S78 Championship Week

S78 Championship Week Due: Sunday, September 29th @ 11:59 PM PST

lore
SMJHL GM
Daft Chipmunk

#212

09-28-2024, 09:28 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.

+2 TPE (to hit 8 max) verification word is: boop

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9. Written, 50 to 200+ words. It Has Been A While

Tampa Bay has potential to end the longest standing cup drought in the 

league, even longer than what San Francisco ended by winning their first

cup in S76, and even if they fall short here they should be in position

to be competing for cup for seasons to come. But even as we have seen 

some droughts end there are still multiple teams that have had to wait 

for more than 25 seasons by now. Toronto hasn’t won since S35, Minnesota

since S39, Baltimore since S47, Calgary since S50 and Manhattan since 

S52, which of these teams do you think is in best position to end their 

drought and why?

Based purely on TPE spread, I want to say the Toronto North Stars are the most likely of the teams listed to end their cup drought. They improved quite significantly in the standings from season 77 to season 78, and this year they managed to push the Buffalo Stampede to 7 games in the first round of the playoffs. Their top players are just about to reach their peaks, and the supporting roster is full of up and comers who are all only going to continue to improve. They're definitely still a young group, but ancient regressing players (specifically mine) are annoying and overrated.

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^ 104 words +2 TPE ^

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10. Written, 50 to 200+ words. Took Me By Surprise

Pick a one SHL or SMJHL team, that isn’t your own, that did not play as you would have expected at the beginning of the season. Did they do better or worse than you expected? Why you think your expectations were off, can you find an explanation for their performance? Does this change how you view them going into next season?

Apparently it's 'talk about the Toronto North Stars day' for me. They've been in rebuild mode for the entirety of my career in the SHL, so I admittedly wasn't paying attention at all to how much they've grown. At the start of the season I was expecting for them to continue on being a bottom feeder team, and they smashed that idiotic notion into the ground. Anyone with actual eyeballs and a pulse would have seen that they have been on a steady rise in the standings since season 74, and their roster looks primed for a long stay at the top. That is, if they can address their defensive issues. With a goal differential that is almost dead even (-1), the North Stars have issues keeping the puck out of the back of their net. They are scoring just fine with their first line, but it drops off significantly after that. Nonetheless, now that I'm paying attention, I have all the faith in the world that they're going to figure it out. Wally knows what he's doing, and he's already done the hardest part of drafting and developing his locker room after he blew it all up way back in season...uh, season 69. It's true, I went back and made sure.