Hockey season ends at last...

This isn't a "have to read" post, I wanted to put all this here on the blog so I won't have to hunt for it in a couple of months.  However, if you are so inclined, and like to see the girl humiliate the guys, read on!

Last night, the Hamilton Bulldogs got knocked out of the Memorial Cup, finally ending our family hockey season.  Me, Laurie, and KC have a list of 23 teams from leagues all over the world- including 2 each in the NHL- that we follow in a friendly competition.  Laurie's Hamilton team was the last survivor of the list, and so I am jotting down the facts and figures of our league's list of trophies.  I'm also going to list our top 20, based solely on record and going by the baseball "games back" method.

First, we look at regular season championships.  Laurie won in Denmark with Herning's Blue Foxes, the OHL's eastern division with Hamilton, in Finland with Karpat, and the NHL regular season with Nashville's Predators.   KC won regular seasons in France with Grenoble, and in Hungary with DVTK.  I got blanked.

Second, we counted a lot of internal and international tournaments in which our teams played.  I took the European Champions League cup with Finland's Jyvaskyla (ending a 2- year run for Laurie), Laurie snagged the French Cup with Lyon and the UK Challenge Cup with Belfast's Giants, and KC grabbed the Hungarian Cup with DVTK.

Then come the league's playoff champions.  KC won the Latvian championship with Kurbads; I snagged wins in France with Rouen's Dragons and Hungary with MAC Budapest, and Laurie won the cups of Slovakia (Banska Bystrika), Finland (Karpat), and the OHL (Hamilton).

Another thing we did was keep track of the goals scored by guys from our teams in the recent IIHF internationals.  Laurie won that with 39.

Overall, KC's DVTK won the best record.  Between their own season, a couple of Euro tournaments, and the Hungarian tournament, they racked up a 66-17 record, beating my Rouen by 8 games.  And 4 of those 17 losses came in the last six games as the exhausted team fell to my MAC Budapest in the Hungarian finals 4 games to 2.

We followed stats all year, too, and I set us up the following awards:

The Wayne Gretzky North American goal champion:  Laurie's Matthew Phillips of Victoria (WHL) with 55.  This was the last title in doubt, as her Hamilton boy Brandon Saigeon had 53 at the end.  Phillips also bagged the Mario Lemieux overall points title, topping KC's Evgeni Malkin 131-106.

The Ulf Nilsson European goal champ:  Lasse Lassen of Herning with 38 for Laurie, tied with her Charles Bertrand of Karpat.

The Igor Larianov Euro scoring title:  Based on the NHL rule of ties being broken by the more goals, Sebastien Sylvestre of Belfast beats Teammate Brendan Connolly with 72 points and 30 goals to Connolly's 27.


The Frankie Brimsek award for best goals-against average goes by a wide margin to DVTK's Attila Adoran at 1.70.

Another thing we contested was who had the most prospects on the NHL Scouting Combine's final draft rankings.  KC blew us away there, with 11 from his Canadian Junior (OHL, WHL, CHL) teams and one from his Swedish HV71 team.

And finally, the Scotty Bowman overall record looked like this:

Laurie  761 wins, 664 losses;  Chris, 753-700, 22 games back; KC, 721-724, 50 GB.

So that gives Laurie 16 crowns for the season, with KC having 7, and me?  Well, I got 3.

And last up is our final Top 20.

1-  DVTK,  Hungary, KC, 66-17
2-  Rouen, France, Me, 48-15
3-  Hamilton, OHL, Laurie, 61-31
4-  Herning, Denmark, L, 48-19
5-  Karpat, Finland, L, 53-25
6-  MAC Budapest, Hungary, C, 44-19
7-  Nashville, NHL, L, 60-35
8-  Dukla Trencin, Slovakia, C, 49-25
9-  Sheffield Steelers, UK, C, 48-27
10-Banska Bystrika, Slovakia, L, 50-29
11-Grenoble, France, K, 43-23
12-Lillehammer, Norway, K, 39-20
13-Nurnberg Ice Tigers, Germany, K, 41-23
14-Belfast Giants, UK, L, 43-25
15-Kurbads, Latvia, K, 31-14
16-Frolunda, Sweden, L, 41-25
17-Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, Russia, C, 40-25
18-Ocelari Trinec, Czech, C, 47-32
19-Zug, Swiss, L, 40-26
20-JYP Jyvaskyla, Finland, C, 47-32

And our top goal guys:

Matthew Phillips, Victoria (WHL), L,    55
Brandon Saigeon, Hamilton (OHL), L,   53
Ty Lewis, Brandon (WHL), C,                50
Stelio Mattheos, Brandon,                        49
Evgeni Malkin, Pittsburgh (NHL), K,      46
Jeff Brazeau, North Bay (OHL), K           44
Matthew Strome, Hamilton                       41
Anders Lee, NY Islanders (NHL), C         40