Old-time-hockey Blades, '98 and on

[smokey]

So, started a new career game using the magnificent '98 rosters by CJ, Archi and Nino, re-living the late 90's WHL. And whoo boy the lineups in this league, back in those days.

The Blades, in essence, are not a very good hockey team. They have Mathieu Cusson and Ryan Gaucher listed as two of their star players, and in case you've never heard of them, Gaucher went to play German lower division hockey after a few seasons jumping between the AHL and ECHL, while Cusson apparently ended his career after graduating from Uni. The third star player on the team is Garrett Prosofsky, and that's basically all you need to know about the skill level here.

But what this roster lacks in skill and goal scoring prowess it compensates with size and violence. Sorting the players according to position, going down the list, it's a who's who among CHL goons. On top of the D you have Ryan Bonni, a 6'4 giant with 650 PIM in the WHL to his name to date. He's followed by Garnet Exelby, who was already a tough customer back then. There's a 6'4 Darcy Robinson with 400+ PIM in the WHL irl, Derek Haldorsson with 500+ PIM. The list goes on. So, quite unsurprisingly, this Blades team features one of the most feared one-two pugilist combinations in CHL history, and it can be found on my current 4th line. Warren Peters, who also enjoyed dropping the gloves, from time to time, is centering Steve MacIntyre and Darcy Hordichuk. It's ridiculous. Without having to put any energy into building this team the way I usually do, in other words the way the Broad Street Bullies did it, I get to manage one of the most awesome duos in junior hockey fighting ever! Among crazy Blades lineups, this bunch pales in comparison only to the late 80's installation, which featured Killer Kaminski, Chase, Twister etc. I mean I have to give extra credit to Archi and his crew for selecting this particular season on which to build their roster. Oh yeah, almost forgot about the goalies. It's not like they're totally forgettable, which they are, but I mean who cares, I've got Hordi and Big Mac!

Anyways, there you have a short description of what I have on my hands. Here I will try to post updates on how things go, as regularily as possible. Needless to say, I'm not aiming for the Mem in my first season, but I'm sure I can at least cook up some quite memorable stats and hopefully a few screenshot-worthy incidents along the way.

[smokey]

Finished my pre-season, and based on the early results I'm in for a long and rough season. I lost all but one game (a 2-2 tie with the Hitmen), half of them with a clear margin.

Fighting has been as frequent as expected. I guess the Giants had already shat themselves before the last exhibition game, or were just saving their energy for opening night, because it was the only game not to feature any fights. The Kamloops game had one fight, while the other four included multiple altercations. The one fight in the Blazers game had entertainment value; In windowed mode you almost need to scroll to see the entire readout. And talk about a mismatch. With this guy, it always will be. Now, Kamloops' Gable Gross is a respectable 6 ft, 190 lbs at age 17, but he had to go up against this monster of a D-man, Brent Henley, who irl is only slightly smaller than his in-game 6'8'', 251 lbs. He's slow, he's got 1 in every key tech attribute and he's not even good defensively. But he's that prototypical stay-at-home slugger, one you would expect to find in the WHL or the minor junior leagues feeding it, getting his 10+ mins a night to help the top-2 D-pairs.

My goalies haven't convinced me so far. Both have tech atts in the 1-7 range, but from what I can remember playing in the 'W' previously, goalies rarely make any difference here, unless they're absolute star players. We'll see as the season progressess, I might have to trade for one that could at least keep the games tight.

Oh yeah, almost forgot. I almost signed Derek Boogaard. Now, he went to Calgary, and I'm cool with that. Would've been awesome to put him on the Big Mac 'n Hordi line, but at least he'll provide some good opposition for my guys to battle in the upcoming games. I did sign a new head coach though. Anthony Kelly left his position as the head coach of the St John's Maple Leafs, replacing Garnet McVicar, who had been given a long contract by the previous management, but who I felt really wasn't up for the challenge. New management, new coaching staff, that's my policy.

So, the pre-season is over, the team is.. well, "ready" for the regular season, and I have no doubt this'll be one crazy ride. Bring on the Pats and Wheat Kings!

[smokey]

Wow, what a month and a half into the season. Shaone Morrisonn, Ludwar for Sarich, the mayhem in Brandon, the forfeited game. Fights, fights and more fights.

