A look at the Calgary Hub

0 0 0

by tonychizzle

by tonychizzle

Today we will continue with the Calgary hub featuring America Mexico City, Chivas Guadalajara, Mexico City Pumas, San Diego Stars, and the relocated Tigres Monterey.

America Mexico City finished 6th place in the Western Conference.

There is a floor hockey resurgence in Mexico and a lot of that has to do with emergence of America and Chivas into the league and their success in their first season. America from the get go, received a lot of support from the fans in Mexico City, and an instant rivalry with the Pumas fuelled the fire. The fact that America got off the a great start will carry over with it high expectations for this season. Head Coach Robert Stewart is definitely in the hot seat in this hub to continue the success. Luckily he has a deep pool of talent that can get them far into a playoff run should they make it again.

Captain Leon Mencia will have the role of using his experience to lead a young squad to exceedingly high expectations. In a hub with the Queens Cup runners up will be a challenge along with teams that will be looking to derail their momentum. We will go conservative with our prediction and give them a .500 result of 12-12.

Chivas Guadalajara finished 8th in the Western Conference.

The leagues other debutants exceeded expectations of a franchise in their inaugural season. After a shaky first half of the season they finished 17-3 in the last 20 games of the season to just barely qualify for the playoffs, sending all three Mexican teams to the playoffs. The history making debut had the world taking notice, and now with the world watching, the sky is the limit for a team of relatively unknown players. Top scorer Cicil Bergstum will look to continue to build himself into a household name with a strong supporting cast.

This is going to be a highly competitive hub that will bring out the best in all teams, which makes it a hard one to predict, so we will continue stay conservative with our predictions and give them 11-13.

Mexico City Pumas finished 1st in the Western Conference, Queens Cup runner up.

The Pumas made history this year by being the first Mexican team to play for the Queens Cup in the finals. NFHL MVP Tomas Crossley is played the best hockey of his career, and the stock for the Pumas has never been higher. Since they joined the league in 2002, their fandom has mostly been centralized to Mexico City, but with the resurgence of floor hockey in Mexico in general, the whole nation seems to be rallying around the Pumas. They are the darlings of the floor hockey world, and expectations on them will reach nuclear heights once they can return to Mexico to play games. Until then their core that still largely intact can hopefully enjoy some isolation from the pressure and continue to build on there rocket paced momentum.

The Pumas are the fastest, most skilled team in the west right now and I can't foresee them having many issues getting out of Phase 1 without a great record. Our prediction for the Pumas is 18-6.

San Diego Stars finished 7th place in the Western Confernce, eliminated in the first round.

In the 7 seasons since Brian Merritt left to join the Lions, the San Diego Stars have continued to be a consistently successful team, making the playoffs all seven seasons. In fact dating back to when the franchise was still in Anchorage they have the second longest active playoff appearance streak (14), only behind the New York Generals who have been to the playoff 17 consecutive seasons.

Their consistency can be credited to the effectiveness of the system developed by coach Luke Shamer when Merritt was still part of the team. It seems that no matter who is part of the squad, everyone can fit in nicely in that system.

In a team with both veterans like Russel Geronimo and Charles Lindsey, and newer talent like Tyler Crisp and Tyson Baker, they have continually performed at a playoff calibre. The question now is, how can Shamer and the Stars get back to championship contenders? They have made strides towards that next level by drafting playmakers like Logan Kirby and signing energy players Moses Akim and Timmo Vaskinnin.

How soon this newly retooled roster can mesh together and become a force in West remains to be seen. In a hub with the four Mexican based teams, this first phase hub will be one more exciting ones to watch especially to see how the Stars stack up to the other teams with seemingly endless ceiling. With any game going either way until we start seeing some patterns emerging, we will keep our predictions conservative for all teams in this hub and go with 13-11.

Tigres Monterey finished 14th in the Eastern Conference as the Raleigh Bulldogs.

The roller coaster that has been this franchise in the last 2 years has been fascinating to watch and commendable given all the circumstances. The decision by the owners 2 years ago to move the team out of Atlanta in response to anti-abortion laws passed in the state of Georgia, was met with a strong reaction on both sides of the debate. The league and the players themselves all responded in resounding support of the decision. They moved to Raleigh as a temporary base, while the ownership looked for a partner to help with the relocation to a permanent home. CEMEX and UNAL Tigres owner Rogelio Lozano agreed to purchase an equal stake in the team in exchange for the team becoming to the fourth Mexican based franchise in the NFHL. In order for the league to approve, they had to make some concessions, but again the players and personnel have taken everything in stride and have committed to make the most of this new opportunity.

They certainly don't have the depth of the other teams in the hub and it will tough getting scoring from players with less experience in the NFHL. Our prediction for the Tigres will be an optimistic 6-18.

Stay tuned for our preview of the Ottawa hub. Like and follow for more NFHL content.