Here is my advice to all 8 teams: championship team building is a complex process which must be
continually monitored and improved. Regardless of your talent level, invest
some time and tap into the power of teamwork to help your team perform at a
higher level. A championship team is a group of players who can effectively
handle adversity and conflict, trust one another, communicate clearly and
authentically and appreciate each other in a positive way. The most talented
team does not always win the I-slam Cup and that’s why we play the games every
Friday Night. Get ready, season about to start….
8:00pm - Yaqeen vs Emaan:
Welcome to the 2018 Winter I-Slam
Hockey Season! What a way to start off the season with the two teams making the
biggest blockbuster deal on draft day. Emaan ended up trading their first
overall pick, Idrees Deen to Yaqeen
in exchange for Hany Soliman (drafted
tenth overall). This was definitely more of a risk for Emaan but one GMs Yusuf & Osama Soliman were willing to take. This moved allowed them to get
their brother to join them (it should also be noted that Walied Soliman is also on Emaan). The “Hany vs Deen” matchup is
undoubtedly the major storyline people will talk about from this game.
It seems the Emaan brain-trust went
in with the game plan of trying to draft as many players as they could from the
2016 Fall Season Champion winning team-Ihsan (Yusuf Soliman and
Amir Multani were the gms of that team).
Players who were a part of that championship team and now a member of
Emaan include: Yusuf Soliman, Hany
Soliman, Osama Soliman, Humza Hussain, Ahmad Kaiss, Rayhan Malik & Mohammed Hamoud. On one hand
incorporating championship experience into your roster, especially players that
have chemistry with each other can be the intangibles to help Emaan have a
successful season. On the other hand, the I-Slam Hockey world has moved on and
it is no longer 2016…
Speaking from moving on from the
past, it has been a good minute since we saw Emaad Khwaja (GM of Yaqeen) in an I-Slam Hockey Jersey. His team
needs him to be one of if not the best players for them. However, is this a
fair expectation for a guy who has been out of the league for so long? He won’t
have to shoulder all of the load as he will have help via Idrees Deen. As mentioned above, thanks to the savviness of Yasir Hussain (the other GM of Yaqeen)
he was able to somehow turn the 10th overall pick into the 1st
overall pick. This move might have saved his team as prior to the trade it was
hard to envision where the goals would come from for Yaqeen. If Emaad Khawaja
is the same Emaad Khawaja we still remember and Idrees Deen continues his
stellar play from last season, then this might be the one of the best duos in
the entire league. But the question is would Khawaja and Deen be enough against
arguably the best trio in the league (the Solimans) this Friday?
9:00pm: Sabr vs Ihsan:
At the draft, Ihsan traded away
picks #2 and #15 to Haya for their #6 and #10 picks. It would appear that GMs Arslan Mian (“RC”) and Humza Chaudhry felt
instead of getting one great player high in the first round they rather be able
to snag two quality players (one late first round and the other early second
round). Interestingly, Ihsan has many of the core from 2017 Fall Yaqeen team, a
team that struggled mightily to get to the playoffs. Those players include: Arslan Mian, Farrukh Khan, Sulmaan Azmat and Ahmad Mobin. No one likes to go through a losing season, so you can
see how Arslan Mian is using the failures from last season as fuel for
redemption. Joining RC is his long time running mate, Humza Chaudhry. Without
Humza RC had a rough time last season (for Yaqeen) but with this reunion the
expectation is to see Mian and Chaudhry as one of the top 5 point getters. Also
Junaid Mohammed (last season’s top
defense-men) is on this roster and will be leaned on for his leadership to get
these players playing back to their potential. Everyone deserves a second
chance, however, the question is how will these players respond?
Sabr has been the most active team after
the draft. To recap, they traded Saleem
Malik to Shukr in exchange for Abdu
Sharkawy. They then flipped Sharkawy to Ridha for Saajid Bhayat. Essentially the end result was Sabr trading away the
25th pick (Malik) for the 20th pick (Bhayat). As well, they
have put in a waiver request for Shuaib
Hussain to replace Adeel Awan (their second round pick). At the time of
writing these previews, 4 of the 7 teams have passed on Hussain. If the other 3
teams follow suit then Hussain will join Sabr. At the draft, Sabr elected in
selecting goaltender Ibad Khan with
their first round pick. Whenever a team does this it is quite clear their
strategy is to rely on their net minder to win majority of their games. If you
go this route GMs have to make sure they can give their goalie enough (goal)
support. Personally, I just don’t see it with this group. GMs Yousaf Sowdagar and Waqar Khan (“Boom-Boom”) are great players, but they are also
similar players with resembling style of games. With that said, I am not too
certain they can complement each other as Sowdagar and Boom-Boom play the same
way. In addition we did see a drop in Boom-Boom’s numbers last season. Maybe
Sabr share the same opinion that of Charles Barkley who is on record saying, “Analytics don’t work at all. It’s just some
crap that people who were really smart made up to try to get in the game
because they had no talent. Because they had no talent to be able to play, so
smart guys wanted to fit in, so they made up a term called analytics. Analytics
don’t work.” So I guess, Boom-Boom’s
response to his critics would be: see here
Part of being an elite player is to
be able to adapt regardless of the situation and in the end finding a way to
make it work. With back to back championships won, Boom-Boom has the biggest
target on his back in the entire league. With more teams and a higher level of
competition this season does Boom-Boom retain the title?
