This past offseason I certainly didn't make a significant step forward offensively.  I went from 24 points in 50 games to 25 points in 50 games (wooooo! big leap right there) and I also really didn't have a larger role on the Kelowna Knights than in my first 2 seasons.  But to be fair I was already on the top pairing, top pk unit, top pp unit, and basically all of our top units across the board so like... there really wasn't room to grow into a more significant role.  (I was also captain my sophomore season as well, but I realized I skipped it after I finished this write up soooo.... have some more words).  That's really everywhere I stayed stagnant from S55 so now let's see how things got better or worse.  The Knights clearly took a step backwards, but that was expected and our down year still resulted in us winning a playoff series so no complaints there.  Going back to Park on the ice though I took a HUGE step forward defensively.  Increased in essentially every statistical category, but to me more importantly I led the J in DGR and was tied for first in GR across all skaters.  So with all that taken into account I'd say I met the high bar I try to hold myself to.  It was needed on a Knights team that was so rookie heavy on offense and I like to think I was an integral part in our success against ANA in the playoffs.


Oh easssssy! You saw what the NHL did after they cut the season short right? Now picture that, but with a full season played and teams still have to then play a series for seeding.  The way I envision this format working out is to pair teams for this seeding tournament by matching them to the opposing conference.  (Last in the east plays last in the west etc.). From there once the seeding is set it makes sense to split the bracket between the good and bad teams and from there go into a normal playoff format with the top half playing each other and the bottom half doing the same to see if the tops or bottoms appear in the finals.  Once all that happens and we get down to 2 final teams the additional seeding series took up too much time so in the interest of moving the offseason along it should be a one off championship game to crown a winner.


Across the major sports leagues in the US (and Canada, technically they're both international sports leagues) the NBA and the NHL took 2 different approaches to a bubble environment.  The NHL picked 2 separate cities and set up pretty stringent requirements for players taking over a few hotels in addition to the obvious arenas.  Conversely the NBA took over a resort (basically, Disney counts as a resort for these purposes ok) and gave players a bit more freedom to move within the resort area.  So with those 2 successful blueprints I think the SHL should do something completely different.  Knowing the mischief that a lot of SHL players like to get into it makes more sense to create a bubble in one of the smaller markets between both the SHL and the SMJHL in Kelowna.  A smaller city would result in fewer distractions and opportunities while also making the players that inevitably sneak out much easier to spot.  Kelowna provides the perfect setting for this setup because it is just a couple hours from Vancouver so there is a major airport hub where players can fly into when arriving at the bubble.  And yeah, the players might complain when the most entertaining thing in the entire bubble is a billiards bar that only carries Puppers but they can get over themselves.


The two teams I'm on (BAP and KEL) are the worst teams to not make the finals.  They both clearly have phenomenal leadership because they each drafted me so from top to bottom they are phenomenal organizations.  Just incredibly well run by smart, sexy gentlepeople.  And yeah, this question probably means best team on the ice but I choose to live in ambiguity.  But also word counts are a thing so looking at KEL a little deeper we didn't make the finals simply because of our forwards.  We had a championship caliber defense the whole season with 4 capped players (3 at 425 and 1 at 350) to go with another IA guy sitting at 417.  Beyond that in net we had the luxury of choice with 2 capped goalies to choose from.  The offense was our achilles heel all season and ultimately what got us bounced from the playoffs was coming up against a juggernaut heavily featuring 2 players we traded away.  If VAN didn't have geck and rotti then I think we would have made the finals this season because even with a depleted forward core we still won a playoff series so 2 capped guys would have gone a long way to putting us over the hump.


Sooooo the IIHF tournament already started but I'm gonna pretend it didn't for this question.   Let's start with Team Norway since RCD poached me from the US to join my Norwegian brethren.  In the team locker room he posted a really compelling high level view of the state of the team relative to last season that makes me think we're basically a shoe-in for the gold medal.  Between last season's tournament and the start of this one Norway has gained an absurd 2898 TPE relative to last season's squad. So with that in mind I'd like to expand on our guaranteed gold medal.  Not only will team Norway win the tournament, but we will also go undefeated in both exhibition and round robin play.  so that brings me to the remaining teams.  I predict that after round robin play the federation heads will get together and collectively decide that the juggernaut Norway (having just won every game 6-0) is just unbeatable so there is no point in competing further.  Norway will be awarded the Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals and S57 will start sooner than expected.


Anyone that doesn't say Lake Michigan is wrong and should not get credit.  Why? Because that is where I spent at least a week each summer growing up camping with my grandparents/ aunt.  One summer my sister got an inflatable giraffe and the wind swept it out onto the lake and she was sad.  It was great. That's it, that's the answer. 

 dibs on winning