First, however, a few words about a player named Derek Bjornson. He's an 18 yo right winger, who's doing okay on my top-6. His tech atts could be described as uninspiring at best, much like his three year career in the WHL irl. It's the 3-8 range across the board. Dude's got okay physical atts, but seriously, he's a player so average in every way, he risks fading into the in-game background picture. Anyway, the reason I brought him up is that he became the first player on my team to be suspended after collecting 83 PIM and 3 game misconducts in his first 5 games. Talk about productive! I've got at least one player with two GM's under his belt already, and a few with one, so I guess future suspensions are inevitable.

So, according to the league preview, I've got two of the best centers in the league in Cusson and Prosofsky. Didn't know they were that good just looking at their atts, but then again, I wasn't sure about how good the overall skill level in this update was anyway. There's a wide margin separating me from the better teams with multiple future NHL'ers on their roster, but despite my two top centers, I think it's safe to say I'm behind most of the mid table teams as well. In fact, I'm happy that my record of 3-11-2 would include three wins, as I had feared something slightly worse. And some players are doing just fine, putting up decent numbers. So there is some hope. It's just that three game span in early October, for instance. That Kootenay would be followed by Swift Current and that 152 PIM would be countered with 120PIM two nights later. And then there's that third game, which fell nothing short of being a complete Slap Shot re-enacment, missing only that dancing guy at the end of it all, and I'm pretty sure he was there too in code-snippet form, hidden in the fabric of the game smewhere. It all started right from the get go, and when time was up I'd collected 224 PIM with 8 players handed game misconducts and getting ejected from the game as result. Jon Barkman played less than two minutes in the game, and he didn't even recive a GM. Instead, his ice time was severly limited due to the fact that I was killing penalties all night. Ryan Gaucher, one of my three D men left by the end of the game, was on the ice for 45+ minutes. Just about every game has seen at least some fighting, but Brandon was special.

A couple of minor roster tweaks. Shaone Morrisonn became my first, and so far only, free agent signing. Also had a minor trade with Calgary, aquiring D man Rod Sarich and a 5th rnd pick for D man Kane Ludwar. Has a minimal impact on my roster, but I thought I could use the 5th and the Hitmen came offering. And while on the topic of roster management, the Chilliwack Bruins became the first team to forfeit a game afer running out of players. It's a problem common to all four teams which didn't exist back then, but which can't be removed because hard coded Adam Oates. Their rosters are pretty much empty at the start of the game. Everything should be fine after a couple seasons though, when they have players to fill the line-up.

Here is as far as I've gotten. I'll be back with more updates as the season grows older.

[smokey]

Back with another update, as I just finished November. Now, where to begin?

Maybe I'll start with introducing a player named Bevin Guenther. He's an average sized C, and in the game he's one of those players with every attribute in the 5 to 10 range. Useful in some situations, has an ok shot, but spends time jumping between the WHL and the SJHL. In real life, he ended his career at age 21 in the virtually unknown Fort Carlton Hockey League. Anyway, he became the first player on my team to score a Gordie Howe hat trick. It was his return game after spending some time in the minor juniors, and while other teams had shown interest in him, I had him in the lineup only because Hordichuk twisted his ankle. Talk about a sales pitch! Had a good bout with Kyle Wanvig on top of the 2+1 he recorded. Man of the match and all, and he did it in just a little over 11 minutes of ice time!

I've noticed that many of the forwards in this league have ok physical and mental atts, and are good at shooting the puck, while lacking in the skill department. Quite realisitic IMO if you think about the real life WHL in those days. Prince George's Blair Betts leads the league in points with 37 over 29 games. Garrett Prosofsky is my best point scorer with 24 in 26, putting him 30th overall.

I beat Red Deer 6-4 on the road, in a game that had three proper fights. The first one was a good tilt between my 5'11'' D-man Christian Chartier and the Rebels' 6'6'' RW Jeff Smith. The bout went on for so long that in the end they were only punching air, in complete exhaustion. Again, the scroll-bar was needed to see the entire play-by-play of the fight in windowed mode. The second fight was a lot more one sided, as "six-eight" Henley took on, and beat in clear fashion, the 6'3'' 211lbs Frantisek Mrazek. The last fight was again a lot more even, with Peters taking on the equally sized Brad Leeb. They had 6'5'' Robert Schnabel, 6'3'' Devin Francon, Stephen Peat and Sheldon Brookbank in the lienup as well. Most of the Saskatchewan teams are stacked with big and intimidating bare knuckle brawlers, who just happen to play hockey on the side.

