S74 Championship Week! 1/21 DEADLINE

S74 Championship Week! 1/21 DEADLINE

Australiankek
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Posting Freak

#113

01-15-2024, 02:31 PM

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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.

b. Upsets were a theme this year - which of our finalists had the more difficult road to the promised land and why?

c. Which of the finalists had the more impressive conference finals victory, and why?

B. Finally, upsets. These clearly lacked in the era of the big 4. Honestly, Winnipeg and New England in the finals is not a surprise for me and there weren't in my honest opinion any challenges for either of them in the way to the finals. If I had to choose between the two though, the New England Wolfpacks did have a harder time in their road to the finals. Because of the close game going to seven in the first round against Hamilton and their opponents being more menacing then any of the Aurora's with New England clashing between Buffalo (a former cup winner) and Philadelphia (a former cup winner).

(110 words) + 1TPE

C. Winnipeg went against an Edmonton upsetting, Pride team and New England went against the almost cup winning Philadelphia team. First I thought New England had the more impressive conference finals win, but thinking about it harder, I realized that Edmonton won the cup last season. So now I'm stuck between the two again. But because the Pride won against a cup winning Edmonton team, I think I have to give it to Winnipeg although New England had more games.

(79 words) +1TPE

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3. Written, 3 TPE, Haven’t I Seen This Before? (150 words min.)

Despite being the 8th and 10th ranked regular season teams in the league, 

our finalists from Winnipeg and New England represent two of the most dominant teams over the past several seasons. 

What do you think is the secret to their success? What can other teams learn from them? Which one is more likely to be back again next year?

The success for both teams is pretty simple honestly. They have top players in the defense and offense, they have complete and promising prospects from great picks even though they always do good in the league. Other teams can learn to be better at keeping star players, predicting great players and stack up on players above 1000TPE, simple enough right? Between the two, I think Winnipeg will last longer. Both teams star players are declining each season, but for Winnipeg, players like Lord Farquaad, Lias Ekholm-Gunnarsson and Mikko Rashford are still in it while compared to the new generation of players that New England has. Plus, the top five players in Winnipeg are all 1800 TPE or above and they are all still surprisingly proving they are the top players of Winnipeg. Although New England has a better prospect pool, it takes some time for them to develop into those top players New England drafted them for. So for the next few seasons with the top players in Winnipeg still standing I think they will succeed more.

(177 words) + 3TPE

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5. Written, 3 TPE, Upset City (150 words min)

An impressive string of upsets took place this season,

 especially in the West with San Francisco’s Cinderella run. 

Which upset series impressed you most, why, and what in that series sticks out most in your memory? 

For the purposes of this task, any series won by the lower seed is an upset.

Personally, the Edmonton and San Francisco series impressed me the most. On paper especially when seeing how heavily the sim likes good teams, the 14th seed should always lose to the 1st. But the sim gods this time wanted to change things up and gave a gift to the San Francisco Pride's. This was not only the most impressive win, but also the most exciting. Of course the 14th seed winning against a former cup winning team is what impressed me the most. But other than that, the fact that San Francisco countered the offence and defense that Edmonton had really impressed me too. The offence clicked and their defense was great. The series that sticks out the most in my memory is the sweep in the first round against Edmonton. Of course this is just me being bias but I still can't figure out how Minnesota couldn't win a game while the Pride won against them, I really thought we could do well this season but oh well.

(169 words) + 3TPE

1 + 1 + 3 + 3 = 8 TPE