Trivia Word: Bongo


10. Written, 50 to 200+ words. The Unexpected
Toronto ended up making it into the playoffs by one point while Atlanta had the best regular season since S71 Winnipeg. Yet in the playoffs Atlanta ended up losing the second round, while Toronto made it to the conference finals. Does regular season success matter in the long run if the team fumbles in the playoffs? Should teams give much importance to the regular season or focus all of their energy to playoffs once their team has secured a spot? Should the league in general regard the regular season results more highly?

Obviously season success is an indicator of potential playoff success. This season has been a little bit of a wildcard. Typically, any other season, you would have one of the top 3 in overall standings win the Challenge cup. This year, it just happened to be places 2 and 3 that made it to the finals rather than the #1 seeded Atlanta Inferno. obviously season success isnt the be all end all. but atlanta having to face tampa bay in the 2nd round was really a coin flip. It is commendable that toronto managed to take the champion tampa bay barracuda to 7 games, when nobody else in the SHL could, not even the finalist San Fransisco Pride. I think that parity is much better than it was in the STHS days, and teams like toronto at least have a CHANCE of making the finals, or at least having a deep run. Perhaps other GM's will emulate torontos strategies when attempting to overcome teams with significantly more preapred talent than them. I think toronto have now set a precedent. Also maybe they are a little underrated. They have been up and coming for a while now and TPE isn't always the best indicator of a championship caliber team. It wouldve been truly surprising to see them win this season but can we say the same for next? (200 WORDS, +4 TPE)