And on the subject of players who master the art of back-alley dentistry, SmackIntyre scored his first goal of the season in a 9-4 circus at Swift Current (he now has 2, as does Hordi). I feel for Tyson Motz and Bryce Wandler. The two Broncos' G split time between the pipes, eventually losing interest in the game, after their team gave up on them. Six fights.

In case you're wondering, I lead the league with 1122 PIM over 26 games, averaging about 45 mins a night. Kootenay are second with 560 + PIM and a 19+ minute nightly average. I also got 3 wins in Nov and won my first game in Dec, making it 4-4-2 over the last 10, so a slight improvement there, even though I'm still last in my division. And it doesn't look like my team is anywhere near challenging for a play-off spot. As if spending three quarters of any given night in the sin bin wasn't enough, I'm facing teams that have multiple future NHL players on their roster. There's Regina, with a top 4 D-core of Nolan Yonkman, Barrett Jackman, Brad Stuart and Scotty Balan. Portland are also sporting a very competitive lineup with Jason LaBarbera, Andrew Ference, Marcel Hossa, Matt Walker and Brenden Morrow. Kootenay is one of those teams that have future NHL goons on their team in Colton Orr and Jeremy Yablonski as well as some more skilled players like Mike Green, Jaroslav Svoboda and Steve McCarthy. Best of all, they have Jarret Stoll as well. Playing bottom six C! It's like the guy can never catch a break, alays stuck behind the top-6, even in junior hockey. Poor guy.

I'm also trying to solve the issue with my G. The 18 yo Tyler MacKay has taken over the starting position, with slightly better atts and stats than my backup, 20 yo Aaron Baker. Baker has pants atts, isn't playing well and is overaged. Not that I have too many of them to cause any roster issues, but I'm thinking I could use that OVR slot more wisely. It's not like it would make much difference who I threw in between the pipes, as they all seem to be equally qualified in not doing much. Finally, I'll leave you with my first screenshot of the season, which was going up in the previous post, but I forgot. Stay tuned for more---


Just another typical night at the office...

[smokey]

Back again with an update on how things are going.

Just finished January, and the past two months has seen a big improvement in my play. December started out slow, but in January I only lost 2 out of 12 in regulation (7-2-3) and I'm now 5th in the league over the last 10.Tweaked my tactics, favoring a more offensive approach, and I've begun winning some games as a result. I'm still in last place in the East, but only two points behind 5th place Moose Jaw and 11 points behind Brandon, who're currently in the last po spot, with 4 games in hand. All of a sudden my D looks really solid and I can generate offense beyond my top-6. D man Christian Chartier is 5th in the league in assists and is a whopping +21. That's huge, cosidering I've allowed 16 more goals than I've scored as a team (149-165). Every player on the team have been able to score at least once, with Garrett Prosofsky leading my team in points (10+28=38), right before Chartier (6+31=37).

My G is still struggling, whenever they're put to the test, but my D is playing well. I've got a 16 yo Shaone Morrisonn, a 15 yo Aaron Rome and the 17 yo's Rod Sarich and Garnet Exelby "fighting" over the last D spot. Very happy with my future D core.

All of this improvement in goal scoring and overall play still hasn't taken away too much from the physical/dirty aspects of this team, as I'm still averaging about 45 PIM a night. The number of suspensions has gone down though, and that's a good thing, because with this team it's challenging to put up four competitive fwd lines as it is. Here's a pic from early Dec, a home game I lost to the Hitmen 6-3. It underlines the difficulty in winning games when your players decide they've had enough.

[smokey]

Almost made it. Almost.

First off, I just finished my first season and even did the WHL draft, so again a bit more stuff to cover all in all.

After January, the team lost pace a bit, although February still went pretty well in terms of results and points, going 7-4-2. There were some dark moments, like the 0-5 thrashing by the Pats or the humiliating 1-6 loss to Moose Jaw, another team fighting for its place in the play offs at that time. As is often the case in junior hockey, the huge losses can turn into big wins just a couple of games later, as Feb saw some of the best games of the season from my team, including the 5-0 and 6-3 wins over the eventual Presidents Cup finalists the Raiders and the 4-2 and 3-1 wins against a tough Brandon team. There were positive signs of getting goals from my bottom-6 players. Chad Elmy (probably the 6th or 7th best LW on the team) had his moments, as did 3rd line RW Matt Miller. Matt Cusson, who I've covered in a previous post, also had a good month in terms of production. All in all, everything looked ok at this point. Then came March, and problems started mounting. It didn't show up on the scoreboard right away, but there were signs of the team slowing down. Signs I just wanted to ignore at that point. The first worrying news came in the second game in March, a 2-3 ot loss to the Pats, as my then starting goalie Aaron Baker got injured for the remainder of the season. That's basically when everything started to slowly unravel.

