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The World of Georic 1989-Present

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

Your Stanley Cup Champion Seattle Dragons

The blog is rife with excuses for basketball trips, family functions, and wet basements, but the steadiest excuse is late night Franchise mode for NHL19. 

I got a copy of the game for either my birthday or Father's Day and my weakness for sports games has always been Franchise Mode.  Back in college, I'm notorious for setting up the new Cleveland Browns as my franchise team and ultimately playing all 30 seasons.  After jettisoning the likes of Ty Detmer and Tim Couch, I had a playoff contender by year five and a team that would dwarf the legendary Miami Dolphins perfect season by year ten and on.

Of course, that was all in Rookie Mode. 

With NHL19, I went the logical route and set up a franchise with the last logical slot for an expansion draft:  the Seattle Dragons (a good foil for the previously new Vegas Golden Knights).... at middle difficulty (Pro).

After a ho-hum expansion draft and a flurry of free agents signings and cheap trades for some of my favorite recent NHL/AHL Penguins (Hagelin, Kuhnackel, Ryan Reeves, Tim Erixon, and Joseph Cramarossa), I began the season.... and it was rough. 

Having never played any sports video games for a good 15 years, the first half of the season was.... rough, but in a tight Pacific Division, my seventh place standing gave me the farthest on the outside chase of snagging a wild card bearth. 

And as the trade deadline loomed, and I tried to see-saw between accumulating picks or giving some away for some missing pieces. 

But two or three days away from the deadline, the Detroit Red Wings offered Gustav Nyquist for two draft picks, I bit, and the whole world changed. 

I had been playing better before the trade, but afterwards, the Dragons began a slow climb to not only be an fringe playoff contender, but a 12-2-1 run at the end catapulted me to 2nd in the Pacific, with home ice for the opening series against Edmonton.

The playoffs were a blur of near perfection (16-4 for the Dragons, and 16-2 for their Boise Ice Drakes affiliate to win the Stanley Cup). 

I did a celebratory dance, resigned most of my players, somehow won the Tyler Seguin free agency sweepstakes.  A few simple trades to unload some underperforming stars on immense contracts and my Stanley Cup winning first line has been relegated to the second line.   I've realized during year two preseason that  the the next level above pro is insane to play, so I'll happily stay average (if any dear reader caught the first period of the Penguins-Sabres preseason game at State College, it felt a lot like that...)

Good news, with real live hockey back in the picture, plus a full slate of basketball and dance on top of my insane work schedule, my Stanley (and Calder) Cup defense will probably be in limbo for awhile.

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