Quote:1. Written, 3 TPE (150 words min.)
Reflection on your season - how did your player fare on the ice this season? Did you meet or surpass your individual player goals or did you come up short? Whether you excelled or disappointed - what can you attribute that to? What will you try to do better next season?

Unfortunately for the second CW in a row, I have to write about how I thought my player had a disappointing season and didn't live up to expectations. I didn't set the bar too high - I knew that I would struggle as a rookie, especially with only 3 seasons in the J so my TPE wasn't as high as a lot of other rookies - but it was kind of unfortunate to watch almost every other rookie eclipse me in performance. As for what we can attribute to that, to at least give my player some benefit of the doubt, I had the 8th lowest ice time in the league so I didn't have as many chances to produce as most other players. But also at the same time I probably need to work on my build/optimize my roles and tactics. To improve, I plan on banking all my TPE until preseason, then doing some testing to see the best way to apply that 100 or so TPE.

168 words - 3 TPE

Quote:2. Written, 3 TPE (150 words min.)
This offseason will be extra exciting, as it features the rare expansion draft! Write about how you think the expansion draft will play out, either for one or both of the expansion teams or from an SHL team's perspective.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how the expansion draft plays out, specifically to see what strategies each GM use for the expansion draft. In a surprise to a lot of people, one of the best defensemen in the league in Darrow was exposed, and will be expected to get grabbed right away. This poses the question of whoever takes them, with one of the top Ds on their team, will they shift their strategy to more of a win now rather than build for the future? Especially with one of the best goalies in Cain also exposed. I think in an ideal world to the expansion GMs, one of them would aim to build to be good in a shorter term, and one would aim to slowly build up to be a contender later. This would allow the two expansion teams to not necessarily get in each other's way while picking players, and one could grab the higher TPE players in their prime now, and one could target the younger players, specifically any S53s that got exposed. If the two GMs did have similar drafting strategies and got in each other's way, another interesting concept will be GMs drafting a player that they don't particularly need from a team with 1 player already picked, just so they could block the other expansion from grabbing their guy or a positional need from that team. 

234 words - 3 TPE

Quote:5. Written, 3 TPE (150 words min.)
What are your predictions for the upcoming IIHF or WJC tournament? What team do you think will win/surprise people/be bad/etc.?

I think the predictions for IIHF will be about the same as they've been the previous season or two. I think that USA and Canada will be the top 2 teams to beat, and a lot of eyes will be on the USA team, who swept the group stages last year at 12-0 then a blunder by starting their backup goalie in the medal round cost them a chance at a medal. Barring any sort of mishap like that again, I would put them as the favorites once more. I think that a second tier of teams in Czechia, Great Britain, and Sweden will all be primed for a good international tournament and will all have expectations to compete for a medal. On the WJC side, I want to make a homer pick for Finland to surprise some people. We got a bronze medal last year, and only lost Potts and myself on the WJC side, and a ton of young players are continuing to improve and ready to step into our roles as well as fill out the roster. There's a ton of strong WJC rosters, but I think Finland has the potential to once again surprise people and play in the medal games.

205 words - 3 TPE

Quote:12. Podcast, 3 or 4 TPE
Record a mini-podcast on any of the below topics!
- Highlights of the S55 season (on or off the ice)
- S55 playoff round-up
- S55 Challenge Cup/Four Star Cup finals Breakdown
- S56 predictions

1 person Mini-Pod: 3 TPE for 5 minutes or 4 TPE for 7 Minutes
2 person Mini-Pod: 3 TPE for 6 Minutes or 4 TPE for 8 Minutes
Post the direct link to your podcast.

2 person mini-pod with Nhamlet - https://soundcloud.com/nhamlet21/s55-cw
4 TPE

Quote:16. CW TRIVIA, 3 TPE max - 1 TPE for participation, 0.5 TPE for each correct answer. This is now completed through a Google form linked below. Make sure to spell your answers correctly or you will not get credit. Post your verification word in your CW post.

Verification word: Juke - 3 TPE

Total: 16 TPE