I feel that the SHL and SMJHL expansion of s25 was huge for the league. It had been a while since expansion in either league and adding the new franchises played a pivitol role in creating opportunities for members of the league to play important roles on their respected teams, whether on the ice or in management. I was lucky enough to be the founding GM of one of the SMJHL's new franchises, the Halifax Raiders, so of course that's where I'm going to focus. The expansion teams in both leagues were not handed anything. The expansion rules were designed to prevent both of the leagues existing franchises from losing important players. The Leagues administration was worried about dimensioning the appeal / prestige of existing franchises. The Raiders managed to grow a lot through the course of their first season and were a competitive team by the time the playoffs rolled around. The Raiders followed up their debut by winning the 4 star cup in only the franchises second season. I feel that this showed that new teams could be exciting and really help grow the league as a whole. Perhaps the Raiders success played a role in the SHL being more aggressive with expansion in the future. I could write a novel about those Raidetrs teams, maybe they played a bigger role in the SHL's history than people realize at the surface.