(Double draft media x2, 1542 words)

Intro: The SHL and SMJHL drafts have come and gone, and recent draftees will be joining their new teams in the next couple of days, in no doubt it is an exciting time for both the players and the organizations. However, with todays in depth interview we are going to focus on a Texas Renegade draft pick. This player was drafted in the second round at the 29th pick, and would be Texas’ second pick of the draft from the Anchorage Armada. Who’s the player you ask? Lemo Pihl! Lemo Pihl has had a quiet career compared to some other rookies, but we are going to dive into some questions with Lemo, and see what else we can find out about him. Thanks for joining us Lemo, we appreciate you taking the time. We saw your draft experience article, so we will try and target some questions to find out more about you. So without wasting anymore of your time lets get into the questions.


1) Tell us about draft night, were you with a big group of friends, and family following along with the draft? Were you on laptop live streaming a second hand feed? Did you even get to catch it at all? It must have been an exciting time when you first got that call saying you’ve been drafted to Texas?

Hi and thanks for having me here! Draft night was a bit tough, to be honest. Since I knew pretty much for certain that I wouldn’t be a first round pick, I decided to stay at home in Estonia during the event and try to watch and participate online. It was a long season in Anchorage and as great as that city and its surroundings are, as you all know ‘there’s no place like home’ and I wanted to spend as much of the off-season as I could back home in Estonia with my family. As it happened though, just as the draft event was nearing the middle of the second round, it was around 3 AM in the morning, our little three-month-old baby son suddenly went nuts with midnight gas again and so I actually ended up missing the actual moment when my name was called. I came back to the living room after a while of helping my wife calm our son down and help him with his gas and then saw my name already run past on the ticker at the bottom of the screen, saying ‘29. TEX LW Lemo Pihl (ANC)’ and that was it! I was going to Texas! I was happy though, I’ve actually been a Dallas Stars of the NHL fan for a long time and some of my favourite musicians are also from Texas, like Michael League and Shaun Martin of Snarky Puppy and then the band Khruangbin! And the team is led by a finnish manager, which is also really cool for me, since I have a bunch of finnish friends and maybe even getting to speak some finnish once in a while in Texas might keep the home-sickness at bay better :D Overall I was really happy with the result, both the draft spot and the destination!

2) Now, when you eventually make the jump to Texas from Anchorage what are you most looking forward too? The quality of life will be much different just from a living stand point? Do you like the quieter atmosphere that Anchorage can offer, or are you looking forward to big city living?

Now that you mention it, it will probably be a bigger change in atmosphere than moving from Tallinn to Anchorage. Those are actually pretty much on the same latitude, even though they are on the other side of the hemisphere from each other. So the climate is actually quite similar to Estonia, if a bit cooler. And the city itself is even a bit smaller than Tallinn by population. So the jump to Dallas will indeed be something else completely! Personally I have to admit, I’m not that much of a big city guy. I like the closeness of nature that smaller cities like Tallinn and Anchorage have, so I can go hiking or biking or something like that in places away from too much artificial noise without having to spend the whole day in transit just to get there. But I’m sure I’ll find good recreational opportunities in and around Dallas as well. Looking forward to getting to know the local music scene better, for instance.

3) Anchorage is coming off a pretty disappointing playoff loss this season, many people had Anchorage making it into the finals. Do you think this pressure was too much for your team? Ultimately you played a very strong series, but the goaltending was struggling and I am sure Stratton would have wanted that series back.

That was really disappointing. The worst feeling so far in my career! We were already up 3-1 in that series and then Bloomfield went full wall-mode and Scooch just couldn’t keep up with it anymore and neither could our offense. I don’t know if it was the weeklong break of the bye round that caused us to maybe get too comfortable, or just the overconfidence that we were already just one win away from advancing? I guess with games 5 and 6 being close and statistically in our favor even despite the final scores, we could still sort of count on having another chance to close them out, but then suddenly in game 7 I don’t even know what happened. The Timber suddenly just dismantled us like they hadn’t done even in the games they had won thus far and we were sort of shell shocked. And there was no longer another chance to close them out, but they had closed us out. It was just devastating to be there for the handshakes, in the locker room after… We had been so close – we even took game 6 to overtime, but still couldn’t close the deal then and there… And Scoochie had been a rock for us that whole season, we should have had his back better too in those final games – hard to win anything if we can’t score more than one goal. But we’ll learn from this and be back better than ever next season!

4) The new season is right around the corner, what are your team goals with Anchorage, and your personal goals for the season? I think it is safe to say Lemo will take a step forward this season, and receive more ice time. You setting up any expectations for the season, or are you going to take it game by game?

After last season the team goal can only be one – winning everything that can be won by us! I think if we set a team goal that was anything less than that, we’d be selling ourselves short and just looking for excuses for failure. It’s going to be a whole team effort and I am certain that we will be equal to the task. As for my own personal goals, I will likely get bumped up to the third line for this season and will look to clean up my game and be a more effective player all around. I failed my goal of staying positive in the plus-minus column last season, but have to achieve that goal this time around. That means better defending, better passing, more takeaways, more assists, etc.  I am still learning new things with every training session, every game and I have to keep up that effort level throughout the whole season. If I can do that, then I’ll be happy with myself. But at the same time, it won’t mean much at all if we can’t achieve our goals as a team, so it will all be geared toward that end.

5) To finish off the questions Lemo, we save the best for last. If you were to be trapped on an island for 2 other Anchorage players who would you want to be stranded with? The big personality, Bork Lazer? Your fellow draftee’s the Petrovs? The readers want to know!

Haha! That’s an interesting one! If I could take someone from the Anchorage locker room, I think first and foremost I’d have to think about having something to eat, so Apricot sounds like a good tasty choice for one :D But alas, he’s the coach and not a player for us! Well, perhaps on a tropical island we’ll find apricots on trees too. But Biscuits! Biscuits don’t grow on trees! So Pojo Biscuit would certainly be a welcome companion in such trying circumstances! And then since you actually didn’t say the island would have to be deserted, I think it would be excellent if we could find a market somewhere to barter for some goods. In case we couldn’t find one otherwise though, my mate TURG TURG (meaning ‘market market’ in my native Estonian) would be my second choice to have along! So how about them apples?