1. Written, 3 TPE (150 words min.)
Reflection on your season - how did your player fare on the ice this season? Did you meet or surpass your individual player goals or did you come up short? Whether you excelled or disappointed - what can you attribute that to? What will you try to do better next season?

As a Four Star Cup champion, it is very difficult for me to say that I fared poorly on the ice.  The team reached the pinnacle of achievement for junior hockey while I backstopped almost all but one game.  In counting the Whale Haul, while I fell behind in the regular season, I ended up scooping the top spot in the playoffs.

That said, my actual play may have been more of a hindrance in a lot of cases than a boon for our squad.  My GAA was OK because of the defense in front of me, but I still found myself frequently letting in the first shot, and my save percentage was less than ideal.  I (along with the rest of the junior goalies) was outrageously outplayed by rookie phenom Jon St. Ark in the regular season, and while I’m supportive and glad he has found success, it kind of stung to be “the bad goalie” in my final season in juniors.

Next season is a whole new world in the SHL, so I’ll be training hard and unbanking my points and seeing where I end up!

2. Written, 2 TPE (100 words min.)
FHM's 12-team playoff bracket setup has received a fair bit of scrutiny. It re-seeds after the play-in round and for some reason puts the #1 seed and #2 seed on the same side of the bracket. I challenge you to come up with a different playoff format - can you come up with a format that's dumber/worse than this? be creative! Come up with the worst possible format for a 12-team playoff.

I mean first off, no one actually wants good hockey for the final, we want to see the eventual victor take a victory lap and absolutely annihilate the loser in the finals to see how high they can run out the score.  That’s why I propose a losers bracket, where the loser of each round gets tossed in, and the loser of each of those games moves on.  At the end, there will be one ultimate winner who made it entirely through the winners bracket, and one ultimate loser who lost every single one of their series.  The final will be a faceoff between these two teams.  If the losers bracket team wins, they will all be given free PT passes for the next year and the team from the winners bracket is instantly given the death penalty.

4. Written/Graphic, 3 TPE (150 words min.)
If the SHL needed to set up a playoff bubble (like the NHL did in Edmonton/Toronto or the NBA in Orlando), which city would be the best candidate to host as the hub city? What would the players do during their time in a playoff bubble? (For graphic option, make an advertisement [like a pamphlet/brochure] in support of a specific city as the hub city and highlighting the reasons why.)

I believe that the ongoing continuation of SHL hockey amidst the COVID-19 pandemic is the world’s top economic priority.  The league provides economic benefit on the order of literally tens of dollars a year.  That’s why no precaution is too far in order to keep players safe from the Rona, and no expense should be spared to allow a successful completion of the SHL playoffs.  It is for these reasons that I believe an Antarctic bubble would be the best, most economic option for the SHL.

There are only a few people in Antarctica at any given time, and they are scientists, so they don’t like sports and they’ve already drank the Fauci Kool-Aid and are just going to be snowflakes in their little basement science lab.  Since there will be no possible human interaction outside of the bubble, controls can be rather lax as long as no one airlifts off of the continent.

The players can relax by watching the ice shelves melt away and surfing on penguins.

6. Written, 2 TPE (100 words min.)
Which SHL or SMJHL team was the best team to not make the finals this season and why?

Honestly I have to pour one out for the Carolina Kraken, who lost to Vancouver in 7 in the Western Finals.  That was a super hard fought series with some suppressive defense and a very opportunistic offense.  While Vancouver was able to put up a ton of shots, many were low quality, and those good ones that the Whalers managed to squeak through the defense, the always stellar Blunt Man was up to the task.  That was a very close series and I fully believe that if Carolina would have won game 7 they would have won the Four Star Cup.  It really doesn’t get any closer than that, so that’s why I’d say that the Kraken were the best team not in the SMJHL Four Star Cup Finals.

9. Graphic, 3 TPE
Design a Challenge Cup championship hat for one of the teams in the finals. (A four-star cup championship hat for the SMJHL is ok as well.)



16. CW TRIVIA, 3 TPE max - 1 TPE for participation, 0.5 TPE for each correct answer. This is now completed through a Google form linked below. Make sure to spell your answers correctly or you will not get credit. Post your verification word in your CW post.

Spaghooter