Zebulon Leavitt exceeded my expectations by a considerable margin.  I had expected a good defensive season from him, but he ended up with a pretty good offensive season as well! For some reason, despite the fact that he was designed as a stay-at-home defenseman Leavitt gets a considerable amount of breakaways and manages to put them home.  I was proud of the fact that he topped the league in plus/minus and CF%. Playing for the star-studded Whalers helps those numbers of course, but he still went out and played hard.   He got in more fights than I expected, especially in the playoffs. The playoffs have actually been a little bit of a disappointment so far. Leavitt had success in round 1 nabbing 3 points in 4 games, but has been quiet since and as at the bottom of the team's scoring.  I hope he steps it up a bit in the last series to help elevate the team to a championship.     (162 words)

The best way to improve the playoff series is to allow the teams who finished at the bottom decide whom they want to play. The Winnipeg Jets made the playoffs with a losing record, that's quite an accomplishment, shouldn't they be rewarded for that? So let them pick who they want to play! Instead of getting the Syndicate this past season they could choose the Panthers or the Wolfpack!  The next worst team gets to pick after that.  I mean, who wants to see the best teams blow out the worst teams in the start of the playoffs anyways. I'd rather see the Renegades and Blizzard in round 1 then the usual snoozefest. Sure, the middle rounds might suck but a good start is the way to go.

Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland And Labrador are the obvious answers. Both provinces currently have very low rates due to both low population and being islands. Along with New Brunswick and Nova Scotia they have worked together to limit cases of the vexing ailment, although the more connected provinces are having hotspots. But Newfoundland is only accessible by boat and plane while PEI has a single road that they have used to limit access to the island and managed to keep the rates low.

Newfoundland has a professional arena, and both areas also have a slew of rinks to choose for practicing and playing games. The largest cities for the two, Halifax and Charlottetown are quite tourist towns lacking the nightlife that might lure young players into the proven hotspots. There are currently plenty of unoccupied hotels due to the travel ban placed on the United States as well that would be available to house players and even their families.
(160 words)

Which SHL or SMJHL team was the best team to not make the finals this season and why?
The Carolina Kraaken were easily the best team to not make the SMJHL finals. While they managed to finish with the best record in the East as well as second best record overall for the league, they had the misfortune of FHM's bizarre playoff format and met up with eventual Cup winner Vancouver. Fans lucked out however, as the two teams had a series to remember, culminating in a seventh game. Kraaken goalkeeper Blunt Man was especially vexing to the Whalers and might've been MVP had the same series been the last. (110 words)


C (Great Lakes) This is a hockey related site, so I am going with Lake Ontario. Canada is the birthplace of modern hockey, and many of the cities on the lake are key historical places to this great game. There is the obvious hockey powerhouse of Toronto which was (and still is) a key part of the evolution of hockey, especially in the professional leagues. Just to the south is Hamilton, another power player in early years. Add some of the smaller cities like Kingston and Oshawa to the mix and you've got yourself a hockey historian's dream.

The Whalers win was especially exciting for this writer as he was a participant, and choosing an MVP from my teammates is not an easy task. We had plenty of worthy candidates but in the end there can be only one: Name Redacted. He came up big when big was needed. Key games include the second and third of the finals where he stopped all but one of the Berserker shots in a hundred and twenty minutes of play. This resulted in the Whalers going from being down 1-0 and going up 2-1. Another 1 goal performance in game 5 gave the Whalers control of the series and two chances to win it all. They ended up only needing one; Redacted stonewalled his opponent in the game six overtime. (110 words)

Code word: PIPERS