trivial

Routine games usually wins over rest. Although teams that play fewer games still practice and whatnot, getting into and staying in the grove can be key to prevent players from leaning back and getting too comfortable. If the series goes to 6-7 games I think both teams will be equals in this sense. As they'll both have games recently in mind and body.

At this point I have to assume there's some weird voodoo stuff going on. Or some other supernatural powers in effect. And whoever comes out on top should have to tell us exactly how they did it, and which god they prayed to. Because I need some of that good luck. Don't we all?

The season 53 New England Wolfpack. The very first FHM season. They won the President's Trophy. Not with too many points ahead of the team in second, Hamilton Steelhawks. But the players the team was able to field that season were insane. Not often do we see that level of talent on the ice all at the same time.

New England pretty handedly beat the Manhattan Rage in the first round. But swiftly fell in the second round to, you guessed it, Hamilton. Hamilton easily took down New England in five games. Hard to say exactly why Hamilton turned out to be such a wall. Many would probably claim that they had an upper hand when it came to FHM research. Which allowed them to cream their opposition even if they faced teams much stronger than them on paper. Since then New England has been in a constant state of re-build/tool without much to show for it. Defeated by FHM.

Sven is the kind of player who would always opt for a single-bed room. It's not that he doesn't like his teammates, but the autonomy that's rendered by having a room to himself is something he'll gladly negotiate into his contract even if it incurs a pay cut.

After any game or other team activities Sven will most likely head back to the hotel bar with whoever's interested on the team, have just a beer or two, and then head on up to his room to deflate. The physical rest is important but for Sven it's also nice to mentally slow down and not have to think about or talk to other people. Likely he's brought his Nintendo Switch to play some games on to unwind, or he simply watches whatever garbage TV is on before bed. If he really wants to reward himself he hops into a bath to truly melt for an hour or so.

+2 https://simulationhockey.com/showthread....pid3281173

The new IIHF tournament medals will be made out of redwood trees instead of bronze, glass instead of silver, and concrete instead of gold.

Redwood is a great replacement for bronze as the trees can get extremely tall. We can carve millions of 3rd place medals from a single tree. It's not like the trees are doing anything useful just standing there, swaying in the wind. Plus, the redwood color isn't too far off from bronze.

The silver replacement has a lot more metaphorical meaning behind it. Just as fragile as glass can be. Equally fragile is the opportunity to win the entire tournament. A single mistake, a single poor decision, can make the difference between being number 1 or number 2. And the 2nd place medal should remind us about this, always.

On a similar vein the concrete medal is to show just how tough and solid you were for being able to beat everyone else. To become the best. Nothing can stop you, except maybe a concrete drill.