Quote:ISFL Affiliate Claim

+3

Quote:1. CW TRIVIA, 3 TPE max - 1.5 TPE for participation, 0.5 TPE for each correct answer. This is 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.

finallymadeit

Quote:2. Written, up to 4 TPE - Grab Bag: Pick up to 4 Challenge Cup related topics to write about! Each topic is worth 1 TPE. Each answer must be 50+ words.
a. Winnipeg made the finals last year and came up just short against the Forge. Last year, their offense ran through Mikko Rashford - this year, their top line has been much more of a balanced attack, with Gonzo Gobbledygook and Lias Ekholm-Gunnarsson stepping up hard. Does this make Winnipeg a stronger team, or would it be better to spread this firepower out and run multiple scoring lines?

I would like to think having multiple strong scorers on your team is better than have one or two that handle 80% of it. If you only have one line or a few players that are truly dangerous it makes it easier for your opponents to shut them down. Because they don't have to focus on anyone else.

Quote:b. New England finds themselves in a similar situation to Winnipeg's last year: star winger Petr Svoboda has an absurd 30 points in 23 playoff games at the time this is posted. 18 of those are goals, 12 are assists: how do you shut this guy down?

What else can you do other than have someone shadow him? It really comes down to always keeping an eye on him, to see where he is on the ice at all times. When they're in the offensive zone the defense simply have to have someone covering any and all passing lanes to Petr. But then you're at the risk of giving up passing lanes to other players.

Quote:c. Olof Karsikko has made 823 saves in these playoffs, nearly twice the number of saves made by Winnipeg's Rebecca Montagne. What can New England do to help their tendie out? Or should they settle on a strategy of allowing their goalie to face a high volume of low-danger shots to get in the zone and stay hot? Alternatively, how can they rattle Montagne?

So far the strategy of letting Olof handle all the shots have worked out quite well. But New England's skaters aren't just standing around. They have a massive amount of blocked shots. NEW is letting their opponent bombard them, but it ends up as quantity over quality. While NEW on their own tries the opposite. Few, but dangerous shots.

Quote:d. If it ain't broke don't fix it: Who you got? Who wins? Why?

I believe in New England mainly because of Olof Karsikko. People say goalies don't matter but this playoff run Olof certainly has. He has, sometimes single-handedly, kept New England in the games and won a couple as well. Winnipeg will clearly win the shots and possession stats, but Olof is playing out of his mind.

Quote:3. Written, 3 TPE, History Repeating (150 words min.)
Tell me about something good that happened in your SHL career which you hope will happen again! What is it, what will it look like? Did it happen to your current player or one of your former players? What can you do to stack the odds in your favor?

Winning the cup would be the obvious answer. And, it actually is the main answer. But to think deeper than that I'd say seeing one more award or all-star nomination would be exciting. Nowadays Yxskaft isn't really that high up in the individual leaderboards, so the days of individual awards or recognition are well in the past. While winning the cup is clearly the highlight of my SHL career so far, the individual stuff was always a nice extra surprise. Telling me that my player was a major contributor to my team's success at the time. But for the next season I think the only thing I can even hope for with Yxskaft is a defensive defenseman nomination. But even then it's unlikely I can get high up enough in terms of plus-minus, blocked shots, takeaways, and whatever other stats the award committee looks at. Regression has hit hard yet again and I'm even below the TPE amount I was when I was first called up.

Quote:6. Written, 2 TPE, Hopeful Haiku  (5 words min.)
Write a haiku telling me what you hope to accomplish in Season 71! A haiku is a three line poem where the first line is five syllables, the second is seven, and the third line is five again. None of your lines may rhyme with each other.

Following the win
Celebrate then go again
A victory lap

Quote:7. Milestones, up to 3 TPE

+1