Why the Blue Fins are in C2….
Well, apparently we have some readers who aren’t Blue Fin’s, or related….
So to dispell the question about ‘Why are you guys in C2?’ I’ll summarize some of the facts. Mike, Matt, Mike - please chime in as necessary.
The Factory let many teams move down a league. Is it just for the summer? That remains to be seen.
Regardless - there is no longer a B/C. Teams from B dropped to C1. Teams from C1 dropped to C2. The integrity of each division, with respect to skill level, was completely disrupted.
When it came time for the Blue Fins - we requested to play in C1 - but E.J. Stern, the hockey director, forced us to play in C2. A few reasons were given, but our only choice was to go to C2.
Captain Mike lobbied hard to go to C1, as did Matt, but E.J. Stern would not hear of it. We told him we were not going to break up the team just to fit into his plans. Plain and simple - John was staying put. E.J. agreed.
So yes, John is good - ringer good. But in C1, we were a .500 team and wanted to stay.
Are we dominating C2? No way. We aren’t undefeated, we aren’t winning every game by a lopsided margin. Maybe we can go back to C1 - but we weren’t given a choice the first time.
So………we’re sure to get continued jabs about John; we’re likely in for a chippy game or too. But the bottom line - E.J. Stern forced us to play here. Don’t believe us? Ask him.
We’ll keep trying to win. We’ll keep trying to boost morale with these mostly fact based reports. At the end of the day, we’re just playing to have fun.
Additional clarification - mpusateri:
I’ll try to clarify some things as I was at the captains meeting:
Initially we were in C1(at the start of the Captain’s meeting) There was a lot of back and forth of the competitiveness of the league. If you include this season 6 B teams have dropped to C1 because they felt they were not competitive in B. (Don’t get me started on how 6 teams cannot play competively in B, but can in C1 especially with only 8 teams in C1) So a discussion among several teams ensued about moving divisions, in an effort to even out the playing field for all. Blue Fins had concerns(which I expressed) that so many B teams were dropping, and maybe we needed to look at C2. I stepped out to make a phone call to try to discuss dropping to C2 with our captain and upon my return we had already been moved to C2. We had a scheduing conflict with the C2 nights and I said that I would go back to my team and see if they wanted to play in C2 or in C1. Again, I did not fully commit the Blue Fins to C2, and the only reason we even slightly considered it was because we knew whewe were loosing some C1 talent. One of the statements EJ made, was that he expected the Captains to evaluate the calibur of talent on their teams and place them in the appropriate division. So in the midst of figuring out what division, we recruited some C2 players and C1 players, but felt overall that we were a C1 team and wanted to play C1. EJ at this point said that he had an even amount of teams in C1 and C2 and would not let us play C1, that it was a scheduling issue(Mike McGee correct me if I’m wrong. Mike had more discussions with EJ about this as he is our captain) Turns out we ended up with 7 teams in C2 anyways, and have the scheduling issues anyhow. In fairness to EJ, hindsight is 20/20, and all teams owe it to EJ, to give him the opportunity to fix things come the fall. This is EJ’s first season, and he walked into a league plagued with problems. Blue Fins hold no grudges and are not worried. Also keep in mind there is no A league this summer, so B is probably more competitive for the summer, but it should be expected by ALL that there are some C1 teams that should move back to B in the fall just as Blue Fins should move back to C1 in the fall.
Mainly we as a team wanted to point out, we don’t enjoy winning 10-2, we didn’t want to be in this position. Also it was just two seasons ago that we went 1-13, and were getting creamed in C1. What I can say is 1 or 2 players do make you competitive whether that’s in B or C1 or C2. One problem is that the time between seasons is so short that it is incredibly difficult to recruit in such a short time. Also this blog was created for the Blue Fins enjoyment, we really struggled with posting this type of content as we never envisioned it to be for outside our team, but since others in the league are following it, and since some are upset that we don’t belong in C2, we thought we should publically acknowledge the facts as we see them. I’m sure there will always be two sides of every story 
Bottom line is it’s a “recreation league” sure it everyone wants to win, wants to be competitve, but lets leave it on the ice, and all go have a beer afterwards!
Matt P.