The S26 Vasteras Team Needs a Deep Rewind

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It’s March 20th, 2012, and we are in the city of Vasteras for game five of the Continental Cup Finals between the Iron Eagles and the Americans. How did these teams even get here? And why is this particular moment significant at all? We need a deep rewind.

 

In the original S1 entry draft, Vasteras picked up Scotty Campbell with the second pick and then selected goaltender Matt Pogge with the ninth overall pick. They proved to be a deadly duo, and both players would end up being Hall of Famers. Unfortunately for them, the Calgary Wranglers were just plain better. Led by Scott Boulet, the Wranglers won a whopping 69 games that year, only losing three games the entire season! This is where things get touchy, as Vasteras and Calgary met in the finals. While no one truly knows what happened during the sim, it is suspected that there was some foul play by the simmer. It is very hard to believe that the Wranglers would lose more games in one series than they did the entire season. While no one can confirm or deny this, there is a definite possibility that the S1 finals were rigged. Is this what brought the curse on Vasteras? After this cup win, everything went rapidly downhill for Vasteras.

 

They traded Scotty Campbell to the Seattle Bears and they were never the same until the S20s, where they finally got back on track. Even though they missed the playoffs in S24, they started to build a winning culture. By the time the next season rolled around, they finished one point behind the division-leading HC Davos Dynamo and had 48 wins. Good things were happening in Vasteras for the first time in what felt like an eternity. 

 

The Americans also were reaching the end of their rebuild after many hard campaigns to open up the S20s. In S25 they made it to the finals before getting dominated by the experienced Dynamo squad, but the Americans young core was bound to be back. In S26 they won the North American Conference again, with Adam Schultz, Kristian Carlsson, Keon Anderson and goaltender Benjamin Glover leading the way. 

 

Vasteras thrived in S26 as well, with an incredible 58 wins. They owned the league's best defence and the third-best offence. When I was looking through the stat sheets I noticed something about Vasteras that was absolutely incredible. They had nine non-computer players on their roster, and eight of them had 70 or more points. The depth of the Iron Eagles was really incredible that season, but they also had an elite defence to shut down other teams. Goaltender Andreas Bjorkman won the Aidan Shaw trophy for a top goaltender that year with a 1.89 GAA. The pieces were finally coming together for Vasteras.

 

I briefly mentioned “the curse” earlier but I should have explained more. After their S1 cup, they had not won the cup since then. It’s been 25 seasons. Not only that, but they have not even gone to the finals in that time span. They were the most miserable team in the history of the VHL and it’s not entirely closed. It wasn’t only the VHL team that suffered either. The VHLM Vasteras team had to suffer as well. In S26, the Vasteras VHLM team held the first 16 selections in that years draft. This was when draft classes were only 10-15 players deep, so they had practically the entire draft to themselves. They still did not win the Founders Cup that year, in case you were wondering. Vasteras was legitimately cursed, but in S26 they hoped to be able to turn it around.

 

In the first round, the Iron Eagles had to take on the Titan’s high flying offence, headlined by Leeroy Jenkins, David Walcott and Pavel Koradek. The Iron Eagles were capable of outscoring teams and shutting them down, and they proved that. With the series tied after two games, Vasteras held Helsinki to just one goal in the next games to take a 3-1 series lead. In-game five Helsinki put up more of a fight, but Vasteras used their ability to outscore them with a 5-3 win to secure their first trip to the finals in 25 years. The only thing stopping them was the New York Americans.

 

In-game one, Andreas Bjorkman stopped all 23 shots he faced and Kevin Hesje’s goal in the second period gave Vasteras a 1-0 win. It was a similar story in game two where Bjorkman stopped all 20 of the Americans shots and Vasteras would win 2-0. Vasteras would keep rolling with a 5-2 game three win on the road and found themselves one game away from their first cup win in 25 years.

 

Naturally, this is where it should all fall apart. Knowing the history of Vasteras, it would hardly be a surprise if the Americans were to complete an improbable 3-0 comeback to deny Vasteras their long-awaited cup win. In-game four, the Americans went out and pulled out a much needed 4-3 win, finally making Andreas Bjorkman look human. Unfortunately for New York, they could only do that for so long. Bjorkman bounced back with a strong game five that led to a 3-2 Vasteras win, and the Vasteras Iron Eagles became the S26 Continental Cup Champions.

 

The Vasteras curse was broken! Or was it? After the S26 cup win, Vasteras would never return to the finals for the rest of the team’s existence; they were moved to Stockholm in the S40s and were disbanded in S57. The Americans would make the finals in S27 and S28 but lose both times, making it four consecutive finals trips with no cups, much like the Buffalo Bills in the 1990s. They made it back to the finals in S31 before losing to Davos, but they finally got their much-deserved cup in S32. 

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If you have any moments that you want to see a rewind on, feel free to leave suggestions!

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