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eMLBCommish · 05-22-2021, 09:12 PM

Well well well, how about the recent news that James LeBlond had announced at the end of the season that he was going to get married? After his rookie season with the New England Wolfpack, the now third year blue liner has been taking courses online through the University of Maine. Always admitting to be a realist and wanting to make sure he felt like he had a life after his hockey career, LeBlond stayed focused on taking what classes he could, even if it was on a slower pace. During his courses, he met the love of his life, Holly, while he spent the summer on campus. For the past couple of seasons, LeBlond's better half could be seen hanging out at games, and joining the Wolfpack Wives Club in local charity based events. As more of an outdoorsy girl, LeBlond took her to Acadia National Park just after the season was completed, and proposed to her on top to Cadillac Mountain. She gladly said yes!

No specific details have been set just yet, although LeBlond did also confirm he signed a 1 year extension to play with the Wolfpack again next season.

CanadianDuck · 05-22-2021, 11:00 PM

An unexpected series of events can happen to anyone at anytime and shake up an entire franchise or players life completely. Personally I have had some events change the course of my career that I never could have saw coming. Days after being drafted by Edmonton and signing my first contract, I was shocked to learn I was traded to San Francisco. Players get traded all the time at random, but I feel like being traded so quickly after being drafted is not a very common occurrence. I remember being upset and feeling all kinds of raw emotions, but in the end I feel like I was where I belonged. When I was traded to the Pride I had planned on staying there until I retired, and while that wasn't what happened in the end, I will always consider San Francisco my SHL home. (No offense to any of the other teams I have been lucky enough to play for.)

*Festinator* · 05-22-2021, 11:17 PM

One unexpected event that has happened recently was the Great Lakes hierarchy being temporarily shuffled with the Toronto North Stars making the playoffs in S58 after not making the playoffs since at least S53, which is as far as the index goes back, but they were pretty bad in S53 so I am guessing it was at least a few season before then that they even made the playoffs. Chicago were the unlucky souls to be bounced out of their comfortable playoff position as Toronto started becoming a force to be reckoned with. Unfortunately for Toronto, this season they found themselves back on the outside looking in, even though they finished the season with 93 points, which would have had them finish 2nd in the division last season (which is where they finished). However the team is still improving and so I think it should not be as much of a surprise next season if they end up bumping one of the 3 other great lakes teams out of a playoff spot. And with the upcoming expansion and playoff format change this last point might be made moot.

juniped · 05-23-2021, 12:13 AM

PBE affiliate

SFresh3 · 05-23-2021, 01:40 AM

A pretty big surprise that happened just last season was Chicago going from the Cup Champions in Season 57 to 4th in their Division in Season 57 and missing the Playoffs completely. Just taking a look at their Roster, there was only one change made from the Season 57 Champions to the Season 58 team that had to sit at home for the Playoffs. They moved Kit Smeb, who was an Inactive Player with only 710 TPE, for Lassi Suhonen, who is a Season 55 Call Up who started Season 58 with 799 TPE and topped out at 841 TPE by the end of the Season. Could this one small change have caused a huge rift in the team dynamic to make them fall apart and not even be able to have the chance to defend their Cup from the prior Season? If you look at their record from season to season, it was only a drop from 51 wins to 42 wins, which in Season 58 was good enough for 6th in the League. It was just that the regular bottom dweller in the Great Lakes Division, Toronto North Stars, finally got it all together and amassed 46 wins to make the Great Lakes Division the true terror of the SHL.

Quote:212 words

JNH · 05-23-2021, 02:27 AM

One day, when Martijn is young kid, he was attending an elementary school in his hometown. He had just finished math class and settling into science when the urge to use the washroom struck him. He left class and went out in search of the locker room, slightly lost since he had only been at the school for a couple weeks at that point and hadn't dared to use the washroom yet. He found a door that looked like the washroom and opened it up, ready to proceed with his business. What he saw horrified him and he went tearing down the hall to the nurses office. He asked to call his mom and as soon as she picked up the phone he blurted out:

"Mrs. Krabappel and Principal Skinner were in the closet making babies and I saw one of the babies and the baby looked at me"

"Martijn, go back to class"

"Okay... can you bring me a new pair of pants..."

Kierkan · 05-23-2021, 04:00 AM

One thing that caught LaFleur off guard over the last couple of seasons was my draft position in the S58 SHL entry draft. Going tenth overall in the first round is huge, considering how far down the list I fell in the junior draft the previous season. It felt like a reward almost, for the work that I'd put in. With our draft class being so stacked with big boy recreates, a fresh new player sneaking in and going tenth was a huge optimistic swing for me. I feel extremely lucky to have the opportunities I have, and I plan to make the most of it going forward. The boys in Calgary are an endless stream of motivation and good vibes, and being in that atmosphere just drives me forward and pushes me to succeed. Let this be a lesson to any other new people to the league, you can raise your stock based on your performance and personality! It's not just recreate superstars that get opportunities.

Wearingabear · 05-23-2021, 09:56 AM

Personally my biggest surprise so far in the Simulation Hockey League was in Season 57 when I was on the management teams for both the Anchorage Armada and the Finland World Juniors Classic Team. Both teams that year won their respective championships, so Igor Victory won big in every contest he could have played in that year. It was surprising and wonderful for me because it was my first year as the Anchorage Armada Co General Manager and we were elated to come through in a clutch 3rd round series against the Quebec City Cittadelles, who were by far our biggest challenge in that playoff series. As for the World Juniors Tourney, I had been Finland General Manager the prior two seasons and had placed in the medal rounds, but never got Gold. So to come off a Four Star cup, and play a tough match up against DACH in the finals, it was an amazing experience to get those two Championship wins that season.

