The S43 Seattle Bears Cup Run Needs a Deep Rewind

[Matt_O 897]

 

It’s June 20th, 2015. Game seven of the continental cup features the Bears and the Cologne Express, where the Express entered as heavy favourites. But how did we get here? How did the Bears and Express make it to this point, and who got them to this point?

 

The Cologne Express, a now-defunct franchise, where in the middle of one of the most successful runs their franchise had. They had just won the Continental Cup in S42, dismantling the Quebec City Meute in five games. They continued their success in S43 with a 56 win season that saw them finish second in the European Conference, only behind the Stockholm Vikings by a single point. Thomas O’Malley, the superstar centre for the Express, had 131 points and won the Mike Szatkowski trophy for most points. Martin Brookside, a Cologne goaltender, put up gaudy stats that gave him his second consecutive Aidan Shaw trophy for the best goaltender, with his .930 save percentage and 1.84 GAA. Let’s not forget about the supporting cast of the Hall of Famer Xin Xie Xiao, with 124 points in S43. They also had second-line centre Bismark Koenig, who finished with 100 points that year. All three of those players had 50 or more goals that season, and the Express had five total players with 70 or more points that year. They were a complete team from start to finish.

 

Thomas O'Malley

Credit to @solas

 

The Bears, however, were a mess. The team itself wasn’t atrocious, but it was truly chaotic in Seattle. Despite winning 39 games and having 86 points, their top point scorer had only 64 points, which would have been the seventh-highest point total on Cologne. That player was James Faraday, and this would be his worst season besides his rookie campaign. He played from S39 to S46, and had a very solid career, even scoring 101 points in his final season in the league. Niklaus Mikaelson, the Bears netminder, was absolutely their best player throughout this chaotic season. He put up really strong numbers with a .922 Save Percentage and a 2.04 GAA. So far it may not seem crazy, but we haven’t gotten started on management yet.

 

The GM of the Seattle Bears in S43 was Bushito, now the GM of the Calgary Wranglers. In S43 he went inactive, causing the VHL to replace him with Higgins for the rest of the season. This was a trivia question a few seasons ago if anyone remembers. The only modern case similar to this would be the unfortunate story of Spade18 and the New York Americans, but let’s not get into that.

 

The Cologne Express, a complete team top to bottom, will be playing a game one of their wild card series against the HC Davos Dynamo. The Seattle Bears, a team that had to replace their GM midway through the season and is very mediocre on offence will also be playing game one of their wild card series, but it’s against the favoured Toronto Legion. The Bears and Express couldn’t be more different than each other, but they are both playing for the same thing.

 

After a 5-0 blowout win for the Express in game one of their series, the Dynamo kept their offence somewhat in check, which was not an easy thing to do. They averaged 3.5 goals per game during the regular season and averaged 2.6 goals per game during this series, most of that coming from the game one victory. They would win in game six courtesy of a great performance from goaltender Martin Brookside, allowing only one goal all night. The Bears, on the other hand, completely dominated the Legion. They swept them, and the offence that struggled all season looked pretty good against a really solid Legion defence. They would go on to face the reigning North American Conference champions in the Quebec City Meute, while the Cologne Express would take on the Stockholm Vikings.

 

Both series were very similar. Both the Express and the Bears offences soared against what was the statistically best defences in the league. Both first seeds were upset in a mere five games, none more shocking than the Meutes failure. The Meute had all the hype in the world. A great offence, great defence and a truly elite goalie. They even have Jake Wylde, now known for the award named after him that is given out to the leagues top offensive defenseman. And yet, they only had one playoff win against a team that wasn’t as good as them in net, on the blue line, and they weren’t even close to as good as them on offence. It was a rough postseason for the Meute.

 

The finals were finally set, with the underdog Bears facing the heavy favourite in the Cologne Express. The Bears had the underdog mentality throughout the entire postseason. The Legion were favoured against them and it was a clean sweep. The Meute were heavy favourites and the Bears only lost one game against them. Even after that, they still found themselves as pretty big underdogs to the Cologne Express, and for good reason. Surely I don’t have to repeat what I said earlier about the talent gap between the two teams. The Express were a far better team. In-game one, they would have to go out and prove it.

 

Even though the Express won game one, it certainly wasn’t convincing at all. The Bears outshot them by 9 and they barely scraped out the 2-1 win at home. They certainly hoped they could head to Seattle up 2-0, but the Bears played feisty, just like they had all postseason, They got the 3-2 win despite being outshot by 13, as James Faraday’s hat trick led the Bears to the win. With the series tied, the Bears were showing the world what they could really do. And then game three happened. 

