The end of Hockey season 2018-19

NOTE:  Like last year, this is mainly for my own electronic record.  But I do try to write entertainingly, so feel free to read or skip as the notion strikes....

Memorial Sunday night, our hockey season ended with Scrappy's QMJHL team, the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies, winning the Memorial Cup 4-2 over league-mate Halifax.  A fitting memorial to my late best friend, as was this, his one and only season playing hockey with us.

If you were here last year, you remember KC, Laurie, and I have a team picked in several of the international leagues- and for 2018-19, Scrappy got a team too.  The leagues we play:

The three Canadian Junior leagues (Western, Ontario, and Quebec Major-Junior)
The NHL (2 teams each)
EIHL (United Kingdom), along with their Challenge Cup
Ligue Magnus (France), along with the French Cup
The Swiss National League
The Alps League (basically the old Italian top level Serie A combined with Austria's 2nd level)
The Austrian Erste League
DEL (Germany)
GET-Ligaen (Norway)
SHL (Sweden)
Metal Ligan (Denmark)
Liiga (Finland)
Optibet League (Lativa)
Belarus Open League
PHL (Poland)
Czech Extraliga
Slovak Extraliga
The Hungarian Erste League
KHL (Russia with other European teams)
...and the Asia League (mainly Japan and Korea).

This year, Scrappy took our overall title, the Scotty Bowman record award, setting a record with 798 wins, 689 losses and 5 ties.  I finished second for a second straight year at 779-693-2, 11 1/2 games back;  Last year's winner, Laurie, finished 3rd, beating KC by a half-game- 728-766-2, 71 1/2 back of Scrappy, to KC's 692-731-1, 72 back.

I counted in the records all league games and a lot of outside tournaments our teams were in, including the Champions League, where a Laurie team (Sweden's Frolunda ) won for the third time in four years.  Also I threw in all playoff games.  With 92 teams total, here is our final top ten for 2019:

1- Rouyn-Noranda, Scrappy, QMJHL, 79-14
2- Karpat, Laurie, Liiga, 64-21-2
3- Rouen, Ligue Magnus, Chris, 55-13-1
4- Belfast, EIHL, Laurie, 57-18
5- Grenoble, KC, Ligue Magnus, 49-11
6- Val Pusteria, Alps League, Chris, 47-10
7- Banska Bystrika, Laurie, Slovak, 51-23
8- Frolunda, Laurie, SHL, 54-26
9- Mogo, Scrappy, Latvia, 36-10
10- Bern, SNL, Scrappy, 51-25


Among the glorious moments, we combined for 10 regular season champions- Rouen, Val Pusteria, and Farjestad (SHL) for me; Karpat, Banska Bystrika, and Belfast for Laurie; and Rouyn-Noranda, Mogo, Valerenga (GET-Ligaen), and Bern for Scrappy- yes, KC got blanked here.   In addition, we had the following league playoff champions:

Chris:  Ocelari Trinec (Czech)
KC:  Grenoble (Ligue Magnus)
Laurie: Frolunda (SHL)
             Banska Bystrika
Scrappy:  Rouyn-Noranda
              Mogo
              Bern

And, as I said, we counted many of the outside the league cups that were contested, including any national tourneys.  Our winners in these:

Laurie's Frolunda- Champions League
Laurie's Augsberger (DEL)- Dolmitan Cup
Laurie's Belfast- Challenge Cup
Scrappy's Rouyn-Noranda- Memorial Cup.

We also had a pile of runners up in the tourneys- my Sonderjyske in the Danish finals; my Rouen in the French finals; my Val Pusteria in the Alps finals; KC's Nippon Ice Tigers in the Asia finals; Laurie's Karpat in the Liiga final; Lyon in the French Cup (and then in the regular league just missed relegation, go figure); Laurie's Zug squad from the SNL in both their finals and the Dolmitan Cup; her Belfast in the Continental Cup; Scrappy's Red Bull Salzburg in the Austrian final;  his Molodechno in the Belarussian final; his Munchen both in the DEL finals and the Champions League final; and his MAC Budapest in the Hungarian tourney.


