1. For me this answer is simple, I'm spending my day in warm sunny Tampa. When you spend the entirety of the season taking in the "sights" of Lethbridge, you need a getaway every once in a while. Getting away from the snowy Lethbridge means in the morning before the game I am hitting the beaches. If I was going on my own dime I would be going to some crappy public beach with kids screaming and nowhere to sit, but that all changes if I am going on the commissioner's dime. Now we are talking about a beach all to myself, beach chair and someone to bring me drinks I can't pronounce with umbrellas in them. After I get done at the beach I am gonna go hit the casinos for a while, play some blackjack, probably cost the league an entire season of revenue before I am done but it's all part of a true VIP experience.

3/16

2. This is a no brainer, Tampa is a great young team that I'm sure will get their cup at some point but I have to go with Calgary. I love a good comeback story (except for a certain NHL team from St. Louis as can be seen for obvious reasons) and Calgary is the perfect example of this. I'm also slightly biased for Calgary because I love to see hockey communities be rewarded for being passionate fans. I know that there are some die-hards in Tampa but Calgary is one of hockey's stronghold and they deserve something to cheer about. It wouldn't be something that the best teams should ever have to do, no one is suggesting the best regular-season team should be eliminated by one fluke game (instead they should get swept like a respectable regular-season point leading team). But one game for each conference would make for must-watch hockey every single year.

5/16

3. I generally think one-game series are dumb, especially in a game with as much variance as hockey. But all that being said there is one place where one-game series are incredible, MLB wildcard. Having two teams who have scraped the whole season to get to this point, to be on the brink of getting into the dance and playing for it all, you see the best and most desperate baseball you've ever seen. I would love to see something like this in the SHL, teams playing their best, most desperate 60 minutes for a chance to prove themselves even more.

8/16

4. In this alternate reality, one of the ideas from prompt 3 is actually brought into the game and embraced this idea is one where the SMJHL champions get an extra at-large bid to the SHL playoffs. Every year this team is handily swept aside by the lowest seed SHL team to such an extent and with such regularity that people talk of disbanding the rule both for competition and for the safety of the SMJHL teams involved. But this year, things were different. This year the SMJHL champions, the Carolina Kraken put together the perfect combination of skill, size, heart, youth, and sacrificing the right amount of goats. They put together the most incredible hockey moment in history, putting the miracle on ice to shame, and win the challenge cup.

11/16

5. This idea isn't my own so I can't take credit for it but I completely get rid of any overtime/shootout. Instead of any of this "extra hockey"/"skills competition debate" there is a simple solution to how to decide everything...mascot hockey. We watch actual ice hockey all the time, and it's great, but do you know what's even better? 2 guys wearing very heavy costumes go out with skates and play until one of them scores, or they both pass out from exhaustion. The alternate version of this is equally fun, you make 2 actual embodiments of the mascots face off on the ice. So if the Chiefs and the Dragons go to OT, we are about to see a several ton fire-breathing monster face off against a poor native American elder. I think either of these two solutions is so much better than playing the same sport we just say for 60 minutes, and I can see no clear and obvious reasons why they shouldn't be added.

14/16

13.
A. For my money give me Mike Izzy. Gunnar Soderberg clearly has been an absolute force down the stretch for Tampa but you just can't deny the pure skill of Izzy. The man skates like a ballerina lays, hits like a walrus, and can snipe like an Army Ranger. Calgary's elder statesman will just be too much for this inexperienced Tampa Bay team and he will dominate.

D. My favorite name has to go to the goaltender Benjamin Blue. I mean clearly I'm a sucker for any sort of alliteration because it just rolls right off the tongue. Ben Blue is also just such a demoralizing name to have your team shut down by. I can only imagine when Ben was a kid and he would shut out opposing teams and those kids would have to go back to school saying they got shutout but a guy with a name as ridiculous as Ben Blue.

16/16