 

James Faraday

Credit to @Frank

 

Game three was what most people probably expected this series to be like. The Bears couldn’t score while the Express breezed by with a 5-0 win, and this was supposed to be the point in the series where the Express start to run away with it. They would go and win game four 4-3 and outshot the Bears once again. They had a 3-1 series lead headed back home and it looked as if the Bears cinderella run was over. We know it wasn’t, because it went to a game seven, but at the moment after game four, the run looked over.

 

The Bears were a resilient team all year. They bounced back after a game one loss to the Meute and won four in a row. They ended the year off on a 2-8 stretch, while Toronto ended it on an 8-2 stretch. They swept Toronto. This was no different, as they won 3-0 in game five in Cologne to send the series back to Seattle for game six. Mikaelsons 27 saves helped the Bears keep their season alive, but they still had work to do. Game six was much of the same story, as the Bears dominated the shots and Wolfgang Strauss’s goal late in the third period put the game away for good, a 3-1 win in game six for the Bears and a trip back to Cologne was set. It was going to game seven.

 

Imagine being on the Bears team in S43. Your GM is inactive, the team can’t score, and you are heavily doubted all throughout the regular season. Now you are here, in a game seven of the cup finals. Now imagine being a member of the Express in S43. You won the cup last year and are back for more. You are the heavy favourites, with an amazing offence and goaltender. You’ve been waiting for this all year, and had a 3-1 lead in the finals. And yet, you are here in game seven, and your amazing offence has only scored once in the last two games. This game seven was about to be insane.

 

Game seven was one of the grittiest contests you could ask for. Neither team broke the 25 shot marker. An early powerplay goal from Brady Stropko gave the Bears the lead quickly, but Bismark Koenig would respond five minutes later to tie the game for the Express. In the second period, the Express scored with five minutes to go, but the Bears weren’t done, and their resiliency led to a goal by depth player Borje Samuelsson to tie the game with 45 seconds to go in the second. It was tied at two now, with just twenty minutes left to play.

 

Borje Samuellson

Credit to @KitRas

 

Borje Samuelsson had just one goal in the postseason heading into this game. He scored his second goal in the second period but decided that wasn’t good enough. He scored again about halfway through the third period to give the Bears a 3-2 lead they wouldn’t relinquish. The Bears entered the playoffs as underdogs in every single series but won each series. The Bears went on to win that game and the S43 Continental Cup in one of the best underdog stories in VHL history.

 

Was this a fluke? It might have been since the Bears missed the playoffs the following year and started the rebuild the year after that. But does it matter? They won the cup in S43 and no one can ever take that away from them. The Cologne Express would make it back to the finals in S44 but lost in six games. After that, the rebuild would eventually start.

 

People Mentioned:

 

@Higgins as James Faraday

@OrbitingDeath as Thomas O Malley

@tfong as Xin Xie Xiao

@R1c3Muncher as Borje Samuelsson

@Wasty as Wolfgang Strauss

@diamond_ace as Martin Brookside

@Bushito

 

 

What moment do you think needs a rewind? Leave your suggestions below!

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[Nykonax 1,566]

7 minutes ago, Matt_O said:

 

@Higgins as James Faraday

@OrbitingDeath as Thomas O Malley

@tfong as Xin Xie Xiao

@R1c3Muncher as Borje Samuelsson

@Wasty as Wolfgang Strauss

@diamond_ace as Martin Brookside

@Bushito

damn some legends

[Corco 1,265]

the team that shitposted their way to a cup

[eaglesfan036 4,605]

This era is a great one to rewind. Take a look at the s44 playoffs and the trash talk between calgary and quebec. Also started a trend of depth > top heavy teams (old vhl depth of say 7f 4d)

[NotAVHLM-GM 1,858]

The seasons of Davos vs Legion, late 30s

[Victor 11,021]

Yo fuck this team.

[Gustav 6,469]

1 hour ago, Victor said:

Yo fuck this team.

Also that goddamn trivia question you wrote about them a few seasons back.

[Higgins 3,618]

Back when I had no life and could test sim hours a night lmao

Edited December 7, 2019 by Higgins

[Bushito 1,945]

Back when I made teams so good I didn’t even have to be here to win

[Da Trifecta 1,902]

On 12/5/2019 at 8:46 PM, Matt_O said:

@Higgins as James Faraday

@OrbitingDeath as Thomas O Malley

@tfong as Xin Xie Xiao

@R1c3Muncher as Borje Samuelsson

@Wasty as Wolfgang Strauss

@diamond_ace as Martin Brookside

@Bushito

@Da Trifecta as Niklaus Mikaelson

 

One day I will get mentioned