The Quebec City Meute have played their last game in the VHL - fittingly it was a disappointingly early playoff exit. I've had a strange relationship with Quebec - my last two players spent some time there and Greg Clegane had his best season there, but the playoff failure left a bad taste and I was hoping to avoid coming back with Cast. I was happy to see Quebec let me slip to 3rd overall in S61.
That said, I love the niche that the Meute carved out. They were fully the league's villains, especially as the old holders of the title, Vasteras and Davos, faded and in the former's case disappeared entirely. Here's a few of the moments which really made Quebec memorable for me.
S34: When they traded 2 drafts worth of picks for Wesley Kellinger and signed both Yuri Grigorenko and Skylar Rift from other Cologne's noses - that's when the VHL really started to turn against them. Coupled with the fact that 3 Valiqs managed to get their way and join the Meute to play with the most famous one, Alexander... this was not a much-liked team. There was lots of schadenfreude around when they missed out on the cup in S34 but they got it the next season, in a pretty inevitably boring way. The tone was set.
S43-S44: Bruno Wolf and Aksel Thomassen - what an offensive duo this was and truly gave the VHL a masterclass in chatting shit without backing it up. I mean, individually they scored a lot, but as a team they lost to two very mediocre teams in Seattle and Calgary and never won a cup. It was pretty much everyone against Brovy, the GM and the mouthpiece of that era.
S49: Not much really changed here, Brovy still GM, Frank still on the team, lots of regular season success but flopped in the playoffs to much glee from other members. I named this the best team to never win the cup, probably in part because I was on it but it was also a great team. Classic Quebec running into a threepeating Toronto.
S56: Finally, I wasn't here for it but I was glad to see the Meute finally got another cup eventually. Frank was always committed to the star power > depth theory, and when it worked, it was great. It was really the overall story of Quebec, catering to offensive output over anything else. Until recently when for some reason they couldn't even score for seasons on end which really was the final nail in the coffin - the only real defining feature of Quebec was lost.
RIP Quebec, Long live Vancouver. It's sort of the same team, but feels very different. I don't think I'll be associating the Wolves with the Meute's history for very long and hopefully this opportunity is used to build a new legacy. Au revoir mon ami.
Awoooooo