S74 Championship Week! 1/21 DEADLINE

S74 Championship Week! 1/21 DEADLINE

Bruins10
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#191

01-20-2024, 05:37 PM (This post was last modified: 01-21-2024, 10:55 AM by Bruins10. Edited 1 time in total.)

Code:
CW Trivia 3TPE

TRIVIA VERIFICATION: Spray

Code:
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. Two old faces are back in the ring, proving reports of the dynasty’s demise were greatly exaggerated! Pick either of our finalists, and tell me what about them impresses you the most!

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?

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

a. It is hard to really pin it on one specific thing, considering these two teams have battled it out in the past, and very recently. Their core seems to be the reason that they have been able to stay relevant and stay dominant in this day and age. Management knows how to make sure to replace the right players with the best fit I guess.
b. I would have to say us in New England have had the tough time of getting back into the finals. Just a quick look at the playoff tree and then the standings, you will see that Winnipeg had to play Texas and Chicago, who were 6th and 7th in the standings this season. Wheras New England faced the 2nd and 3rd place teams this season, which were Philadelphia and Buffalo.

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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?

It is really tough to pinpoint it on certain things. You have to look at every team individually. I am not the most active member and have not really followed each team the best, but off the top of my head, I do remember Winnipeg being a super powerhouse at a certain point. They had went out and acquired a good amount of players in an offseason that were top earners and really elevated that team to the next level, which caused them to be dominant for longer. When I look back at New England and how I ended up here, the team was built around their core and management decided that it was in their best interest to have replacements ready for when the main guys start to regress or if they want to leave. Management really milked the most out of their players as possible before replacing them or moving on from them.
For Montreal, if their core was getting old all at the same time and their caps all went up at the same time, you have to make a decision. If you do not have the players to replace the guys who are carrying you, you have to try and rebuild or re-tool, and that is the route they went.