Stockholm Wins Victory Cup After Season Long Battle

[Devise 4,475]

In what was one of the longest Victory Cup battles the VHL has seen for some time, the Stockholm Vikings edged out their follow conference team the Cologne Express by a single point to close out the season. It was the loss to the Davos Dynamo in the final game of the season that sealed the fate for Cologne. Ironically, the Victory Cup Battle was also a battle to determine who would get the bye and who would be forced to play the Dynamo in the first round of the playoffs.

 

Despite a struggling start to the season the Vikings rallied on great combined netminding from Brick Wahl and Blake Campbell, as well as the offensive leadership of Slaughter who finished near the top in most goal scoring and point statistics. Slaughter helped elevate the play of players like Lord Karnage and Jody 3 Moons, the latter of whom who had experienced success on a stacked New York Americans team before being traded to the Vikings with Slaughter this past season. Karnage recently moved from defense to forward and flourished in the position. Stockholms solidity among their forward core was a big reason why they were able to propel themselves back into the race, as Cologne had a meidum to minor lead throughout most of the season.

 

Meanwhile Cologne boasted the top goalie in the league statistics wise, a goalie who had the most shutouts, was able to win a clutch game where COL G was forced to play due to a Brookside illness against the competing Seattle Bears, and also featured several top offensive players like Bismarck Koenig, Xin Xie Xaio, and points and goals leader Thomas O'Malley. However despite all this, the team was thwarted when it appeared to matter most in the final game against the Dynamo.

 

This Victory Cup battle was one for the ages and both teams are deserving of recognition for competing with each other near the top for so long, and for the completely different paths to how they achieved success this season. With Cologne currently up 3-1 on the same Dynamo that pushed them out of the Victory Cup, a possibility of the two teams chasing the Victory Cup facing off in an epic showdown of two of the top teams in the league in the European Conference finals appears likely.