1. Trivia, 3 TPE

Verification: Dog

10. Unexpected, 3 TPE, 199 words

The regular season only matters for determining playoff seeding, which isn't important to 90% of the league anyways. In the regular season there are normally around six teams who don't care if they miss the playoffs, so two teams are pleasantly surprised when they get in, around eight teams who don't really have a serious chance at the Cup but they're either past their prime and trying for a few last pushes or still young and starting to compete, and around six teams who have a real shot at winning the Cup and are going to cruise through the regular season since to them, the real challenge doesn't start until round 2. The teams that care about the regular season are somewhere among the group of eight, but even if they do try hard and finish high they're not guaranteed an easier matchup anyways, as seen by Manhattan having to face Tampa Bay in the first round despite finishing 8th in the league. More teams might care about the regular season if we made four more teams miss the playoffs every season and implemented a 1-8 playoff seeding format by conference instead of the divisional format we have now.

11. Playoff Format, 4 TPE, 220 words

I'm not sure if it's an FHM limitation, but the divisional playoff format definitely lends itself to unlucky stronger teams having tougher matchups season after season, as shown by Buffalo winning their division and having to face Philadelphia, arguably a tougher opponent than anyone in the North East Division, while the two teams that finished with a sub-.500 record in the North East faced off against each other. Something similar happened in the Central Division, where the top team in NOLA had a tough first round matchup against Los Angeles and the lower seeded Renegades had a much easier matchup against Chicago. Due to having so few teams in the league and having them split up into four divisions, the divisions will never be balanced, so I believe that seeding the teams in a 1-8 format by conference would be more fair. This way the Presidents Trophy winning Atlanta Inferno would be rewarded for their regular season efforts by having an easier first round opponent in Toronto rather than facing Baltimore again for some reason, and Baltimore would be against Buffalo. In the West, Chicago would have a tougher 1st round opponent for finishing lower in Seattle, Texas would have more of a challenge in Calgary, and NOLA would still be against Los Angeles but at least it would be consistent with how other teams got challenged.


I wrote too much but 3+3+4>8 CW TPE