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Sopath · 05-23-2021, 01:17 PM

b) Bas’ life in Ireland was quite normal until one day his father had taken a job as an assistant coach in Italy. Tired of living away from home, Bas’ mother refused the move and Bas began the part of his life without his father around. Bas’ father Guts had been his biggest inspiration and biggest coach. Guts, whom had played in the SMJHL, inspired Bas to strive to make it as an SHLer. But Guts’ own failures as a player had always subconsciously weighed too heavily on the development of Bas. Guts tried to fix every crack in Bas’ game that resembled his own cracks but ignored Bas’ strengths. With Guts gone, Bas could focus on what he was good at and Bas became one of the greatest goal scores in Dublin juniors history. Guts had tried to make Bas a playmaking center but Bas was a sniper on the wing and that’s how Bas liked it. When Guts came back from Italy to take a coaching job in the Irish minor leagues, Bas had developed significantly. But significantly into the player he wanted to be. Guts never fully was behind Bas’ development, but he had to respect it.

wc: 199

fever95 · 05-23-2021, 02:04 PM

awils13 · 05-23-2021, 02:08 PM

I think Calgary reverse sweeping Tampa Bay in the S50 challenge cup finals was one of the biggest surprises in SHL history. You just don't see reverse sweeps very often, if I'm not mistaken it only happened twice in the last 12 seasons (buf reverse sweeping chicago a couple of seasons ago was the other one), and to see it happen when the stakes were the highest was very unexpected, especially if you consider that these were 2 evenly matched teams. I believe Tampa had home-ice advantage too. And it was on sths, I'm actually not sure if a reverse sweep was more likely to happen in sths than it is in fhm, sths was a lot more random for sure and there was always a high chance of an upset, but I feel like that's precisely why winning 4 games in a row was more difficult. As I said there was only 1 reverse sweep in the fhm era so far, but we have seen a lot of teams force game 7 after trailing 0-3. So the odds of Calgary coming back to win that series were very, very low.

Zema · 05-23-2021, 02:21 PM

Deadline day. After finishing up a game with the New England Wolfpack, Alex Oscarsson knew it was the last time he stepped onto the ice for the Wolfpack. He knew that the General Managers and the entire management team were busy shopping his name around. Almost 5 seasons after the day of the S55 entry draft that saw him selected 8th overall.

Following the game, he got a call from Mr. @AgentSmith630:
"Hey kid, how would you fancy California? We're looking to acquire you but would like to hear if you'd consider signing a contract.". Well don't mind if I do. Having the San Fran Pride be the callers and offer a contract immediately was not at all what I expected, but it was a great surprise nonetheless.
But it wouldn't even be the biggest one of the night.

After getting off my flight from Boston to San Fran, I checked my phone for notifications. "SAN FRAN MAKING HUGE MOVES!" ... Moves? Another trade?!
Checking the article quickly, I wasn't the only new acquisition the Pride had made that night. Because joining me in the purple and gold would be the old Newfoundland nemesis, the ever so magnificent Mats Marner!

***Fantobens*** · 05-23-2021, 02:22 PM

I’ll go back to this one because it almost made me leave the site. You didn’t say it had to be a good surprise.
Season 50. I was captain of the plucky upstart Tampa bay barracuda. Everyone predicted us to be shit again, and to most people’s surprise we were good. Not like real good, but we were good enough. With a great goalie that could win us close games, we went on to win the presidents trophy. Going into the playoffs no one was picking us to win except us.
We had a first round bye, and had to face off with Toronto in round 2. We came out on top 4 games to 2. In the semifinals the cuda met up with everyone’s favorite the Hamilton steel hawks. Surely they can’t beat hamilton in a series? Well we did and went on to the finals where we would play the Calgary dragons.
The dragons weren’t ready and we took and 3 games to none lead. And that’s where the surprise is. The dragons went on to win four straight games completing the reverse sweep, blowing up the Tampa bay barracuda forever and almost made me rage quit.

Surprise!