So three games before the end of regular season I was 1 point behind Moose Jaw, who held the last po spot. I'd done well in my last month and a half despite the occasional humiliating loss here and there, but in general I was trying to be optimistic about the team completing a storybook finish, and somehow make the play offs. Well, they didn't. The Warriors, who I tried knocking off the last po spot, dealt the knock-out blow to my chances. Lost 4-0, with a tired team doing its best to stay afloat. Missed out on 5 power play occasions, and although my pp had been awful the entire season, it really were the only chances I got the entire night. Chances I just simply couldn't convert into goals. Eventually, I lost the last two games vs the Raiders as well, but my team had already given up by that point. 13 fights in those last two, by the way, and a fitting finish to a season that saw my team collect a cool 3322 PIM or over 45 mins a night, NOT a league record by the way.

In the end I just didn't have the top end talent to carry a less skilled team through those last games, and it's quite clear I need more production out of my players if I'm to challenge for a place in the play offs next year. RD Christian Chartier led the team in points with 50 (11+39=50, +21, 102 PIM), putting him just outside the top 50 leaguewide. He was also the only player from my team getting drafted into the NHL (Blues in rnd 3, #83 overall). BigMac had 262 minutes and Warren Peters had 247, putting them 1st and 2nd in penalty minutes in the league. All in all 18 players (my entire starting lineup) had 100+ minutes. For some reason my board insisted I'd get rid of Peters the entire second half of the season, despite him putting up decent stats (2+16=18, +5, winning 62% of his face offs) for a fourth line C. I'll just ignore the board on that matter. All of these players will return for next season.

The overaged players who left the team after the season were Baker, Chartier's d pair Ryan Gaucher, who had an ok season stats-wise (8+25=33, +16, 162PIM), bottom-6 LW Ryan Johnston and LD Ryan Bonni, who got called up to the Canucks, who drafted him in '97. He's the only one of these players who might return, if the Nucks decide to send him back for another year, but even then he'll be a bottom pairing overaged D, so I might cut him loose anyway. Basically I can bring back pretty much the same roster next year, and that's both a good and a bad thing. The good thing is, I had lots of underaged players on board, including Shaone Morrisonn, Aaron Rome and Peters, accompanied by a number of 17 year olds who now have a full season under their belts. The bad thing here is that I still haven't got the same quality of high end talent other teams have, plus I'm lacking a starting goalie, with Tyler MacKay not even being a very good backup. Def something to think about in the off season.

The draft didn't help me much in this situation either, as the players I drafted are all 14-15 years of age, and Nick Tarnasky the only solid prospect I got. Tarnasky, by the way, is not the aggressive power forward he was in real life, but more of a big sized two way winger, with the legs and skillset to play an effctive north-south game, good in both ends of the ice. On a side note, I have no effin idea how the teams are ranked in the draft. I got the eight pick. Had teams pick before me who had more points and were higher up in the standings, some of which even made the play offs. And if you think the drop-off after the top 3 in the NHL draft is dramatic, consider this; By the time I got to pick, there were only three players left in the draft besides Tarnasky, who in real life saw NHL action (Josh Harding, Ian White and Brad Staubitz). Next year will be different. I see a whole bunch of familiar names on the draft list, all of which aim to play canadian major junior. Can't wait for the players from next years draft making an impact somewhere around the year 2002! I did get some promising players, who'll certainly be up to the challenge of playing junior hockey. These include LW and 2nd rnd pick Jarret Isherwood, a power forward wtih good leadership qualities, 5th rounder Yvon Beckford-Tseu, a skilled RD with good mentals and physicals, 3rd and 7th rounders Luc-Olivier Baillargeon and Ashley Rutz respectively, two C's with size and skill, and goalies Dixon Patton (4th round) and Sterling Cronk (13th round). Then theres a whole bunch of players who might or might not develop into anything useful, but most of which are big and aggressive and could round out my bottom-6 if need be. Johnny Boychuck, Nate Thompson and Cam Ward were the top three picks in this years WHL bantam draft.

