Moscow vs Malmo in the S60s

[Matt_O 897]

The Moscow Menace just won their first continental cup in their franchise history with a six game series win over the Calgary Wranglers. This doesn't bring joy because I was apart of the Malmo team that had a "rivalry" with Moscow. I use quotes because it never was much of anything, at the time both of us were very bad. The real rivalry was between Malmo and Seattle, when we both were actually good. I can't help but notice that Moscow won their first cup before Malmo did, when it seemed like it would be the other way. Moscow wasn't very good for a few years, before trading for Randoms and Podrick Cast, and then suddenly were pretty good for a season or two, before fizzling out. As they fizzled out, Malmo surged, and became one of the best teams in the league for a season or two, before falling back down to the middle, and then the bottom a few seasons later.

 

I only say it seemed like Malmo would win a cup first because Moscows run at the top was very different than Malmo's. While Moscow was doing very well, they weren't the best in the league, or their own conference. Come playoff time they did very little. I'm doing this off of memory, but I believe in S67 they made the playoffs, nearly finishing with the first seed in the European Conference, before losing in five games to Riga in the first round. The next season, they had a similar roster but couldn't even make the postseason. They returned to the playoffs in S69, and even took out the Helsinki Titans in the first round, but couldn't upset the first seeded Riga Reign in the semi finals. This season, Moscow was the best team in the league no question. It's interesting how they didn't go on a rebuild, lost multiple key players (Podrick Cast, Randoms), but they still were able to win it all and field competitive teams year in and year out.

 

Malmo's rise and fall was much, much quicker than that. After a few unsuccessful seasons, they made some huge offseason moves before S68. They signed Matt Thompson, who had one of his best seasons that year for Malmo. They traded for Ryan Sullivan Jr., who had an unbelievable year in Malmo before tailing off and doing nothing the rest of his career. They had strong goaltending, strong defense, elite offense and good depth to compliment it. But it all seems that the sweep at the hands of the Seattle Bears in the finals threw everything away. Thompson retired, Ryan Sullivan Jr. was never the same again after that. Matthew Materazo fell to inactivity, and they settled for fourth in the European Conference the next year. After that, they fell out of the playoffs.

 

The moral of the story? Perhaps it's that slow and steady wins the race. Moscow was good, but not great for a couple seasons before taking a big step forward this year and winning it all. Malmo rushed everything, became really really good in one year, lost, and then couldn't sustain it and fell back to the bottom.

 

530 words

[Matt_O 897]

Meant to post this in media spots, my mistake