S74 Championship Week! 1/21 DEADLINE

S74 Championship Week! 1/21 DEADLINE

ShadowFenix
Registered
Senior Member

#114

01-15-2024, 02:35 PM (This post was last modified: 01-15-2024, 02:35 PM by ShadowFenix.)

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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 Winnipeg Aurora and New England Wolfpack were teams that fell in regular season standings. Looking at Aurora, they had a 38-24-4 record in the regular season, with a decent GF/GA. Notably, their power play was 24.9%, PK 81.9%. The Wolfpack, on the other hand, was 40-22-4 with a decent GF/GA as well. Their power play was 25.4%, and PK was 79%. So just looking at these teams, they had similar numbers, and decent numbers at that. Their secret was that they took the underdog mentality and mindset into playoffs. Studies have shown that the "power of friendship" effect is much stronger when you come from an average, middling background. Both of these teams know what people think of them, and they like to prove people wrong. Of course, it's not like they're suddenly good in the playoffs. No, they purposely gimp themselves in the regular season, and hide their true power levels.

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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.

I thought San Francisco was going to go all the way. Especially when they beat EDM, who many thought would be the main contenders for the cup. Of course, I also had them winning, so this series stuck out to me because I lost out on that sweet, sweet playoff prediction TPE. So it goes, as they say. Regardless, it was still impressive to see them come out on top, and I was fully on the bandwagon after watching those games. And then they got trounced in the third round by WPG, but we won't talk about that... Particularly notable was that their second line was the ones carrying them through the playoffs. Oska Scholz, Viktor Hargreeves, and Kyle Murray put on a show, and really they were the primary reason SF got so far. Honestly, if the rest of the team had performed on that same level, then the outcome of this playoffs would be wayyyy different. And I guess we'll see that next season in the regular season. It won't just be the underdog story, it'll be the overdog story.

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12. Written, 2 TPE - The Procrastinator Special! (100 words min.)

Looks like [TEAM] won Season 74! Who won and why? What could the other 

team have done differently to change the result? What was your favorite 

part of the series?

Congratulations to the New England Wolfpack for winning Season 74! The main thing this team had going for it was depth scoring. The top half of the team contributed to a large amount of their points. If teams like Winnipeg were simply able to outscore them in a best of 7 series, then New England wouldn't have won. I will say my favorite part of the series was game 6 when the Wolfpack won. I was still salty about WPG beating SFP. Regardless, it was a hard fought battle, and the people over at WPG should be happy they got close. Maybe next year they can figure out how to not let the other team score so many goals.

8 TPE