What made you decide to hold a scrimmage when nobody else has before?
"Glory, excellence and comradery." said Zenochka Zaichikov

Those were the only words we got back from UCORCAL's newest appointed GM after we asked her why she decided to immediately rally talents from her homeland before even leaving the meeting with SHL executives in the lobby late last night a few days ago, without knowing that some of the recruits may not even be eligible to be selected or busy with another team.

In nearly the past two decades the UCORCAL squad hasn't been the best team at the tournament finishing in the bottom portion of the standings many times, apart from Season 70. 68, 67 where they actually went above win/loss ratio and surprised the league it seems like majority of their development has been angled towards rejoicing, refreshing and retooling their players to better prepare themselves for whichever professional team they would go back to. It's obvious that won't be the case this time though with a new goal to make the brand a little more known for its dedication to the game and talents they possess it's certain Team UCORCAL will be hoping to bank fans to carry along the way, trying to keep packed houses for maximum momentum, doing it as a unit making the fans feel like they were part of it and aiming to obtain some notable achievements in the end for whatever excellence they get out of all the sweat and unprepared bodies before the tournament even begins. With the new leader stepping out of the shadows already creating waves it's most likely we'll be in for a treat and have something to entertain us every game, if it's a total failure or not.

Just a day later after Zenochka Zaichikov stormed out of the leagues main hub details about the plan started to be plastered on every single news media site in the UCORCAL region that following morning and from what we saw they are celebrating it like a holiday over there, most of the store fronts are covered in flags and almost every person had a jersey on hyped from the new changes, not only is it broadcasted in the morning, it's on the network a few times in the afternoon and night! Like we said before trying their best in everything possible and creating a new identity is part of the regime, but we didn't notice all the angry faces behind the anchor and a hit list that went along with it on almost every sign, if the media decides to interview any of their players make sure to bring some alcohol to let them know it's all for fun and anything that happened in the past is the past or your beer league team will be added to the list.

Now today team UCORCAL's list is in! No not the eligible player one it's a list of players that we saw entered the scrimmage this afternoon, it starts out big with names like Jim Wen, Alexej Kastrba and plus many more of the previous recruits who could also have done a little more last time like Dominik Winters and Jay Bryzi, it takes a turn with some interesting attendees when we read the second half of names though, Kelowna's Arthur Kaliyev, Yukon's Vyacheslav Shevchenko, Detroit's Dako Nankov, Nevada's Sergey Ivanov, Yerik Akmetzhanov, Anchorage's Fedot Federov and finally Maine's Julian Kunatzov who all could just be playing with their friends for the fun of it when the pen hits paper officially because Zenochka Zaichikov has yet to read the rules. Names we did not see and hope automatically make the roster if possible are stars Marshall Madden, Ace Lightning and Shootin Blanks but that's a guess not knowing what the new strategy will truly look like.

One thing we do know is that it'll be busy behind the bench and in the booth regardless of who the new manager selects so they have to be even smarter with every decision made by having a goal for everyone and obtaining enough talent to not embarrass themselves further, especially with all the preparations before hand, if they can do that the UCORCAL troops can walk away with a smile in the highest levels of hockey even if plans didn't go accordingly. Well that's it for now, stay tuned to see how well everybody performed unprepared and under a little more pressure when the roster get announced this week!

RAIYA RABINOV

Poke

UCORCAL has a strong tradition and I'm happy to see the team in good hands!

---
Ekaterina Valieva - Baltimore Platoon


Thanks @Lazyeye for the sig!