1 : Trivia : triviaa

2 : Which team has had the easier road to the cup finals? Do you think they could have made it to the finals if they were in a different division? (160 words - 3TPE)

If we go purely by playoff record, we can compare the various rounds as follows:

Round 1: The Tampa Bay Barracuda faced the Philadelphia Forge, and needed seven games to see them off. The San Francisco Pride faced the Winnipeg Aurora, and got the job done in 6 games. So the San Francisco Pride hade the slightly easier match-up here.
Round 2: The Tampa Bay Barracuda faced the Atlanta Inferno, and won the series in 6 games. The San Francisco Pride was matched with the Seattle Argonauts, and also needed 6 games. So for round two, the teams are tied.
Round 3: The Tampa Bay Barracuda once again needed 7 games to get past the New England Wolfpack. Meanwhile, the San Fransisco Pride had their third 6 game series, and therefore had a slightly easier third round as well.

Based on playoff rounds alone, the San Fransisco Pride therefore had an easier troute to the finals, which was rewarded in the end.

14 : The IIHF has always been known to be hard to predict. Last season saw the 8th seeded Norway win the entire tournament after taking down 2nd seed Ireland, 3rd seed USA and 4th seed France. In season 77, we saw a similar situation with 8th seeded Ireland taking on 6th seeded Japan in the finals. How do you feel about the volatility of the IIHF, do you wish the series were longer so the stronger teams didn’t get upset as much? Or do you prefer the chaos that is single elimination? (160 words - 3 TPE)

The IIHF tournament has always been hard to predict, at least going by my record of IIHF predictions for TPE or money. And while there is something to be said for rewarding active nations, with more and higher TPE players, rather than punishing them through a system of volatility and upsets, I quite enjoy the current setup. The issue with going the traditional way, which would lead to fewer surprises and upsets, is that it is heavilyy geared to favour the nations that are very much the obvious choices for people creating a new player. The current setup allows for flexibility and rewards people for making bold choices, like creating a player with the nationality of a non-standard country. And it therefore increases inclusivity and non-conformity. And in the end, the 'better' teams still have a bigger chance of ending up with a medal, despite the odds of a succesful upset being larger than in a more traditional tournament setup.