The most surprising part to me would be the rise of Toronto as part of the Great Lakes teams, and the Tampa Bay/Baltimore battle in the Atlantic. I knew that Toronto was getting better and better over every season, but I did not quite expect them to beat Chicago (and Buffalo for that matter) for a playoff spot in the Great Lakes, as it is the toughest division to get a third seed spot to begin with. The Baltimore Platoon against the Tampa Bay Barracuda race was also exciting, as we got to see what a player having a career year – Karl Krashwagen – and a good goalie in Luca Del Vecchio drag their team to the playoffs over a younger growing team in Tampa Bay. It definitely made the season more interesting to me, but it is too bad the end result ended up being a Buffalo versus Hamilton final as that is boring and ho-hum usual shenanigans in the current era.

162 words


I’m not really sure what I can do different next season in order to help my team – I’m earning as much as I can, I’m completely open to have the GM and coaches deploy me in the optimum role and method to make the best use of my player, and so are most of my teammates. This question is asinine, to be honest, and not really well thought out. As a player, who may or may not have the time to help test sim strategies on FHM or even have knowledge on how to work FHM (which is a black box at the best of times and utterly incomprehensible at others) it should not be up to you to figure out how your team makes it to the playoffs. That is on the shoulders of the management of the team, and the coaching, in order to put your team in the best position that it can be for post-season success.

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I’m going to say for this season it might be the same old same old for the most part, with USA and Canada doing well, but there might be some surprise fallers and contenders. Team Japan has gotten a lot younger, and taken somewhat of a step back TPE-wise to the other teams. Team Ireland lost a few veterans but gained some promising young guys. These two teams might be on a downswing for the next few cycles but will eventually get stronger again. Team Sweden is looking pretty good this season, with the first true log-jam of players trying to get in and play, and might be a dark horse for the medal rounds if they can figure out their strategies going into the match. I think in 3-4 seasons they will have a very strong core oriented around the S50-S55 class, and will be truly a scary force to be reckoned with in the international stage.

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a. Get shots on net against Jobin. Sadly he is the weak link in Hamilton’s team, so if you get shots on him you can get goals past him to get ahead of Hamilton. And then after that you rely on Doyle and the absolutely stifling defense that Buffalo has to shut down the game and hold the lead. (59)
b. To me a great defense will win over a great offense. You just need to outscore the opponent by one goal, and if you can frustrate their offense you have a great chance to get the game in hand and control it. Your offense just has to be good enough to score on the other team’s defense, and that’s easier than keeping the other guys out of your net. (70)
c. Neither. They have boring brands (to me at least) but it might just be because I’ve seen them so often in the playoffs at this point. Yes, we’re familiar with the colour schemes and logos at this point – can we get a new team in here to get some more colour? If I had to choose one maybe I will go Hamilton just because seeing the forums in yellow is not pleasant to the eye. (76)
d. I’m going to send out Elijah Jones, Aaron Wilson, Michael Scarn and Augustus Wang. Let’s go full on offense at this point since this is overtime, and the first goal wins. These are very accomplished players, and the three forwards from Hamilton are better than the Buffalo forward group in my opinion maybe outside of Monkey Luffy, but Wang is a better offensive defenseman than what Hamilton have. (69)


Milestone Claim - 3 TPE (Max)

16 TPE total 3+3+3+4+3