Last year, we had but six regular season champs (Karpat repeating), and 6 playoff champs (Karpat and Banska Bystrika repeating).  We also bagged 4 outside tourneys last time, with Belfast a repeat Challenge Cup winner,

Now we had a lot of team turnover.  The Hungarian teams for me (MAC Budapest) and KC (last year's record champ DVTK) both moved into the Slovak league.  KC dumped his 2018 Slovak team (Poprad) to keep DVTK, and took on Gyergoi in the Hungarian League.  I gave MAC Buda to Scrappy, and reclaimed Debrecen- who had dropped a level in 2018- as my Hungarian team (now competing as DEAC.  In Belarus, a complicated misunderstanding between sites ended up with KC keeping his Belarussian team in Brest- but Brest moving down a level in the league.  And in eternally cash-strapped Poland, KC's Bytom team- who had played without pay or insurance most of the year- skipped the last game of the season in protest and were folded.  Later, during relegation, Laurie's Opole team- who had shipped their best players to my Gdansk mid-season- collapsed as well.  They combined for a 17-73 record between them.

Which reminds me I really should also share this year's "Hall of Shame", the worst records between us.

91 (tie)- Kootenay, Scrappy, WHL, 13-55
91 (tie)- St John, Laurie, QMJHL, 13-55 (I should point out this team WON the QMJHL in 2017-8)
90- Shawanigan, KC, QMJHL, 16-58
89- Fassa, KC, Alps, 5-35
88- Odense, Scrappy, Metal Ligan, 6-34
87- Bytom, 7-35
86- Opole, 10-38
85- Assat, Scrappy, Liiga, 16-44
84- Pardubice, Laurie, Czech, 22-48
83- Manglerud, Laurie, GET-Ligaen, 14-39


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That brings us to our individual awards.

The Wayne Gretzky North American goal champ.  The winner this year, with 62 goals, is Justin Brazeau of North Bay, KC's OHL team.  He was almost caught at the end by Rouyn-Noranda's Jeff Teasdale, who had 61- though 19 were before his trade TO R-N, and his Memorial Cup run gave him 20 more games.  I'll post the whole top ten in a bit.  This breaks our record of 55.


The Mario Lemieux NA Points champ.  I only counted regular season here, and the winner was also Brazeau, beating R-N's Paul Abbandonato 113-111.

The Ulf Nilsson Euro goal champion.  Tobais Lindstrom of Scrappy's Valerenga notched 53, easily topping Alex Aleardi of Rouen, who was born right here in Fort Wayne!  This broke the old record of 38.

A side note here:  Several of the Hungarian League's teams, due to the "open" nature of the Eastern European leagues, also competed in the Romanian league, which we did NOT follow.  Had we done so, Jereme Tendler of Scrappy's Brasov would have been the goal champ.  He scored 38 times in 50 Hungarian games, and 32 in 29 Romanian games, which would have given him a total of 70.

The Igor Larianov Euro Points title goes to Hugo Turcotte of my DEAC team in Hungary, with 86 points.  This breaks last year's mark of 72.

Last year, we had one award for all goalies, but this time I will split it like the scoring champs.  The Frankie Brimsek NA champ is Samuel Harvey of Rouyn-Noranda with a 2.08 GAA.  The Henrik Lundqvist Euro goalie winner goes to Colin Furlong of Val Pusteria at 1.36, breaking last year's mark of 1.70.

That promised top ten goal scorers list:

1- Justin Brazeau, North Bay (OHL), KC, 62
2- Jeff Teasdale, R-N, 61
3- Raphael Harvey-Pinard, R-N, 54
4(tie)- Tobias Lindstrom, 53
4 (tie)- Keeghan Howdeshell, Sault-Ste Marie (OHL), Scrappy, 53
6- Arthur Kaliyev, Hamilton (OHL), Laurie, 52
7- Alex Beaucage, R-N, 46
8- Brandon Hagel, Red Deer (WHL), KC, 45
9 (tie)- Stelio Mattheos, Brandon (WHL), Chris; Patrick Kane, Chicago (NHL), Chris; Alex Aleardi, Rouen, Chris, and Morgan Frost, Sault-Ste Marie (OHL), Scrappy, all with 44.

Next up, the day before R-N's win at the Memorial Cup, Finland beat Canada 2-1 in the IIHF World Championships.  Like last year, we kept track of our "boys" playing in this in order to see which of us
scored the most goals.  KC tallied 37, Scrappy 36, and Laurie and I combined for a distant 36.

Finally, last time we looked up the NHL Scouting combine's countdown for the top draft picks, as the Euro leagues and the Canadian juniors are all eligible for the NHL draft.  This year's tally:

Out of 537 players on the NHL combined list:

Chris 19
KC 11
Laurie 10
Scrappy 8.

See ya next season!