***Rankle*** · 05-23-2021, 10:19 AM

PBE PT

Chomp Chomp Water Dog Barracuda

Scarecrow Noises Scarecrows

***Acsolap*** · 05-23-2021, 10:24 AM

A completely unexpected surprise for Rex Kirkby was when he got a phone call from the Atlanta Inferno general manager hottus dogus to say that he was being traded to all round league villain the buffalo stampede. Kirkby had been an integral member of the team for the last few seasons and had thought that he might finish out his career there. However with a probable move to Philadelphia at the end of the season the Atlanta Inferno decided to cash in while they could still get some value out of him. Buffalo was a surprise because I seemed like they already had a fully stacked defense core and would not have need for a relatively old defenseman in their push to unseat Hamilton at the top of the simulation hockey League. The move has turned out quite good for Kirkby though as he managed to get close to 50 points for the third season in a row and moved closer to the top 10 in defensive scoring all round.

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*Fluw* · 05-23-2021, 11:25 AM

This is more of a personal unexpected event that occurred. For those who don’t know Kristjansson and Oscarsson are close as hell, basically did everything together and could be considered best of friends. It came as a shock to Kristjansson, who just bought Oscarsson a friendship bracelet, that Oscarsson had departed the New England Wolfpack, and was traded to the San Francisco Pride. Kristjansson spat out his morning coffee, and called up Oscarsson on the phone immediately. Many tears were shed as Kristjansson just lost his best friend on the team. Kristjansson believed that he and Oscarsson, both top s55 players would lead the Wolfpack towards a cup, however this beautiful union was shattered and to top it off they were now on opposite sides of the continent. Kristjansson still maintains contact with Oscarsson, and has help through his agent who has ties to San Francisco, so what I can say is that this little love affair continues to this day. @Zema

**RomanesEuntDomus** · 05-23-2021, 11:52 AM

This is an interesting question for sure and one that I find quite difficult to answer if I'm honest. A loooooooot of things have happened over the years since I've joined the league but at the same time, most of them have also made sense and you could kinda see them coming and over the years the SHL has become quite the slow-moving behemoth, so most change was slow and gradual rather than radical and quick. In terms of actual hockey events there were some more surprises of course, rebuilding teams trading whole classes of draft picks to take a shortcut in their rebuild, Jack Crasher promising every team to sign with them and then going AWOL, and others. Sadly there hasn't been a ton of these surprises lately as things seem to become more and more predictable, with the same teams fighting for the Championship season after season and the trade market being rather slow, as people mostly prefer to play with their friends instead of chasing opportunities, ice time or big contracts elsewhere.

***Gaia Mormont*** · 05-23-2021, 11:59 AM

An unexpected surprise that happened this past season to Sekai Wollker of the Anaheim Outlaws was discovering the true meaning of Christmas. Apparently it's not about the toys and gifts and delicious food presented lovingly on a table set up to feed a small kingdom of people who look like you or are near and dear to your heart, and some trucker named Bruce who your sister found at the truck stop on her way to your house... but it's about the birth of Santa Clause. We must respect and honour the birth of this great jolly benevolent man because if he ever decides to get pissed off at us, he's got an entire legion of super-trained elves who never sleep and always know what you're up to through his highly advanced superstructured spy network that can see all and know all. Also it's rumoured that elves may have already feasted upon human flesh, though not proven. Just suspected because no ones seen Charlie in a few days don't you know.

Also Sekai Wollker needs to stop talking to homeless crazy people at the beach.

Jala · 05-23-2021, 12:28 PM

An unexpected surprise the league was hit by was the surge of new creates from their advertising on Reddit back in S20. There was something like 100 new members in a week, if I remember right and the league was not expecting reddit to do as well as it did for bringing in new members back then. I know a lot of the class fizzled out quickly but it did bring in a lot of prominent members who are still active and contributing today, or if they're gone now did have a profound impact on the league for a long time. It was a big boost for the league and the new recruiting tactic has clearly become an effective recruiting tool since, seen by how draft picks are stipulated on whether or not it's a reddit draft. It brought a lot of life and activity to the boards and I don't think any of the older members had really seen that coming to the scale it was. A pleasant, albeit unexpected, surprise for the league and it's just grown exponentially since then.

Evok · 05-23-2021, 12:50 PM

It was in S54 that Elizabeth Doyle had the surprise of her life. The season ended on a great run for the Buffalo Stampede where the rookie goaltender managed to put a mark in history. She lead the team to a record of 41-7-2, winning 35 of those contest herself. This was enough to tie the, at the time, record for most win by a rookie goaltender. She was close to win it, but the end of the season was harder than expected for the Stampede. In the 44 games she played that season, she only allowed 84 goals against. This was good for a GAA of 1.91 and a save percentage of 0.913. No one really expected a rookie to do so good between the pipes despite the strength of the team in front of her. This was enough to notch her the John McBride Trophy, the Mike Honcho Trophy, and most importantly for her, the Ryan Jesster Trophy.

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