16. Gritty

13.
a.  It is pretty clear to me that the Hamilton Steelhawks have the better roster as they performed better over the entire regular season and have thus far dominated the championship series with commanding victories in the first two games.  Buffalo just can not compare with the top end talent that Hamilton has assembled this season and it will be very difficult to beat them.
b.  At this point, you ride the horse that got you here in my mind.  The tactics have worked well for Hamilton and there is no real reason to change them up.  Since Buffalo got smoked in the first game, we did see them shift their tactics a bit in the second game.  While that helped them get evened up in shot totals, they still got smoked.
c.  I have only been around one lake close enough to judge it and that was Lake Michigan from the shores of Wisconsin and in Chicago.  I have to say, in the right light, it was as blue as the Caribbean Sea which was spectacular to look at.  It is a very cool look so that is the one that I would pick to be my to choice of all of the great lakes.
d.  I would pick Theo Morgan as he has been an absolute stud for us this season.  I want to learn how to score more goals like he does on a regular basis.  It has been a great time being part of this awesome team so anyone else I could have picked would have been equally great.

7.  This season I expect more of the same from the top countries who have dominated this tournament of late.  Great Brittan, not known for their hockey talent has taken the world by storm these last few seasons and will be a top contender.  The United States is always a strong team and a favorite to win gold.  Canada, the land where hockey was born (at least it seems like that is the case) is also a very strong contender.  In the end, I expect one of those three teams to win gold and the other two to finish silver and bronze.  My money is on Great Brittan taking the gold though.  If there was going to be a team that was not mentioned above that could possibly break through this year, it could be team Japan who always seems to make themselves relevant in these tournaments.  It is clear they have a good team and always cause trouble for the power houses when it comes time for the elimination games.

1.  This season was a complete surprise for my player, Guy O'Shea.  What started out with a whirlwind of trades beginning with me in Texas being unprotected to being drafted by Atlanta and then immediately traded to my current team Hamilton, it was anything but boring.  Ultimately I was very lucky to end up here as we are now competing for the championship and are just two wins at the time of writing this away from taking the crown.  I also started off the season on a historic pace for scoring for someone at my TPE level.  I always knew that the law of averages would eventually slow me down but man was it a fun ride while it was going on.  For a large stretch of the season, I was averaging over a point per game and spent a good amount of time in the top 10 in points.  I ended up finishing a little slow but still good enough for top 5 in scoring for defenseman which was pretty cool.

8.  In honor of our opponents down the road in Buffalo and also because I am just a huge fan of them, the easy choice was to offer some special buffalo wings as our featured championship concession stand food.  There are a lot of ways to make buffalo wings but we decided to go with a barbecue siracha with some blue cheese on the side.  These things were huge as we were able to find a great source that had some meaty wings.  Offered both in fried, breaded and fried, and grilled, you really could not go wrong with any of the choices.  Of course we also offered standard buffalo hot sauce as a basic option but anyone who missed out on the BBQ siracha really missed out.  We almost sold out over the first two games of the series and with the way things are looking, we may not get a chance to have another home game.  I would expect Buffalo to come out hot in front of their home crowd though so we are restocking just in case.  If they do not get to be eaten at the stadium, we'll serve them up at the victory parade.