CowboyinAmerica

Champions, but not winners? Looking at the championship teams that didn't win individual awards Usually when a team wins the championship, their success comes because of at least one elite player that won an award, be it the Brooks for top goal-scorer, the Labatte for top defenseman, or even the Stolzschweiger for top rookie if you’re feeling frisky. The Seattle Bears, though, proceeded to buck that trend. Just one player won a regular season award, and not one that particularly influences much on the ice: Phil Villeneuve for top leader. That got me thinking: How many teams have won the championship with winning a single individual regular season award? I combed the archives, and to my surprise, only a single team previously managed the feat. They are the first team covered below. Afterwards, I decided to expand my search to teams that did not win an individual award that did not have a tangible effect on the ice: the Virkkunen Trophy for Most Sportsmanlike, the Knight Trophy for Top Executive, or the Grimm Jonsson Trophy for top leader. That search produced five more teams, with four of them only winning a single individual award. One thing to note, though: With the additional teams added in S31, the talent was more even spread throughout the league, so it hypothetically should be easier to win a championship even without an individual award winner. As a result, I’ve covered the only three pre-expansion teams to accomplish the feat here, with the other teams (featuring more stats—thanks indexes!) coming next week. S7 Avangard Havoc Individual Trophies: None Although Avangard featured a player that would later become a trophy’s namesake (Christian Stolzschweiger, for whom the top rookie award would later be named), no actual player on this team won an individual award. Strangely enough, however, it didn’t seem to affect the team’s play on the ice, as the Havoc won the Victory Cup with the most points in the regular season. The playoffs proceeded much the same way; the Havoc swept Vasteras in the first round, then took down Calgary in the finals in six games. Although not much is known about the Havoc in the absence of official stats, it’s clear that they deserve to be recognized as one of the best team units in VHL history. S12 Seattle Bears Individual Trophies: Knight Trophy and Virkkunen Trophy The team may have won no individual trophies, but like the Havoc, it’s tough to call the S12 Bears much of underdogs. Featuring left winger Alexander Beketov at the end of his career and fellow left winger/captain Josh Vestiquan, the Bears had an offensive force to be reckoned with. It was widely expected, judging by old logs, that they would defeat New York in the first round of the playoffs. The seven-game victory over the Riga Reign may have been a bit more surprising, but then again, seeing Riga get by Vasteras in seven games the round before helped Seattle immensely. There’s a reason that the team’s GM, Mike Kloepfer, was named best in the league, after all. S14 New York Americans Individual Trophies: Jonsson Trophy I enjoy this one. The only individual award that any player on the team won this season was the Messier Trophy for Best Leader. That award would later be named the Grimm Jonsson Trophy, which makes sense, because the winner this season was... Grimm Jonsson. But in another case of “not exactly underdogs,” the Americans won the Victory Cup during the regular season, then swept Toronto in the first round of the playoffs. Helsinki, who would win the title the next season, extended the series to six games, but the depth of the New York squad prevailed. When you have a team featuring seven all-stars, even if none won individual awards, this will happen. Honorable Mention S8 Calgary: Only the Orr Trophy, later renamed the Labatte Trophy, to Sterling Labatte for Top Defenseman

Kendrick said to use stats previous to this year/past offseason. If you're doing that, I'd vote Waldron over Mikaelson, especially looking at long-term production, and he's not even on the list.

The transgender houseguest on the current U.S. Big Brother

I think I'm the Devin of the cast. I'm OK with this.

Any chance we could have these included in the HOF thread now that they exist? For no particular reason of course.

I've got him on Facebook. Looks like he's been doing a bunch of reenactment stuff recently. That's par for the course though, not really sure why he's not around.

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I don't know if it was this podcast, but back in the day (after MSFL, but not far after), Irish called me from fucking Ireland for a podcast. Not skype, because that was in its infancy, but an actual telephone call. I was floored, but we had fun with it.

I now want a Rickon POV, Reek-style in that he has a completely different name on Skagos and you don't realize it's him until partway through.

I'm disappointed that nobody is asking the really tough questions here.

3-2 Legion

Express Wranglers Dynamo Vikings

Beautiful. Miller, Wingate and Cote the three stars, I'm loving it.

Actives all the way into the third round for Calgary! Let's go!

Don't actually have real plans though? Grilled out with friends yesterday, and we're going hard for the Women's World Cup final tomorrow.

Mind making the S44 VHL Games forum visible to guests? I like to check on my phone sometimes, but it's a bitch and often logs me out, and logging back in on mobile is annoying.