6. Team History
I know history isn't everyone's favorite thing to discuss, but a team's past can really define its identity, what its known for and who they are in the present. Tell us about your team's past! Have there been any franchise defining moments that are integral to your team or even SHL history? Conversely, is there some interesting tidbit that not many around the league know?

Great Falls Grizzlies are young team, entering the league for season 61, at the same time as Regina Elk did. They finished their first season with 30 wins and 62 points and taking their first playoffs series win against the St. Louis but then losing to Vancouver. Still all in all that was relatively good start to franchise and notably slightly better one than their expansion partner had.

Next season Grizzlies ended up with 38 wins and 77 points finishing 8th in the leagues, which was improvement from the last seasons 9th place finish. After such improvement in regular season points Grizzlies unfortunately lost to Nevada Battleborn in four games.

As we move on to next season we have arguably the best season of the Grizzlies to date and high point for young franchise. They finished third on the league with 86 points, though that was 15 points behind the second place Maine. Still they were in good spot for playoffs with first round bye and then beating Anaheim in 5 games and Kelowna in 6 making it to finals for first time only after three seasons. Unfortunately they were not able to beat the Newfoundland Berserkers who had also been best team of regular season with 118 points and instead lost to them in 5 games.

After three seasons of improvements Grizzlies see themselves falling for first time as they finish the 10th in league with just 64 points, which is still better than their first season but is very noticeable drop from the third spot of the last season and this was also first time they missed the playoffs as they finished 4th in their division.

Season 65 sees them dropping even further finishing with 46 points at 11th place. After such bad season they still make an appearance in playoffs but there isn't much to be written about the 4 game loss to St. Louis.

Season 66 doesn't bring much of improvement for the Grizzlies as they only win one more game for total of 23 wins and 48 points. While they were in division of 4 teams they actually finished 2nd in that division and met their expansion companion on first round of playoffs, which they unfortunately ended up losing in 5 games, making it already 3rd season since their finals appearance that they hadn't made it past the first round.

Interestingly for season 67 they only drop by 3 points but they finish second to last in the league, but due the division seeding from last season they still make an playoffs appearance taking two games of the Maine who end up winning the cup but once again not going further than the first round.

Season 68 is once again improvement on points, even if slight one, to 47 to be exact yet they finish last in the league and are out of the playoffs and it has already been 5 seasons since their last actually good season. While J careers are short and there is some turnover from season to season between team being closer to bottom for this long isn't exactly best outlook for the team.

Which then turns around for the next season as season 69 Grizzlies finish 4th in the leagues with 89 points, their best season for points so far and only one point behind the Maine who finished second. With such good regular season performance they manage to get bye for the first round but end up losing to Quebec (who end up winning the cup) in 7 games, keeping their playoffs lose streak going.

For next season we see slight drop to 5th place with 39 wins and 82 points, finishing second in their division only behind Nevada. This means that they get to play in first round of playoffs from pretty good position and manage to win their first series since 63 when they beat the Anchorage in 6 games but then fall to Nevada in 5 on next round. It seems like Grizzlies might have been able to turn the new leaf around this time but unfortunately that wasn't yet to be.

After two good seasons things get once again bad for Grizzlies as they end up being last in the leagues for next two seasons with season 71 being worst they have ever played with only 20 wins and 41 points, season 72 being only marginally better with 44 points.  For 71 they make an playoffs appearance and manage to win a game against the Nevada but that isn't much to write home about.

So in general Grizzlies haven't been doing too well since they joined the league. While they have had their up seasons they have yet managed to only win 4 playoffs series during their 12 seasons in the league, though they have also earned 2 byes in that time. Still that leaves lot of room for improvement as we are moving forward and hopefully turning the ship for both regular season and playoffs in near future.

(834 words / 16 TPE)

Milestones +3 TPE, just in case I messed up with word count of the above