HabsFan6776 · 05-23-2021, 02:43 PM

Something unexpected that happened to Big Boss was being drafted by Buffalo in the S59 draft. If I could choose any team to be drafted by, I would have chose Buffalo, but I didn't think they would want me. I already knew two of their players because they are co-GM's of QCC (Evok and Faelax) and I knew Vandy because I play for QCC with him. Because of these connections, I knew I would fit in well with Buffalo and would have good chemistry with the team. Also, everyone loves to be drafted by a good team, and Buffalo is currently making a serious playoff run. I hope that I have a bright future with this team and can help lead us to a championship one day. Overall, I'm very happy that Buffalo drafted me and I hope that I can play with my mentors Evok and Faelax sometime in the future.

***sve7en*** · 05-23-2021, 03:02 PM

One of the biggest surprises in recent SHL history is probably the immediate and sudden stepping down of both Mook and Wasty in the same night as we headed into the offseason before S56. I was thrown into the interim role after working as the Carolina Co-GM for a brief stint, tasked with scouting and drafting the S56 entry draft 36 hours or so from being appointed. As I got to work there, the hopeful GMs would write applications. My draft turned the 8OV into the top player in the class, the 16 overall into a Baltimore 1st down the line, and the 26th and 34th overall picks into the 15th and 12th players in the class respectively. Setting up the locker room that would keep me in Los Angeles as my old SMJHL GM Fuzz would take over the managerial duties. Almost 4 seasons later, that draft successfully righted the Panthers' issues with their thin prospect pool and lack of first gen players, to the point where they're likely one of the most hurt teams from expansion.

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wumaduce · 05-23-2021, 03:11 PM

So it's not an interesting event in my players career, however it is an interesting event in my user experience on the site that I feel qualifies.

I was drafted on my first player to the Texas Renegades. When I was drafted there, the Renes and the Minnesota Chiefs were in the middle of a big feud. I eventually got in on the action, and went full Rene on any member of the Minnesota Chiefs. I ended up being blocked by a couple of people, in a series of events that would have repercussions for almost two years for me. I also ended up going inactive during this time, due to the birth of my child in real life and a couple of job changes. During that time, the GM of Texas at the time (Dankoa) approached me about if I would want to stay with the team and be inactive, or if I would be okay with a trade. I told him to trade me if he could get something that would help the team. He ended up trading me to Seattle, back when Samee was the GM. I didn't exactly take well to the change to Seattle, and I made it clear to Samee that I wanted to make sure that the team didn't use their team option on me for my final season on that contract. He ended up trading me to Minnesota. It was wild to be a part of the team I had been feuding with so badly just a few seasons before.

I ended up becoming the Co-GM of Minnesota, and eventually made my peace with all of the people who I had had problems with before. It was a very humbling experience, and I'm glad I was able to go through it.

*Buster* · 05-23-2021, 03:17 PM

I think the most unexpected event in SHL history, at least in my humble opinion, was the S17 Challenge Cup playoffs. At that time I was on the Edmonton Blizzard. We had been coming of our second cup in a row and third in 4 seasons so obviously we were going into the season and the playoffs as heavy favourites. It almost felt inevitable that we would win again. Enter the Los Angeles Panthers. The Panthers weren't really expected to do much damage. They had a decent offence and a few decent players but were nothing special. Suddenly their inactive starter, Fabien Furburg decided to go on an absolute tear. This inactive pulled the team past the Blizzard and helped them win the West, ending with a Challenge Cup victory. In many ways, Wasty sold his soul for an unstoppable inactive goaltender. In my opinion, there hasn't been anything in the SHL I can consider more unexpected than an inactive winning a cup by themselves.

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Jedi · 05-23-2021, 03:28 PM

Personally, New England winning that string of cups in the early S30s. I think most people were split in terms of who would win, some people liked us, the Blizzard, some people thought the Pack would win, but I myself had little to no respect for New England at the time, so losing to them multiple times was a surprise, putting it mildly. We had some excellent teams, and I sold the farm to bring in more pieces to try and secure a win but, y'know, sometimes things just don't work out like you want. Many years later and I still look back on that with a great deal of personal shame and embarrassment. This of course, isn't to harp on old grudges, I don't really think about the opponent side of things from those days anymore. I think more than anything else, the shock and surprise looking back comes from just how badly I managed things. I could have done so much better, and I was expected to do so much better. There's been many unexpected surprises in my years here, but few as personal as failing so dramatically as that.

