Won 1st Playoffs!! Woo hoo!

matt44 · Post by **matt44** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 12:57 am

Ok, so it was only the Kelly Cup in the ECHL but it was using Bakersfield who are the only team without affiliation so it's quite difficult.

It was a 3rd hard season. The team was bottom of the division for ages and I nearly got the sack, but managed to tinker with a few tactics (put all 3 lines using the trap system) and bring in a couple of new players. Our defense and Netminder were the best in the league but despite having alot of scoring talent upfront, the goals weren't going in. Anyway, I stuck with it and swapped a couple of players around and we surged up the table and finished 2nd - only 1 point behind the division winners who I was 20 points behind half way through the season.

Anyways, I'm chuffed. lol

V4ND3RP00L · Post by **V4ND3RP00L** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 10:55 am

Congrats on the win and I find it more fun playing in the minors personally. Reason is because I usually get into the Central Hockey League quite a bit and it's always fun.

Kind of hard to keep your core set of players around, but if you know how to setup things just right. You can easily keep your younger guys around for a few years and the older folks around until they either retire or just end up getting bad enough that you want to trade them away or release them completely.

Never really tried anything in the ECHL myself, but now that you posted what you did recently.

I might actually go ahead and give it a shot. Kind of tired when it comes to the NHL and stuff.

Nice to sometimes see a completely different team every single year.

matt44 · Post by **matt44** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 2:33 pm

Yeah I sometimes play in the CHL. Managed to win the league lots of times with Rio Grande, but never won the playoffs.

I prefer using teams with no affiliations though as it's more of a challenge.

thunderbug · Post by **thunderbug** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 3:55 pm

If I play in the CHL its for Wichita the town I'm from. Won the league and the playoffs many times. I always go and raid the CHL (Canadian) for overagers. So far haven't had any issues with having that many of my kids stolen by the big leagues until the end of the season.

matt44 · Post by **matt44** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 6:03 pm

Yeah I find its awkward having your best players stolen by the AHL/NHL teams so I try to sign players who are very good, but not too good that all the bigger clubs are after them straight away.

Its another reason the ECHL/CHL leagues are fun to play because it's hard to keep a solid core of players.

matt44 · Post by **matt44** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 8:27 pm

And just what I was talking about has come to haunt me.

My top line Center who got 107 pts has refused a new contract as 9 AHL teams are interested in him and the netminder has signed to the NHL.

thunderbug · Post by **thunderbug** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 8:49 pm

time to go searching through the CHL matt