So now I'm in my first off season with this team. As always in the off season, I have them on heavy training and looking to see wether I could get some guys to make a jump to the next level. At least I'm seeing atts progressing throughout the lineup, and that to me is the most important thing, knowing for a fact that none of the current players will turn into the next Sidney Crosby. I've also had some inquiries about my players, including Brent Henley, Garnet Exelby and Derek Halldorson, meaning I have some tough decisions to make, if I'm to capitalize on these trades. Like I said, my biggest need is in net right now, and after that I might be looking to get an upgrade to my top-6. Well see.

My goal for next season is clear. Get into the play-offs. Missing out a second year in a row would be a huge dissapointment. To do that I need to get this team going right from the start of the season, as it's clear I can't rely on long win streaks late in the regular season. Hope to have a bit more to write about next year as well, as this season was simply forgettable in many ways. So that's it for the first season. Hope you've enjoyed reading about the crazyness that was the '98 WHL and that you'll tune back for the 99-00 season!


Shaone Morrisonn at age 16 looks to become a solid piece on my D.

[smokey]

OK, so the off-season of '98 has passed, and I just finished my pre-season as well, and the team looks ready for the '99-'00 campaign.

First off, I totally forgot to mention, last year the Raiders' Craig Brunel led all players with 28 fighting majors (won 20, also most in the league), followed by team mate Todd Fedoruk with 22 (won 16 )and Lethbridge's Eric Godard with 21 (won 18). Warren Peters led my team with 15 fights (won 6) followed by Henley and McIntyre wth 14. Henley ended up winning all his bouts, so imo the best enforcer on that team. Sadly, the 6'8'' LD won't be around the updoming season as I traded him with 14 yo RD prospect Yvon Beckford-Tseu and an 8th round pick to Everett for a 2nd round pick. Thought I had enough tough guys on the roster, and while Henley was a plus player and good stay-at-home D last year, he was too one dimensional not to get traded for a good pick in a very deep draft next summer. Also traded away Exelby and a 5th to the Broncos for a 3rd, much out of the same reasons.

I also had to do one of the funniest name-for-name trades I've seen in a while, because I needed a backup goalie, and because Schlamp was expendable.


Also brought in undrafted G Carl-Olivier Messier from Flin Flon, just to have a third option in case either of my G's got hit with and injury.

According to official rankings, I'm the 7th best team in the league with Jon Barkman listed as MVP and C-O Messier the key arrival. I also now have the 5th best C in the league in Garret Prsosofsky as well as the 8th best C in Jon Barkman (a bit odd, to see him listed as MVP instead of G-Pro but meh). While they're both good, I hadn't expected Barkman, who struggled for ice time last season, to be this highly valued in the offical rankings. I also have the 4th best D man in RD Christian Chartier, who despite being virtually unknown in real life, ended last season with most points on my team. Chartier, while lacking in tech atts, should be able to live up to the hype this year also given his D partner Shaone Morrisonn contiues his good progression (already has better overall atts at age 16).

My fwd group looks very deep, with 3-4 good players being left outside of the line-up on any given night, but my D is terribly inexperienced and my G, well same s**t as last year I suppose. I might trade for a D man or two, if I can find the right trade partner, with a quartet of centers Cusson, Guenther, Kelly and Peters looking like the most likely players to get traded.

So, getting this team into the play offs should be a realistic goal, if not an extremely easy accomplishmet, given the high pre season ranking. My first objective is to make sure the team gets off to a good start, doesn't suffer any prolonged slumps during the first half of the season and in general establish a culture of winning games on a regular basis, even if the play is less than perfect on some nights. The rest is up to rotation and luck, but I'd be somewhat dissapointed if I didn't find my team in a play off spot the entire season.

[smokey]

The season has started off with three trades. One huge one!

This year I'm going to roll all four lines with line matching, playing an active high forecheck game but with tight marking, emphasis on D, and aggression set to berserk for all lines. Keeping the overload tactic for now. It's going to be physical and straight to the net with heavy pressure on the puck.

Traded Garnet Exelby to Swift Current for a 3rd and a 5th rnd pick in 2000. Roster management. I had too many left defensmen to secure a spot for him in the line-up.

