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(GRADED) Deep Dive #1 The Origins of Detroit VS St. Louis Rivalry
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(This post was last modified: 08-26-2021, 05:34 AM by Opera_Phantom.)

In my two deep dives this season I will be taking you behind the scenes to get up close and personal with one of the biggest rivalries in the last 30 seasons in the SMJHL.  In this deep dive we will cover in depth the heated bad blood between the St. Louis Scarecrows and the Detroit Falcons and exactly how it began back in S37.

The first thing I need to discuss is the fact that so much SHL history was never preserved.  We should have realized much sooner how important this stuff would be, but we never expected the league could possibly be running over a decade after it started.  Fortunately for the purposes of this deep dive I am a little bit of walking SHL encyclopedia, so I at least have some idea of where to start when I’m looking for something.  Still with many of the STHS index’s being now defunct, it was a…challenge to find all the information I was looking for.

I am going to rewind back to 2017 in the SHL, to bring you back to when this longstanding rivalry began.  It is early November and hockey, and football are in full swing.  The S37 playoffs have just began in the SHL and the SMJHL playoffs aren’t far behind.  Prior to the later S30s the Detroit Falcons had a well known and long standing rivalry with the now defunct Montreal Impact/Militia.  We start to see Detroit fans and players shift their attention to the St. Louis Scarecrows during the S34 playoffs.  In S34 Detroit Falcons beat the St. Louis Scarecrows in six games to win the Four Star Cup in the SMJHL finals.  Then the Falcons would play the St. Louis Scarecrows in the first round of the SMJHL playoffs again S36 once again emerging on top in six games.

In the playoffs in the SMJHL at this time we had two conferences and the top team from each conference got a bye week while the other two teams from each conference battled it out for second place.  After digging through hundred of threads I found this article https://simulationhockey.com/showthread....hlight=s37 that shows us what the playoff picture was like coming out of the S37 season.  That season the Eastern Conference was so stacked that the three top teams in the league were from the East.  The Halifax Raiders were first in the league and as such received a bye, behind them in second place were the Prince George Firebirds, in third were the Colorado Mammoths, and all the way down in fourth place were the Detroit Falcons.  This is relevant because all three of Halifax, Prince George, and Colorado were in the Eastern Conference this season (we like hockey not geography) while Detroit played in the Western Conference.  This meant that Detroit would receive a bye week instead of battling it out with the heavyweights in the first round.  Montreal and St. Louis were the last two teams to make the playoffs and the Vancouver Whalers and Kelowna Knight missed the playoffs.

In the first round, brackets were busted, and somehow Montreal and St. Louis both sent their opponents packing.  Montreal defeated Colorado in seven games and St. Louis took out Prince George in six.  As a result the second round of the playoffs looked unlike what anyone was expecting, and this also gave Detroit a big advantage.  In the second round Detroit would face St. Louis.  In order to understand why these teams had a little animosity towards each other it’s important to note who the general managers were not only at this time but prior to this season.  WannabeFinn had been the long time GM in Detroit for several seasons when he stepped down, or rather up into a GM position with Buffalo.  This left an opening for a GM which became TheWoZy and his appointed Co-GM Waters.  At this time Waters reputation was still healing from some earlier incidents in the league.  On the other side in St. Louis we had TML99 and JKortesi81, TML has to be the longest tenured GM in SMJHL history and Joe was by his side for a long time.  These management teams had very different management styles needless to say and I’ve never known Finn or Joe to walk away from a challenge.

That brings us to the start of the second round, Detroit came out of the gate swinging and took both of the first two games at home.  But St. Louis came roaring back on home ice and tied the series up at two apiece.  In game five however Detroit was badly embarrassed losing 8-2 on home ice in a shameful showing.  As a result Detroit head GMs quickly realized they needed to adjust their lines if they were going to succeed in winning the next two elimination games.  Detroit answered back in a big way in game six, blazing to a 5-2 victory.  Now it would all come down to a fateful game 7. 

As game seven began tensions were high after Detroit’s dominance the past few times the teams had met in the playoffs.  Detroit came out of the gates firing and the hero of the playoffs for Detroit in S37 Maurizio Arrivabene potted the first goal.  St. Louis wasn’t ready to roll over just yet, and The Dude tied it up for St. Louis about three minutes into the second period.  44 seconds later and the falcons were back on top again as Ryan Richter pots one.  As the game grows more heated St. Louis defenseman Svatoslav Bodnar makes a terrible error and gets a major penalty and ejected from the game.  During this power play Detroit converts with a goal off the stick of Shaun Stevens.  Late in the third period, St. Louis pulls to within one after a goal from Nour Harrak bounces in, a big trade deadline acquisition for the crows.  There is about two minutes left in game seven and St. Louis is down by one, will they be able to rally?  Unfortunately they were not, and with the third defeat in four seasons then St. Louis GM JKortesi81 mutters the words that can be heard in these hallowed halls for years





Fuck Detroit

Link below to see the first ever Fuck Detroit in history!
https://simulationhockey.com/showthread....pid2307768

Detroit would go on to win the cup after sweeping Montreal in S37 and the Falcons and Scarecrows would rematch again in S38 where the Falcons were again victorious in six games.  And Detroit would top St. Louis again in S40 this time in only five games.  In fact it wasn’t until S43 when St. Louis was finally able to beat Detroit in a heated 7 game playoff series.  I hope this was able to clear up some of the confusion some of the newer members had about the origin of the Detroit – St. Louis Rivalry.

Need a sig :-/
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Approved!

+5 TPE @Vik
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