1. CW Trivia - 3 TPE : Verification word = Snake

2. - 2 TPE

a. It's New England and Winnipeg in the final, and the one that I am most impressed with has to be Winnipeg. After finishing 10th in the regular season standings, they were able to pull off some upsets and make it to the final when I feel most people probably wouldn't have expected them to. They also seemed to have a knack to dispose of teams without too much resistance.
b. Both teams seem to have made it to the finals as an upset, given they were both ranked fairly similarly in the regular season table as solidly midtable, but New England seemed to me to have a tougher road to the final because of the overall more playoff games it took for them to make it all the way over there, whereas Winnipeg didn't have as much trouble.
c. Looking at both of the conference finals, it's got to be said that Winnipeg had the more impressive victory. Not only did they win their series in less games, wrapping it up in 5 games, but they also demonstrated a great ability to score a lot of goals, and also to be clutch when it matters, as evidenced by their OT win in game 2.

12. - 2 TPE

The New England Wolfpack are the winners for S74, and it's fair to say that most people would not have expected this, given how they were performing in the regular season. Not that they were terrible or anything, but they did finish 9th and were doing just okay. However, once the playoffs started, they proved to have a knack for major upsets, as they took down Buffalo and Philadelphia on their way to the final, who had finished the regular season in 2nd and 3rd, respectively. Once there, they proved too much for their fellow upset team Winnipeg and managed to beat them in 6 games. I don't feel there was much Winnipeg could have done differently, as the teams were fairly evenly matched, but it just seemed likt New England had a better handle of the pressure that comes along with a final, as they were able to dominate the series fairly early on and never let Winnipeg get close to tying it.