The second trade involved Bevin Guenther, who went to Medicine Hat for the rights to RD/LD Ronny Fleck, age 14. Again, some roster management. Guenther couldn't find a regular spot in the line-up and when the Tigres came knocking with a very good offer, I decided to move him for some future blueline talent. Fleck is quite skilled at moving the puck, but knows how to play D. Has all his physical attributes in shape also.

The final trade was a real blockbuster. Shaoane Morrisonn was wanted by many teams, and a lot of them tried different versions of bad offers until Red Deer came along and made a very good one. I got one 15 yo Johnny Boychuk, who by the looks of it will be one of my two underaged players in the line-up next year. A complete package, ready for the 'dub'.

My team has been playing well, a bit up and down, but maintaining a middle-of-the-pack position in the standings. The East division is the most even with all teams within 10 points in the standings. Had some good games, like the 7-0 thrasing of Regina. Included a line brawl and all. 5'11 Derek Bjornson taking on 6'4 233lbs Travis Churchman. Awesome stuff. Of course there were the really bad results too, like the humiliating 1-6 loss to the Raiders. They got production from names like Marc Brown and Scott Hartnell, but the real deciding factor were the 139 penalty minutes and 4 ejected players. I was down to three d-men in the end.

Oh yeah. I'll try and get screenshots of the youngsters in a future update. Didn't remember to do it yet.

[smokey]

More trades, a small revelation, a few huge bouts.

I'm soon at the halfway point and I'm still keeping a good spot in the standings. Whats most encouraging, is that I haven't had long stretches of bad results, well only one, but more about that one in a sec. I was up in 2nd position in the East division, but it has remained a very even divison. I get production from all four lines and I do quite a bit of scrambling, still trying to ignore single performances, maintaing focus on the big picture. You have to give these kids a chance to fail. That's the only way they'll ever develop and become better hockey players.

So about that losing streak. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with my tactics. I did well on the road, but quite lousy at home. So I went through every possible explanation and finally figured out what was wrong. I was rolling all four lines evenly, but was using line-matching. The tactic was working as it was supposed to on the road, all four lines getting equal 5-on-5 ice-time, not getting worn down by the heavy special team workload, which comes automatically with the highly aggressive territory. At home though, my lines were deployed to match the visiting teams lines, forcing larger minutes to those lines that were playing their top lines. So usually my top line players ended up tired, unable to contribute late in the game. This small revelation means I'm not going to use line-matching when deploying my lines evenly, and I don't encourage anyone else to do so either. Now I'm back to winning and back in 2nd pos.

My pp% has been lousy, so I'm trying the same overload tactics with my pp as with my 5-on-5 units to see if the players can carry over their 5-on-5 production to my pp.

I made a few more trades. Traded LD Stempfle and prospect RW Jonathan Russell to Red Deer for d-men Trevor Hitchings and Rhett Nevill. Since Morrisonn left, my 6th d-man was TJ Little, who I thought needed to be upgraded. In Hitchings and Nevill I get two ok d-men for my 2nd and 3rd pairings. I dislike giving up unsigned prospects, but had more players like Russell in my prospects pool so I thought I could afford losing him.

I finally traded Warren Peters, like my board had been asking me to do for quite some time, and for reasons quite unknown to me. Anyway, Vancouver traded the rights to 15 yo RD prospect Chaz Hazelton. He became only the third D prospect in a prospect pool filled with fwd talent, so a trade I felt like I needed to make. Hate losing Peters, not only for his playing style, but because he's only 17, and would still have a few years left before becoming over-aged. A player, very much needed next season as a lot of my players become over-aged in the off season.

My third trade involved 16 yo Davin Heintz, a strong 6'5 LW, who I thought I could give up for 17 yo LW Bobby-Chad Mitchell. He's also a big power forward, equipped with better tech atts. Thought he could be of more help this year, as I'm seriously aiming for the play offs now.

Hordichuk had a bout against Lethbridge's Eric Godard, but his finest moment came in a game vs Medicine Hat, a match in which he fought old team mate Bevin Guenther. Darcy Robinson is taking on just about everyone in the league. Gotta love it. My games still feature the odd line-brawls. Here's an image from an absolutely crazy 9-5 win over Brandon. As you can see there's no room left on the bench in the penalty box, so players had to stand behind one another after two concurrent line-brawls.


Also, as promised, here's Ronny Fleck, one of my three D prospects. Looking quite promising already.