Alucard,Apr 14 2016, 03:33 PM Wrote:May the harvest be with you, young spud.

enigmatic,Aug 26 2016, 10:05 AM Wrote:Jedi could have 1 TPE and still improve any team

First ever Norwegian IIHF Goal!!

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2. Team Norway , Jackson Rodgers-Tanaka 1 (Isabella Esparza-Osvaldson, Aleksander Andrezjeck) at 5:50

Special Thanks to Count Chocula for the Hugo G sig <3

ztevans · 05-23-2021, 03:29 PM

As funny as it sounds, one of the biggest surprises during my time on the SHL was being selected fifth overall by the Winnipeg Jets in the S31 SHL Entry Draft with my first player, Zach Evans.

In hindsight, it's a pick that aged fairly well. Evans had a Hall of Fame career, even if the Jets' other first round pick that season, Jason Visser, went on to a much more prolific career and was arguably the best player in SHL history. However, the pick was a surprise to everyone at the time, myself included.

The Jets had played the draft very close to the vest, not tipping their hand at all to who they were interested in taking at 5OA. In fact, even my communication with them was very limited, little more than a copy and paste response to me reaching out to them pre-draft thanking me for messaging. When people asked me where I thought I'd go in the draft, the best guess in my eyes appeared to be the Seattle Riot at 7OA, and most mocks had me no earlier than seventh (if in the first round at all, as a result).

So when Winnipeg instead selected me with the fifth overall pick, it broke all of the mock drafts and sent the TPE addicts into a frenzied rage. It also caught me completely off guard. Safe to say everything worked out, though!

rum_ham · 05-23-2021, 04:09 PM

reid · 05-23-2021, 04:56 PM

The most unexpected event in SHL history was the final season of STHS. It was wild and had it all. You had a loaded New England team miss the playoffs in favour of a deliberately tanking Toronto team. Toronto would finish near the bottom the next season, while New England won the league. You also had a wild finals, one that was very atypical, with two teams who never went the distance finally getting there. San Francisco - with their solid defence who was never able to get it done until then, and Manhattan - who was steadily building and peaked around that season 52 mark. The Rage won, and that ended up being a one hit wonder, as the next 8 seasons saw a Great Lakes team win the majority of the time. The rage winning wasn’t super surprising, as they had several 2K forwards, a great goalie, and good roster composition, but even then, they weren’t as loaded as other teams like Hamilton or New England.

siddhus · 05-23-2021, 06:00 PM

Perfect prompt for me, considering I was just traded at the trade deadline from my old team, the San Francisco Pride, to my new team, the New England Wolfpack. The trade was honestly I surprise to me, since I had thought SF would be planning on keeping me for the future, and I had really been enjoying myself on the team, but sometimes things happen outside of your control, and while it has been hard to fit into the New England locker room, I am sure that after a few more weeks on the team, I will be able to be on the team and have some fun. I believe I got traded with a pick for a way better player than me, and considering I am a second round value, it feels nice to know that New England had valued me pretty highly and actually wanted me for the future. I had a pretty average rookie season, so am looking forward for a bigger impact in future seasons.

LordBirdman · 05-23-2021, 06:13 PM

An unexpected event that Sven lived through was the implosion of the San Francisco Pride after Grapehead unexpectedly stepped down and DaftRaincloud took over as interim GM. As interim GM, DaftRaincloud made the decision to trade away regressing talent to stockpile picks for a rebuild. The team was on its last legs of being a contender and frankly the moves to pick up picks for regressing players was likely a season or two late, however, Daft made the trades so quickly that a lot of value was likely left on the table. Players that should’ve garnered a first round pick or more were being picked up by contenders for second round picks that would likely turn out to be low second round picks. It made for some dark days for San Francisco when current management took over and Sven had to make some hard decisions about whether he would stick out the rebuild or leave in free agency to chase playoff success. Thankfully, Henrik and AgentSmith have done a great job rebuilding the team and the future is bright for SFP.

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