EHM The Blue Line

By popular demand, our next Challenge will be with a Canadian Junior team. We looked at the couple of teams in the suggestions thread and we (Batdad) took a look at some teams too. From this list, we have chosen four teams that will hopefully be a challenge to coach. As this is the first CHL Challenge, we don't know how hard or easy users are going to find it. Thus we've come up with a list of teams that are somewhere in the middle between easy and hard. There's also a difficult one (Portland) thrown in there in case everyone wants more of a challenge. The spread of leagues (three WHL teams and one Q) is merely coincidental - we looked at the teams' strengths/weaknesses rather than what league they're in.

Batdad has kindly given us a brief run-down of each team:

Portland Winterhawks
Decent G (Kurtis Mucha) and Cameron Cepek is not bad. But there are some players who are not so hot - this team would be hard for sure!! They're over the limit of 50 contracted players and so this would need addressing by the GM.

Prince Albert
Not much here; poor goaltending, a decent over-ager (Hellyer) and a couple of decent players. They are over the 50 man limit by quite a few guys. A couple of decent prospects. This would be a fairly good challenge.

Saskatoon Blades
Not bad right now with over-ager Wacey Rabbit and also 17 year old Colton Gillies. Prospects on the horizon are not that strong. Over the 50 man roster. Goaltending average at best. An average-to-difficult Challenge.

Saint John Sea Dogs
Yann Sauve (16), Guerette-Charland, David Stich (17) are the guys on this team. Goalies are average. Only prospect of value is Pascal Amyott. Signing guys to play, and having a tough camp. A young team. They could be interesting to coach. A fairly hard challenge.

The poll will close on this coming Friday evening (UK time).

Well...ya all know I Went with Portland!!

Anyway, so you all know in my travels looking at teams, the teams in the OHL I considered (mainly Erie) just had too much in the way of talent that is overrated in EHM (Zach Torquato as an example). So when I thought about it....thought I did not think the OHL teams were a good bet for this with the TBL 1.5 rosters. Maybe when we get Lidas update to include CHL teams we can relook at CHL.

I went with Portland too. Why not go for a hard challenge to start off?

batdad wrote:Well...ya all know I Went with Portland!!

Anyway, so you all know in my travels looking at teams, the teams in the OHL I considered (mainly Erie) just had too much in the way of talent that is overrated in EHM (Zach Torquato as an example). So when I thought about it....thought I did not think the OHL teams were a good bet for this with the TBL 1.5 rosters. Maybe when we get Lidas update to include CHL teams we can relook at CHL.

I was wondering if you looked at the Owen Sound Attack in the OHL. If you go by the 1.5 rosters they have only one player who has been drafted by an NHL team (Theo Peckham). The rest of their team is marginal to barely average at best. Their personnel are also rather substandard, though I know some of these attributes are random. For example their head scout has a JudPo. and JudAb of 7/8. None with the exception of one scout has a good WorkYoung attributes.

I am excited that there will be a CHL challenge this time around. This will be the first TBL challenge I will have participated in. I've been spending most of my EHM time playing in the low minors (ECHL, Toledo), some major junior (Windsor), and minor country national teams (Denmark). I've become quite adept at finding talent and making it work. I had 4 ECHL Kelly Cups in 5 years with my Toledo team and back to back Memorial Cups with Windsor in the OHL. The best part of EHM is digging into the players and finding those hard to find talents that are spread throughtout the EHM hockey world.

So eagerly awaiting the start of the challenge season and hope to be a contender for the title.

At first I was dissapointed not to see any OHL-option here, but then I realised these teams put up more of a challenge!
I checked out the rosters and staff and didn't really like PA and Saskatoon. Also I'm not too fond of Saskatoon's colour-scheme. It's something with that blue and yellow that bugs me. I've never liked that combo, which could seem kinda strange with me coming from Sweden.
So it's between Portland and Saint John. Either one would be nice but I chose the Seadogs because I wanted to know more about the QMJHL. I'm somewhat familiar with the WHL and I'm doing the Lidas update for the OHL but don't know much about 'The little frenchies' (Yes, I know Saint John is in New Brunswick and therefor english speaking, but still)

Go Sea Dogs!

(Is it really two words? Seadogs seems more logical to me, but what do I know?)

I'm actually quite happy with any of them, I picked Portland though because of the challenge.

I'm happy to not see any OHL teams in this challenge as someelse pointed out since I've only played season in the OHL it's nice to get into another league.

Owen Sound did not get a look. I looked for teams that missed the playoffs in real life 2 of the last 3 seasons. Sorry.

I know most teams in the OHL make the playoffs...but honestly, if we were to put an OHL team in for the first challenge in the CHL, not sure I would have found one to work with. Reason being: What Loosie said, what hitsomebody said, and what others have said. The OHL is the place that most TBL'ers who have played in the non NHL leagues have played some. So...with that in mind had Erie been really bad looking I would have encouraged them in the poll. But with their roster and prospects in TBL 1.5 I just could not.

As I said, another time maybe OHL.

I hope that all 24 users (hopefully more to come) who have voted so far will also actually participate in the challenge. If so, I think we have a really fun game to look forward to.

Same here, Lidas. Honestly, if everyone who voted doesn't participate, I'll be a little annoyed. Why should someone vote on what team we use if they're not going to join in the challenge?

You really killed in Challenge 10. You've got to make sure you uphold your reputation now.

Voted for Portland 'cause I want it to not be easy. Although it looks like it is going to be Saint John. SJ may not be too easy as the Q seems to have less depth of talent than the O & W. I could be wrong, just an impression.

i have my own reason for picking St. John. My great-grandfather (on my dad's side) was born in St. John and lived there until he left canada to go to good ole USA. So why not play my great -grand daddies home town.

I've gone with Saint John too. They had 1st overall pick in the 05, 06, 07 drafts so i figure there doing quite badly.

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hey - chose St. John's, too - like the Maritimes!

frankly, I'm terrified of a challenge outside the NHL - I'm not very good with those teams either lol...

but you never learn as much as you do when you get your butt whooped...

mustardstew wrote:but you never learn as much as you do when you get your butt whooped...

That's the beauty of the Challenges - they give you the opportunity to play with teams and leagues you otherwise may never have considered. Plus we all learn from each other by seeing how others approach the game.

I also voted for St. John's as I too had family come from there. I would've loved to have seen Sault Ste. Marie on there from the O :(.

Laker2415 wrote:I also voted for St. John's as I too had family come from there. I would've loved to have seen Sault Ste. Marie on there from the O .

*enter nitpicky mode*

It's Saint John....the one NB, not St. John's the one in NFLD.

*end nitpicky mode*

Sorry, marrying in to a Newfie family you learn very quickly the difference between the two cities.

Sorry - right place, wrong spelling!

As soon as I hit submit I thought something didn't look right. Yes, Loosie, there is a huge difference between the two.

By a bit of a landslide, St John will be our Challenge 11 team

I need to add one or two details to the rules this weekend and then will announce the start of the Challenge at the beginning of next week.