1. CW Trvia:   +3 TPE



sexyama

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8. Written, 50 to 200+ words. Dynasty in the Making:   +4 TPE



San Francisco has made the finals for two seasons in a row now and has won the cup twice in the last 5 seasons with a chance to make it 3. What has made San Francisco so successful? Is it immaculate drafting? Coaching? Hard work from each of their players? All of the above? Should teams learn from SFP and emulate what they’ve done to get their time in the limelight?



Make it 2 in a row! If your team isn't trying to model themselves after the dynastic Pride, then you're doing it wrong. Most franchises would be content with winning a single championship, let alone 3 over a span of 5 seasons.

How have they done it? While there are many factors to consider, one can't look past the S71 draft when San Francisco picked three times in the top 5 (1, 4, and 5). With those picks they nabbed franchise cornerstones Levin Schattenaxt, Logan Webb and Dominik Winters. If you don't know those names, you should. Webb and Winters are regularly in the top 10 of scoring at season's end, not to mention what will inevitably be a MVP calibre playoff performance from Webb after scoring at nearly a goal per game clip (21 goals in 22 games)!!!



So, obviously drafting plays a large part of success. Of course, we all know that drafting can sometimes be a crapshoot and teams aren't always fortunate enough of having so many picks that high in a draft. Kudos to San Francisco's management for putting themselves in that position as well as their scouting department for identifying the talent that was available in that draft among others.

With all that being said, three players don't make a team. It's been a total buy-in effort from the entirety of the Pride roster. With a mix of top end talent and another brilliant season from future HOF goaltender Justin Time, San Francisco has formulated a template for SHL success and executed it to perfection.

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12. Written, 50 to 200+ words. IIHF Back To Back:   +4 TPE



When it comes to hockey, Canada always has one of the deepest pools of players to choose from, which typically gives them a better chance of succeeding in international tournaments (although not always the case, see: the recent World Junior Championship as an example).



Coming off an otherworldly playoff campaign with San Francisco, Canada is led by Logan Webb and with their success over the past two IIHF tourneys it's easy to foresee them back as one of the top teams in S80.

I'm biased as this will be Matviy Cajabi's first time representing Czechia so I'll choose them to get back to the medal round. Switzerland is always in the mix so it's hard to rule them out either.



For the sake of choosing at least one of the 4 teams, I'll pick Latvia at the least likely to repeat their performance. Which isn't a knock on their squad as they've got some great players and are trending in the right direction in recent seasons. But with the track records of nations like Japan, Germany and Ireland among others, it will be hard for Latvia (and every team) to not only make it to the playoffs but advance to medal contention.

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Total TPE Earned:   +8 TPE