Yearly boring hockey post

 So, this is that yearly "you don't have to read it" post, where I record what happened in our family hockey contests for my own benefit.  In 21 leagues around the world, myself, Laurie, KC, and Misty each have one team we follow, and 2 each in the NHL.  With one of those leagues (the Asia League) suspending play due to COVID except for a Japan Cup (sorry, Laurie's and Misty's Korean teams), that gives us 91 teams,including the hometown Ft Wayne Komets who are held in common.  In tracking our just for fun records, I don't look at such things as 'relative strength of leagues', etc., just your w-l record (with most ties being played out in OT, I just fold OT w-l into regular w-l and rank by winning percentage.)  I did, however, keep track for the first time of hat tricks (one guy, one game, 3 goals or more) and goalie shutouts (And was THAT a chore! 384 shutouts and 245 hats!).

Rather than just do raw numbers, I want to start with some of the accolades our teams earned.  Misty's teams are where we will start.  Rouyn-Noranda in the Quebec league (Canadian juniors) had the leading goalie save percentage with Samuel Richard's .918; In Denmark, notable for Odense was winning the 3rd place game over KC's Esbjerg; in Germany's DEL, her Munich Red Bulls were playoff runners-up; In Latvia, her Mogo team were League champs (but got upset in the quarters), and recorded the league's top scorer Gratis Gricinskis (53 points) and best goalie in Linards Lipskis at .910.

Next for Misty is her team in the Alps League ( the top Italian league combined with the Austrian #2 league), Asiago (yes, where the cheese is made).  Among the many things the Italians do is the yearly Super Cup between the year's 2 best teams- and because of COVID again, they did last year's and this year's on consecutive days, and Asiago won both! Then they do a "Serie A" cup (which includes the top 2 levels in Italy), usually doing a set of round robins ending in a playoff.  They skipped the playoff, but Asiago came out on top in the round robins.  Finally, they went and won the Alps League playoff title!

Then comes Misty's French team, Angers, who won the French Cup, and was runner up in the League playoffs.  In Austria, her Salzburg Red Bulls (yes, there are a whole series of professional Red Bull-sponsored teams) swept the regular season and playoff titles, with Peter Schneider leading the league in goals with 28. In Russia's KHL, Magnitogorsk won the regular season title in a tie-breaker with Laurie's Traktor Chelyabinsk, and were playoff runners-up. Finally, her Winnipeg Ice won the Canadian WHL regular season title, but was among the many of our teams that got torqued in the playoffs by the Edmonton Oil Kings.

KC's lot come next.  His Alps team, Fassa, claimed leading scorer Daniel Tedesco at 68 pts; In Austria, goalie Christian Engstrand was tops at .931 (2nd best of our goalies, counting only the main starters); In Denmark, Esbjerg claimed the top points and goals man in Felix Maegaard Scheel with 25 goals and 50 pts; his Swedish team, Orebro (so chosen because it sounds like his favorite beer, Oberon) claimed top goalie with Jhonas Enroth at .923; his Finnish team, TPS Turku, was runner-up in the playoffs and claimed the group's shutout leader in Andrei Kareyev, who had 9 to himself and one he left early in- a partial game ahead of Laurie's Trevor Beskorowany from the UK's Belfast Giants and my Henrik Holm of Norway's Stavanger.

KC's Polish team, Cracovia Krakow, took the international Continental Cup this year; his Czech team, Sparta of Prague, was playoff runner-up and claimed top scorer in Filip Chlapik, leading his Extraliga with 31 goals and 70 points.  His WHL team in Red Deer (which also got hosed by the Oil Kings) had the leading scorer in Arshdeep Bains at 112 pts, and goal scorer in Ben King at 52. In Quebec, his Shawinigan Cataractes won the league playoff title, and had the leading hat trick man in our group with Xavier Borgeault's 5 tricks- which bested, with 4 each, his Toronto Maple Leafs' Austin Matthews, Lauire's Mark Cooper from Belfast's Giants, and Misty's Radim Valchar from Brasov in the Hungarian league.

