I managed to play top line minutes as a rookie as center has been a position of weakness recently, but it's also an honor to be called on so early in my career. There was a point this season that I went on a five game goal scoring streak and thought that maybe I had made great strides in my games. However, I was mostly snake bitten the rest of the season and couldn’t find the net much after that. I expect with the retirement of Nickolas Klaus that I will be called on even more than before. I plan on being a terrific two-way player and hopefully that can help us further down the road. I’m working on a number of things this offseason to give us a bit more push such as my passing skills, staying strong on my skates and overall vision of the ice as well as a few other areas that I still need work in.


I wasn’t around for much of this, but the Specters victory over the Steelhawks is very memorable for a number of reasons. Hamilton was favored by many after coming off the first cup in FHM history and New Orleans had never won a Challenge Cup. Instead of a close series, New Orleans swept Hamilton, Aleister Cain played out of his mind and the rest of the team did what they needed to do to win with confidence. But, the celebration was short-lived and the aftermath of the victory is almost as memorable as the win itself.

Immediately following that was the departure of several key players amid wholesale changes. Gone were up and coming players such as Keith Lee and Mitchell van der Heijden and a slew of prospects and the former took shots at some of his old teammates as he left. In came Rex Kirkby, a big name blueliner the Specters needed, and the rest is history.


In the SHL, I predicted both Hamiltion and Chicago to make the finals. I believed that the Syndicate were going to be the team to beat after the monster season they had and that this was there absolute best shot at a Challenge Cup. With names like Corey Kennedy and Martjin Westbroek having monster seasons and the rest of the team doing very well defensively, I felt that they could go all the way and they really almost had it too. After going up 3-0 in their series versus Buffalo, they came back down to earth in the final four games in what has to be a crushing blow for the team.


I think that my team, Team USA, always has a shot at a gold medal and I expect us to make the medal round easily. With Michael Fox switching to defense for the tournament and possibly permanently, I expect the USA will dominate in the round robin and be a force once again in the medal round. I think Great Britain will once again be the team to beat this season. This is the tournament that Norway finally makes the leap and makes the medal round this tournament after falling short as they have recruited heavily the past few seasons. A team I think could slip is Germany as many of their players are regressing and limped into the medal round last season. Austria is another team which just had multiple players retire and very little coming up to replace them. I think because of this, both Ireland and Norway will replace them in the medal round.


Hamilton’s forward group on paper is very diverse with a good mix of two-way players, snipers, forecheckers and playmakers, while Buffalo’s roster is filled with players that are very similar to each other with few exceptions. So I expect Hamilton to be the better team just due to the fact that they have that diversity and are able to gel together better.


I expect Hamilton to stick to their game plan for the most part, but be ready for adjustments if Buffalo makes some. The Steelhawks generally played a run and gun type offense and it worked all season, while the Stampede have played more of a two-way game and that may not work for them in this series, so I expect them to adjust quickly to the better team.


thesheepmaster

16 TPE