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FuzzSHL · 09-15-2019, 12:48 PM

This season has finally come to a close and what a ride it has been. From taking over as the Montreal GM and rounding out the staff, to completing my first reddit draft as a GM, to closing out the season with a bye and ultimately winning the Four Star Cup, every day I woke up excited for what this season had yet to bring. If you missed my draft diary and offseason thoughts from after the S49 draft you can find it here. I won’t go into as much detail concerning the topics I covered in that article, but there are a few things I wanted to touch on again before getting into what this article is really about.

I want to thank the members of my staff for helping make this season go as smooth as possible. From what surely started as a joke with @cpetrella, once the seed was planted I was excited at the thought of becoming a GM. Having you as my right hand has given me a lot of confidence and has allowed me to rest a little easier knowing I have such a strong mind alongside me. I still don’t understand why @slothfacekilla wasn’t on another team’s staff when I talked to him about coming on mine, but I’m not going to question it. You have been a key figure in the locker room and in staff conversations consistently throughout the season. You seemingly refuse to take any credit, but you were key in us picking some of the people that we did and you were even more key in us signing the free agents that we did. Last but certainly not least, @CampinKiller you have helped the rooks with their builds and updates, giving advice as to which stats and what progression would help them sim the best. Sure, you weren’t the only one giving advice on that front, but your experience as a simmer has helped tremendously, both in scouting talent and in helping our current guys improve.

I also want to thank each and every player on our current roster, especially the rookies. The locker room activity is at a level that it hasn’t been in a long time. You all help each other day in and day out, making sure everyone is having a fun time and understands what is going on. I speak for the entirety of our staff when I say that we are proud of each and every one of you and I know I would not have wanted our draft to go any other way.

With that being said, we have two announcements to make. The first announcement we have concerns staff changes for the upcoming season. Trella will return as Co-GM, Sloth will return as Head Scout, and CampinKiller will also return to the staff as Head Coach. We are adding two members to our staff for this season: @esilverm and @ImASurvivor! Silver is someone I have wanted to work with since we signed him in St Louis a few seasons ago. With his callup to the bigs, he is now available to join the staff as Head of Analytics! We wanted to bring one of the new guys onto our staff as well and for a moment didn’t know who we wanted to try to bring on. Survivor reached out and made our decision an easy one. He will be joining as a scout and we hope to be able to provide him with the experience he needs to get a step ahead in his development both as a player and as a member. The current staff and I are excited to announce these additions and fully believe that these additions will make us a better team moving forward.

Now for the real announcement…

This has unfortunately not been a well kept secret. Maybe some of you have forgotten already, but when I took over there was a rumor swirling about possible changes that not everyone would be happy with. We pushed a decision back, wanting to do things the right way. I don’t know how much more I can ramble on without giving it away even more, so I’ll just go ahead and say it.

The Montreal Militia are rebranding.

There were a few reasons for us making the decision to follow through with a rebrand. We talked to as many alumni as possible as well as members of the current roster. I personally tried to get as many opinions and suggestions as possible to make a fully informed decision on this. We opened branding suggestions to the team and to any alum with an idea (who responded to the messages that were sent out). We narrowed it down to two ideas.

A little bit of background before the branding is officially announced. When I took over the Montreal locker room, it was dead. There was less than a handful of people talking and sometimes days went by without a message. The roster was lopsided in terms of depth, and a retool was needed. I gave every active member a chance to stay on the roster before exploring trade options. I didn’t want to move someone active if they wanted to stay, I wasn’t trying to come in and just blow things up. One player expressed a desire to stay, and the rebuild was finalized. We drafted 11 rookies (8 first gen players) and signed 3 free agents, all of which were first gen. The locker room has not seen a quiet day since. Every single day I open that locker room and the rookies are talking to each other about their lives or the sim and it has been an absolute pleasure to see. A few alum talked every now and then, but there wasn’t a consistent presence on that front. In my attempt to reach out to every active alum, some seemingly tried to distance themselves from the franchise. Others made it clear that they didn’t want the team to be moved, but also didn’t seem to want to be a part of the current roster’s locker room experience. There didn’t seem to be anyone who wanted the current branding to stay as it was. Some suggestions were to go back to the Impact (sorry, can’t. MLS), some wanted the old colors back, some wanted a new logo, but the overall consensus was that the Militia branding was not well liked. We explored every possible avenue in terms of branding and did not write off a stay in Montreal.

At the end of the day though, we felt like a fresh start would work best. We want to build a culture that brings alumni back into the locker room to talk with the current players, whether its sim help or just normal conversations about IRL happenings, a culture that isn’t currently seen in Montreal. This culture is seen in other SMJHL franchises such as St Louis, Vancouver, and Anaheim (I’m sure there are others, too, but these are the 3 I know of 100%). We want to build that here and are confident that this is something we will be able to do, and a fresh start in terms of branding will help with that.

In opening suggestions to alumni and the roster, there were a few that stood out. We contacted a few people about possible logo work and ultimately ended up with two branding ideas that we liked. The final vote within management was close, but the scale tipped when thinking about originality. Without further ado, I am excited to announce that the Montreal Militia have rebranded as…

The Carolina Kraken!

[Image: CarolinaKrakenLogoDisplayTemplate.png]

The SHL and SMJHL have historically lacked teams in the sun belt region. This branding was actually suggested by a member of the current roster, and the color scheme by an alumni. We felt the combination worked well together and that the orange and black scheme was something that hasn’t been seen in the SHL. @Wasty put in a lot of work on the primary logo and we loved it. The octagon, much like the Kraken, is unique to logos and isn’t something many sports teams have used. I am extremely happy with how this turned out.

We had also reached out to @Hoovuh for some ideas and suggestions, and he came up with something that we absolutely loved, just not for a primary logo. However, we ended up using it in our branding and in the jerseys. I want to take a moment to thank him for all the work he put in for us throughout this season and for how much of my crap he’s put up with. He’s been a real trooper through it all and I am so thankful for the fact that he took time out of his life to help out.

Now for the jerseys. Hoov made some jerseys for our other branding idea and Wasty also sent a jersey mock with his original Kraken logo proposition. I used aspects of both and sent Wasty back an updated version of jerseys, and he made a few slight changes to what I sent him. We went back and forth being a little more picky than we probably should have been (let’s be honest….it was me. I was more picky than I should have been), but ultimately I think the final product was worth it.

[Image: CarolinaKrakenJerseyDisplayTemplate.png]

That’s about it for our announcement. I just want to take a moment to address some of the inevitable backlash: I did not come in with the plan to immediately move or definitely move the Militia. My plan was to build an organization, regardless of branding, that made alumni want to associate themselves with the current roster and that was competitive on the ice as well. This rebrand was not an attack on Montreal, the Militia, the Impact, or anyone involved or associated with Montreal in any way. Trella and I will also be putting up a podcast questions thread to answer any questions about anything concerning the team from last offseason, the draft, the season, the playoffs, or the rebrand.