Matthews, of course, had the most goals in any of our leagues with 60; and KC's final- and best- team was the French club in Grenoble, the Fire-Wolves, who rolled to the league's regular season and playoff titles behind leading point-man Damien Fleury (69) and our group's top goalie Jakub Stepanik (.932)

Now for the Laurie group- the dominant set of our games. Her teams finished a collective 210 wins over losses, beating out KC (+109), me (+70), and Misty (+53).  Her accolades include: her French team, Gap, were French Cup runners-up; the leading Swedish scorer in Frolunda's Ryan Lasch (66); in Poland, her Katowice team swept regular season and playoff titles, as well as having the top goalie (John Murray, .927) and points-man (Petr Wronka, 58). Her NHL Carolina Hurricanes were division champs; her Quebec team was St John, who were the hosts and winners of this year's Memorial Cup (and with it the winners of the season's final game), and boasted leading goal scorer William Dufour (56).  

Laurie made an unconscious sweep of the Z's; out of 5 teams in Europe which start with a Z, she has four of them, and 3 of those come next.  In Belarus, Zhlobin made an upset win in the playoff championship, claiming both the leading point man (Alexi Mikhonov, 53) and goal scorer ( Alexander Timiryov, 28); In Switzerland, her Zug team swept both the regular season and playoff titles (But oh, that final series, coming back from down 3-0!); and Latvia's Zemgale taking the playoff championship behind Roberts Jekimov's 23 goals.  Finally comes her UK EIHL team, the Belfast Giants, who dominated both the Challenge Cup and the regular season- but were upset in the one game final by Cardiff 6-3 to place runner-up in the EIHL playoffs.  In addition to the aforementioned Trevor Beskorowany and Mark Cooper, JJ Picchinich swept the offensive awards with 36 goals and 79 points, both our group's Europe-best performances.  And Laurie's final team is her OHL entry, the Hamilton Bulldogs, who swept regular season and playoff honors but got owned by St John in the Memorial Cup.  They claim the only other top goalie of our North American Teams, Marco Constantini at .917.

Finally, there's me.  My accolades start with Polish leading goal-scorer Jakub Bukowski of Sanok at 27; my Asia League team,  Tohoku Free Blades, got 3rd place in the Japan Cup but were elevated to the finals (I assume #2 forfeited), so we get a runner-up despite being swept by Oji 3-0.  My Hungarian team, DEAC Debrecen, won the Hungarian Cup; in the Canadian OHL, my Windsor Spitfires were conference champs and took Laurie's Hamilton team to the brink in the finals, notching league-top point man in Wyatt Johnston with 124.  In Quebec, my Sherbrooke Phoenix were conference champs, and had top points guy with Joshua Roy's 118.  In Czechia, Ocelari Trinec topped KC's Sparta for the championship; and in Norway, my Stavanger Oilers took both regular season and playoff titles.

The Komets get one note, as well; they had scoring champ Will Graber (83).

Whew!

So our top twenty look like this: (BTW records include all league, playoff, outside cups, and Champions League games)

1- Hamilton (L), 68-23

2- Belfast (L), 55-14-1

3- Winnipeg Ice (M), 62-21

4- (Tie) Grenoble (K), 48-12

     (Tie) Stavanger (C), 48-12

6- Salzburg (M), 51-18

7- Zemgale (L), 38-8

8- Angers (M), 47-18

9- Zug (L), 51-22

10- Zhlobin (L), 53-24

11- St John (L), 52-25

12- Magnitogorsk M), 49-23

13- Trinec (C), 51-25

14- Sherbrooke (C), 52-26

15- Carolina (L), 61-35

16- Asiago (M), 44-19

17- Toronto (K), 57-32

18- Mogo (M), 33-9

19- Katowice (L), 40-16

20- Sheffield Steelers (C, EIHL), 47-23.

And just for humiliation's sake, the bottom 5:

91- Lida (C, Belarus), 13-46

90- MMKS Podhale (M, Poland) 4-36

89- Mangelrud ( and here I have to tell a story.  Mangelrud of Norway easily was the worst team at 3-37 in their regular season, but they are in a league with a relegation tournament of the 2 worst in the league and the 2 best in the next lower league, top 2 play in the bigs the next year.  Manglerud secured their spot going 6-4 in the tourney.) 9-41

88- Arizona Coyotes (M, NHL) 25-57

and 87- DAB (L, Hungary) 6-36.

Till next year- when the teams go up because Shenan is going to play....