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*Carpy48* · 01-23-2025, 12:17 PM

Welcome to the roster announcement for team Finland!

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Hello league. It's a special season, season 80, and you guessed it, I have a roster announcement for team Finland for you. If you have been following this team for a while you will know that these announcements are very similar every season and I don't really expect people to read them, but if you do, you know what's coming. There will be some important changes in this one. We're going into a new decade of international hockey and after 11 seasons as a Co-Head and 20 seasons as a Fed Head I believe I have finally surpassed WannabeFinn's record of 30 seasons in a team management position, but to celebrate we'll bring WBF back to the roster with a new player.

As usual this announcement is being posted right in the middle of the SHL playoffs and one player on our roster is still trying to win a cup. I'm not, so I've had plenty of time to work on a new roster. As a loyal reader of these super interesting announcements you know we never change more than a handful of players on our team. Typically spots open up if a player goes inactive (rarely) or retires (regularly), but sometimes some users also take a break and return later. This year we're in a fortunate situation to have more actives than we can use - which is less fortunate for the older players who have regressed so far that we will have to take them off the team. Luckily all of our departues have managed to win a few medals with us. Since this has been a topic in recent discussion: yes, if the regressing players are still active and have not played for Finland for two tournaments, they are no longer considered 'locked in' and may transfer to another nation afterwards if there is interest.

Let's jump right into our departures - no retirements this time. Leaving us will be a trio of early to mid S60s players. Let's start with the youngest of them: David-Arturri Donskoi or 'DAD' as he's known around the lockerroom. DAD has won three medals with us during the 70s; regrettably we didn't manage to get you a gold. Nevertheless, thanks for being part of the team, @LarryTheMVP! The next two are a duo that has been very important for Team Winland and one cannot be mentioned without the other. Both had success together in the WJC and continued with that same success when they joined our "senior" team. Three consecutive medals (gold, bronze, silver) between S66-68, probably our strongest era as Team Winland in the past, followed by three additionally medals in the S70s (shared with DAD) makes Shōyō Hinata (@Gordon Bombay) and Mikko Rashford (@RashfordU) some of our most successful players for a while and they definitely knew how to put the WIN in Winland. Additionally, both were part of the leadership group with Rashford wearing the C and Hinata the A last tournament. Not only that, but both also have helped with coaching in the past. Can't thank you two oldies enough!

We are also lucky to have a returnee who took a little bit of a break from international hockey for personal reasons. Back this season and to help our strong defense is... Nash Topalo a.k.a. @Rangerjase! Welcome back Smile

Now it is time to talk about rookies. There will be two of them this season and I know one has been patiently waiting for a few years already: Mac Griddle @mcgriddleluver! Congrats, you have finally made the team! Sorry it took so long. The other one is the one I've briefly brought up earlier, the youngest of the many Kekkonens we've had on the team before: Kal Åkar Kekkonen @WannabeFinn. Welcome to Team Winland to both of you. Let's win some medals together!

One more important announcement. This year will be the last one with my Co-Head @Sburbine who has been part of the management team for the past 9 tournaments and has been on the roster with Jay O'Neil for a loooong time even before then. Thanks so much for all the work you've done, I definitely couldn't have done this without your FHM skills. Can't wait to have a laundry basket on the team soon Smile

As mentioned earlier, both our captain and one of the 'ass'-captains have left the team, so we promoted our 2k player Jaromir Jagrbomb to be our new captain (two players to wear the A are currently being voted on by the team, I'll update this later > update: they will be Outdoor Truck and Jani Mänty).

Since we have quite the surplus on defense, three of our defenders get to join the forward group again this tournament and will play out of position: Johnny Patey V2, Cheeks Klapanen and Kaarlo Koivunen.

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Here's Team Finland's roster for S80:

(S64) Outdoor Truck "A" - @Snussu Renegades