The Bears: Collective over the Individual

[Victor 10,940]

 

For years now, I've maintained a spreadsheet which shows how many Hall of Famers there were per Continental Cup champion. The most is seven on the great Davos team of S24 but back in the day there were multiple teams with 4, 5, or 6. The average has fallen to 2.6 per team now (2.7 or 2.8 if you exclude some of the more recent winners whose players are still active or only recently retired), as a result of expansion and good players being more evenly spread out – the last champion with more than 3 Hall of Famers was Calgary in S62 and only S78 Warsaw has even had 3 in the 16-team era.
 

You can go through and analyse the list at your leisure but in this article I wanted to focus on one fact I find quite interesting and currently relevant as Seattle has won the S93 championship. On the ranking tab of the spreadsheet, you can see all the teams who won a cup despite having no future Hall of Famers over the years. Naturally there's not many – 10 of which 3 should come off the list relatively soon (Pierre Emile Bouchard being on the HOF ballot for S86 Vancouver, and John Jameson and Jesse Teno being slam dunk inductees in my opinion from S90 Prague and S88 London respectively). Last season's D.C. Dragons have a couple players in The Frenchman and Mark Calaway who are on a generally good track so I think that roster will produce a Hall of Famer in due course. Which leaves six teams (maybe five but too early to tell with S91 Toronto), of which four are Seattle, and three of those during Blake Campbell's GM reign.
 

That's enough to be something of a trend I think even considering that Seattle has won the most Continental Cups of any franchise. OK, Bana had nothing to do with S43 – the only cup in a wretched 30-season spell for the Bears and a team that no one was ever quite sure how it won in spite of an inactive GM and no real standout players. Since Bana took over though, the theme for Seattle seems to have been to prioritise team chemistry over individual brilliance. Clearly, it's worked spectacularly, with 8 cups in 45 seasons and it's any GM's dream but it's still interesting it is so consistently the case for the Bears. Even the dynasty of the late 60s / early 70s only had two Hall of Famers regularly (Rayz Funk as the face of the franchise, protected by Hulk Hogan), other than an ageing Maxim Kovalchuk in S68 and S69. Since then, only 3 Hall of Famers have dressed up for Seattle – Andrew Su, Taro Tsujimoto, and Xavier Booberry – all very briefly before retirement having made their name elsewhere and all not winning a cup with the Bears. There are no former Bears currently on the Hall of Fame ballot (apart from Voittu Jannula who left back in S17) and no current Bears who are definitely going to end up there (granted, the team is quite young for the most part).
 

Despite this, the Bears have three championships in the same time span now. Notably it's often difficult to pick out a standout playoff performer from Seattle, a particular struggle this season where their 11 players are separated by just 12 points. Often the Kanou has gone to the Bears goalie almost by default and indeed the last six playoff MVPs to come from Seattle were goaltenders (Funk x4, Rara Rasputin, and Em Em Flex) although that streak is due to end in S93. Instead, due to the GM's wheeling and dealing style, there is usually a few older players acquired for the cup run who have one of their best performances in Seattle but retire without having serious Hall of Fame aspirations. Jim Bob in S77, Zeedayno Chara in S83, and now Henry Eagles in S93 are perfect examples of that type of player Bana seems to love.
 

To prove the rule, the more star-studded teams that Bana has assembled are the ones that have fallen apart in the playoffs. His first serious contender way back in S53 featured big names in Jeff Hamilton, Pietro Maximoff, and Zach Parechkin but couldn't make the finals. Ditto for Matt Thompson and co ten seasons later. The formula is clear now – cohesive teams with a lot of good but not great players pulling in the same direction – and this also explains why the quick rebuilds that Seattle does often catch people off guard as the teams contend for the cup sooner than expected, this season included. Is it a formula that can be easily replicated by rival GMs? I would think so, although it is natural to be more inclined to pick a superstar or two to build around instead of treating those as expendable and staying more loyal to the depth players who eat up less cap space and can step up when needed. Fundamentally, while the no Hall of Famers policy is partially by design, you can't necessarily predict who will end up in the Hall and clearly the Bears do not specifically seek to avoid anyone who has a shot at induction. If Severus Targaryen for example keeps up the momentum from his breakthrough season then the S93 champions will have a Hall of Famer and this niche statistic loses a bit of sparkle. Plus while Seattle has won a lot of cups during Bana's tenure, it comes out as around one every 6-7 seasons, which means other teams still have plenty of opportunities to win their own way.
 

Time will tell if the Bears keep building teams like this, if the S93 roster will go on to bigger things or if this is the peak of their careers, and indeed how long Bana will keep going but for now, given another successful playoff run, it is time to celebrate nearly 50 seasons of almost undisturbed commitment to putting collective over the individual in Seattle. DA BEARZ.

[Banackock 8,044]

Awesome. Very neat write up. Thank you.

 

Another fun fact from the season was this was my 8th cup and in 4 more days it’s my 8th year anniversary with the team (for new members, years - not seasons, haha). Furthering, 13th cup final with the team in 45 seasons which means we are in the finals 28.8% of the time. Great teams over the seasons that everyone in Seattle  has helped me build. 

[Gustav 6,406]

I think there's something in the water up there that makes this a thing in general. I know that Taro's S82 MVP win was based on the argument that practically no one else on the team had a good point total, and I know we've had other seasons where we look through the index and don't find Seattle players up on top. 

 

This season I put Targaryen on my awards ballot for an all-VHL team spot, mostly because I had to scroll down the points list a bit more than I would have expected to find another Seattle player. But I guess it works.

[Banackock 8,044]

106/101/101/93 were put top 4 this season. N2b. 

[Victor 10,940]

Week 2 of 2