S74 Championship Week! 1/21 DEADLINE

S74 Championship Week! 1/21 DEADLINE

Valpix
IIHF Federation Head
IIHF GM

#145

01-17-2024, 05:56 PM

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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.

waffles

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4. Written, 3 TPE, The Char B1 bis In The Room (150 words min.)

This league was until quite recently dominated by a cabal of four teams. Two of them, Winnipeg and New England, are our finalists. A third, Philadelphia, was a finalist last year. The fourth... was Montreal. Does the success of Winnipeg and New England prove that Montreal pulled the plug too soon and should’ve kept the gang around? Or did at least one of the others just get lucky and Montreal made the better decision, without hindsight? What team-building lessons can we learn from this?

The thing about these types of trends is that for the giants to fall someone else has to rise up in their place. In my opinion, New England and Philadelphia have benefit from Montreal blowing it up because nobody else in the East was ready to rise up. But given how much of that Patriotes core has retired I'm inclined to say it's the right decision and both the Forge and Wolfpack have gotten a bit lucky that no one from the tier below has really risen up to challenge them on equal footing. Atlanta is retooling, Baltimore is improving but not quite there, Buffalo has the know-how to punch above their weight with the roster but the gap in quality will eventually show. And as for Winnipeg, they also got a bit lucky in that Edmonton got bounced early by a Cinderella San Francisco that caught fire. Had Edmonton gotten through, I don't think Winnipeg is in this final and we're having a totally different conversation.

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11. Written, 3 TPE, Juniors’ Juniors (150 words min.)

Are there any new promotions to your org that you’re excited to see make your IIHF squad? Who’s a good rookie on your squad this offseason? Alternatively, who’s a current World Juniors star you’re excited to see in the IIHF soon?

As a newly minted federation head, I'm really excited to see how Switzerland fares in our first season under new management. I'm especially excited to see one of the greatest J players of all time make the jump to the IIHF squad uncapped this season, as Jeff Hunziker will no longer be capped. He and Rikaad Metzller are the only two additions to our squad from prior teams. Outside of us, I'm excited to see how Czechia fares with their massive swarm of transfers-in (I count what, six new players on the squad? seven? for a fed that's been kinda stuck lately, constantly in search of that first gold, it's really refreshing to see), and the promotion of the Solberg twins is exciting for Norway as well. Overall, it genuinely feels like the IIHF is moving in the right direction, with plenty of excited players and teams, and I can't wait for puck drop!