he's got the strongest case for the Razov trophy. Best Cow On Ice award would probably have to go to Julio Tokolosh though, in my opinion.

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