Possible TPE: 18/16
Actual TPE: 16/16

The teams that had early on access to FHM while still playing in the STHS era had an advantage of being able to not only learn and adjust tactics, but also in changing the dynamics of their team to better suit the system based play that FHM seems to revolve around as opposed to luck based that STHS had.  Now that the league as a whole has had the chance to learn and adapt, the top seat in Season 54 will be a tough seat to predict.  With that being said, however, since all players will be able to redistribute, I think the top seat will go to a team (like Hamilton in the SHL, or Detroit in the SMJHL) where they are able to employ a whole play system and get all of their players to adapt their skillsets to be most efficient inside of that system.  As Herb Brooks once said, "The team that will win, is the team that can take the individual players talent and harness it inside of a system.  A team cannot win on talent alone." (paraphrased obviously).

Square Peg / Round Hole Award.  With the introduction of Franchise Hockey Manager into the SHL, a whole new slew of options has become available to both players and GM's alike.  Major/Minor roles as well as tactics is one of those options that has become available.  Before, in the STHS era, the main focus was to get your TPE as high as possible so you can make your ratings as high as possible.  You were then placed on a line, given some ice time and went to town as a team in hopes that you (with a little bit of luck sometimes from Simon) would be triumphant.  Now, its time for the cerebral assassins (strategists) to take over.  While I can't determine any single person whom the award should be named after, I can say that it should be given to the GM or Player who's season was overall a success despite having a series of ratings/roles that didn't fit with their team and the tactics.  They were the square peg that fit in the round hole.

IIHF play and organizing will be extraordinarily tough in comparison to regular season SHL or SMJHL.  As mentioned in a previous answer to this championship week, the best teams are going to be those who are able to accommodate an entire system of play and are able to get all of their players to be on board with their builds and distributions across lines.  By contract, IIHF GM's will have the incredible feat of piecing together the "perfect puzzle" out of players who will have adjusted their ratings to meet their individual team needs.  So not only will they have to find the system that works for play, but they'll have to create a working and viable subsystem (teamception?) that doesn't flaw itself to this type of round-robin, inter-team play.  The teams that are willing to go down that rabbit hole, will be the teams that brings home the gold, silver and bronze.

Welcome to "Simulation Hockey Gladiators", where during intermission, three lucky fans will face off against random SMJHL professionals in a series of on-ice events...without skates in a team relay format.  That's right!  First will be the Sumo check where the fans will try to hip check the professionals off their feet while wearing a sumo suit.  The second event will be the slapshot lane where the fans will try to quickly score more slapshots into the goal before the professionals before finally rounding up to the third and final event:  Speed Racer.  Both the professionals and the participating fans will have to don league official clown shoes and sprint from blue line to blue line as fast as they can.  Should the fans be victorious against the SMJHL professionals, each will receive their choice of gift of either:  free tickets to an upcoming game or autographed game-worn apparel.  Should the fans end up losing however, they get a participation trophy made of lego-grade abs plastic with the inscription "This was nothing like the simulations".





Verification Word: Stromboli