Sven Svenson had a pretty tough and disappointing rookie season playing for the rebuilding San Francisco Pride. The team finished with only 4 wins in 50 games, last place in the league, and Sven’s performance naturally suffered. The San Francisco Pride scored 71 goals and were scored on 243 times, a -172 goal differential, so naturally Sven had a +/- of -42. For his team only scoring 1.4 goals a game, it’s no surprise that Sven finished the season with only 3 goals and 10 assists… a paltry 13 points. Sven let his aggression out through physical play this season, amassing 142 hits. Svenson was an ice-time monster this season, eating up nearly 23 minutes of ice time (22:51) a night – making his per 60 advanced stats even more pathetic. Next season SFP will not be under a cap penalty and will have much more room to field a competitive roster, so Sven will have more SHL-caliber players to play with. Additionally, next season young players like HLO, Bjerg, Kavanagh, and Petrenko will be a year older and playing at a higher level.


The most memorable series has to be the S52 Series of Manhattan besting the San Francisco Pride in 6 games. It will be memorable to me because it is the high point of the San Francisco Pride before starting a slow descent into first mediocrity, then fire sale full-blown rebuild mode. It is too bad San Francisco did not win the cup in S52, because from there on out things have been rough for the Pride. S52 was my SMJHL rookie season and I was just still getting acclimated to the league when the playoffs were underway. I did not have any team I was rooting for in particular, more just watching the playoffs unfold with some familiarity of teams based on who the rookie mentors played for. When it came down to the finals, I liked Manhattan because of some of the users on it but I also really liked San Francisco’s branding. They lost, and had the 15th overall pick in the next season – which they used to draft me. I thought I would be joining a championship contender team, but coming up on 5 seasons later the Pride have entered a full rebuild of which I hope to be a part of the solution to.


I think the worst possible bracket I can come up with is a simple pairing of seeds in ascending order. #1 plays #2, #3 plays #4 etc. The next round, however, becomes a typical high vs. low seeding, so in the second round winner of 1v2 plays the winner of 11v12. From here there are 3 teams left, and one of them gets a bye round straight to the championship based on a random lottery. The remaining two teams play each other in the lone semi-finals series. This is awful because it punishes teams that finish well in the regular season (having to play another good team), but doesn’t completely incentivize tanking because the winner of 11v12 will have to play a good team. To top if off, after the second round one team randomly gets a huge boost by being selected to get a semi-finals bye. How infuriating for the two other teams.


The best SHL candidate for a hub bubble city would have to be Los Angeles. It’s a city that doesn’t have horrific weather in the winter, which is more than you can say than just about every other SHL city. This will allow players to have virtual amenities that are second to none – including an outdoor BBQ area, pool side party area, games like volleyball and cornhole, and nearby beaches where they can maybe pick up surfing. The SHL bubble will also allow players to leave the bubble, completing defeating the point of it (much like the NBA bubble), in case they really want to go to an outdoor café or grimy strip club. This will be important to making the season feel normal for players, allowing them to get up to their normal post-game drinking and partying routine. The bubble will also include a cannabis dispensary to allow players to relax and recharge – this bubble the players will not ever want to leave…


The best SMJHL team to not make the finals this past season was the Anchorage Armada. As much as I have disdain for the team, I cannot deny that they were a great team this season. They finished 3rd in the league in the regular season, 2 points back of second place Carolina, playing in a tough Western Conference. The Armada scored the most goals as a team this season at 170 and only gave up 136, second in both goals against and goal differential only to Vancouver. They were a scary team and could have easily made a run to win the Four Star Cup this season.


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