[smokey]

With just over twenty games left of the regular season, I find my team sitting on top of WHL East. Trevor Hitchings, who I got via trade previously has the best +/- rating with 28. MacKay is among the top-5 goalies in every important category. Prosofsky and Bjornson are both among the top 20 in points league wide. I'm a top-5 team in both goals scored and goals allowed. I can roll 4 lines, my newly traded players have found their place and are doing well and in general the team looks playoff ready.

I see some darker clouds gathering in the horizon, as I opted not to do any trades at the deadline. This could potentially become a problem, as 9 regulars turn 20 next year, meaning I'm losing at least 9 players from my current line-up. The three current over-aged will also leave, but they will be replaced with three over-aged from next years batch. This wouldn't be a problem further down the timeline, but right now all my unsigned prospect came from this first draft, meaning I can only have two of them in the line-up next year. So that leaves seven holes to fill. Not an easy task by any means.

The brawling nineties came to a close and I'm in for a new millennium. The brawling goes on though, Smackintyre celebrated a rare Gordie Howe hat-trick with a fight vs Seattle RW David Morisset for instance. I lead the league in team PIM with 1261 in 51 games, naturally. Both BigMac and Hordi have shown some progress with improved tech atts and sporting 7+ AVG's. Would hate to lose either one in the off season, as they both become over-aged.

[smokey]

The regular season is now over. I came second in the East division, losing to Prince Albert by one point. Had some injuries that might become a bigger problem going into the play-offs. The biggest of them is the injury to my 1st line C Garrett Prosofsky. He's out for a month now. Aaron Rome is still out, smaller injuries throughout the line-up.

Had a late season eight pointer in a home-n-home vs the Raiders. The first one ended in a narrow 4-5 defeat. A game in which my players showed character by climbing back from 5-2. Hordichuk got a goal and an assist on MacIntyre's late 4-5 goal. Sadly, Todd Fedoruk, of all players, scored two. Both on the power play. Still, nice to see role players like that score goals in important games. Got a swift 3-2 retaliation in the follow-up, keeping the race for top East div spot close. Talk about showing character, came back from a 2-0 deficit, Pietiläinen scoring the winning goal just under a minute to go.

Trevor Hitchings had the best +/- of any player in the league. Quite a catch. Sadly, he'll turn 20 and will be over aged next year, so I'll have to let him go in the off season. I didn't break my own record for team PIM, even though I finished way ahead of the teams that came in second and third.

My team looks worn out as I prepare to start my play off battle vs the Broncos. I've had tough games against them all season long, and I don't expect this series to end in a hurry. Lots of injuries in key positions, dunno, I've got my doubts. I got a right D-man in Hank Seel, who came from the Dallas Titans in the Western States Hockey League. He's more of an insurance against further injuries, but he will get a spot on the roster for the time being, so I can move Nevill on the left side and drop TJ Little out of the lineup. He hasn't developed at all, and I'll have to look into the possibility of maybe moving him in the off-season.

Random screen capture of the season. The WHL in a nutshell.

[smokey]

I was going to write about the play-offs, but I'll have to write about something else instead. Lost to the Broncos in seven games, after going up 3-2 in wins. In the end, Cusson simply couldn't fill the 1st line C position left by an injured Prosofsky. They were tight games, but somehow, my team was just unable to capitalize on the multiple chances they had throughout the series.

Dunno. Feel a bit empty inside. Guess it's time to start preparing for the Bantam Draft.

[smokey]

A quick exit. Followed by a quick draft.

Not fun watching other teams continue their race for the Presidents Trophy, but what can you do. I've done a lot of roster management, starting to form a line-up for next season.

The draft came around a lot faster than I had anticipated, but fortunately I had all the major bantam leagues scouted. In the first round, I had the opportunity to draft more well known players like Brandon Yip or Colin Fraser. Both future WHL star players for sure. However, I felt I had more than enough talent up front, so instead I opted to draft Ronnie Vince, a very promising goalie from North Saanich, BC. He's currently playing for his hometown team, the Peninsula Eagles in a triple-A midget league. In the second round i drafted left wing Scott Berdusco (basically best player available at that moment), and d-man Darcy Hamilton, who I had to release not long after the draft. Later round stand-outs include 6'4 defensive C Chandeep Filchel (4th round), a very similar C Gaston Strudwick (9th round) and 6'6 RW Zac Pardy (11th round), who I also had to release right after the draft.

Ronnie Vince, drafted in the first round. Future Blades' starting goalie?