10:00pm: Haya vs Ridha:
My first impression of Haya is they
old! Like they really old! However, we should remember that last season as the
GM of Sabr, Abdul Wahab had some
unconventional picks that raised a few eyebrows. Last season Sabr finished
first overall in the regular season and were strong contenders to win it all
(they lost out in the semis to Shukr). Perhaps we can give him the benefit of
the doubt for his draft picks this season. Wahab tends to have a different line
of thinking from most. Many questioned if drafting Farooq Sani second
overall was necessary considering he might have been available to Haya in the
second round. Wahab believes in Sani and why wouldn’t he? Both were on the 2012
winning championship team (ironically Haya), where Sani scored arguably the
most clutch goal in I-Slam Hockey history- see here. Zuhair Fancy, also on the Haya 2012
championship team was also drafted to Haya this season. However, Wahab is
always looking for ways to innovate and improve his team, recently traded Fancy
to Shukr for Naveed Mohammed (a move
that united him with his son Sahil
Mohammed). This transaction gave Haya “more experience” (they got older!).
Old legs do not run as smoothly as young legs…. But Haya’s other GM Humza Ali runs from the opening faceoff
to the last buzzer. The next evolution he needs to make in his game is to start
understanding angles and floor positioning better instead of solely relying on
his speed to take over the game. Also he needs to be a little bit stronger on
the ball. Perhaps surrounding Ali with veteran experience can help him take
this next step and become one of the dominant players in I-slam Hockey. Given
Wahab’s recent success with Sabr last season, Haya will be an interesting team
to keep track of.
Most feel Ridha’s GM duo of Shaukat Khan and Mohammad Bilal were the strongest pair. I forecast that this team
will lead the league in goals. They have immense fire power with Khan and Bilal but they also managed to add Arif Bijabhai, Abdu Sharkawy, Faraz Alvi
and Imran Lakhanpal all of whom can
deposit the ball into the net with limited opportunities. My concern with Ridha
is that their defense is a bit thin. They do have Ijaz Chaudhry patrolling the blue-line and Ali Khwaja the last line of defense. After this I do not see much
support in the back end. At the end of the day you do not need to worry about
defense if the other team is busy getting the ball out of their net. Will this
be the case of Ridha?
11:00 PM: Shukr vs Ikhlas:
Shukr GMS Fahad Mohammad and Maaz Haq
had stellar rookie season 4 months ago. Fahad swept all the goaltender awards
(Lowest GAA and Top Goaltender) and Maaz took home Regular Season MVP, Top
Point Scorer and Top Rookie. No question the two are talented and ultimately were
just lacking experience to help propel Sabr to the I-Slam Cup. For this year
they were ambitious and decided to run their own team. I am not actually a big
fan of this move. In my opinion it would have been better for the brothers to
get one more season under their belt. We have to remember that Abdul Wahab did
an amazing job last season in surrounding these 2 with complementary players
that fit their game. Basically this is similar to the Brady or Belichick debate
on who deserves more credit for the team’s success. I am of the opinion it was
more Wahab that created an environment for Mohammad and Haq to thrive in. With
this reasoning, I expect Shukr to struggle a bit this season as the Shukr GMs lack the experience of being the “official leaders” of a team. This is an
intangible that often gets over-looked. Being a leader of a team is more than
putting up good statistical numbers. It also involves effectively managing
different personalities and knowing how to react when times get difficult.
Ikhlas strikes my interest… Beyond Dawood Ciombar it is hard to see where
the secondary scoring is going to come from. Even Ciombar can go through hot
and cold streaks. Maybe Akib Malik can
help out with this, but he is more of a defensive forward who also has the
ability to facilitate opportunities for others- so not necessarily someone who
finishes off a scoring play. Perhaps also Wakaas
Khan, but just like Akib he is more likely to get assists rather than
goals. It will be interesting to see how this group of forwards try to make it
work. At the other end of the rink beyond Luqman
Arshad it is hard to see who else can step up to protect the house. Don’t
get me wrong, Ikhlas has several good skilled players (Salman Alvi, Saqib Khokar, Sadat Malik, Rehan Lakhani), but I just
can’t see at the moment how these different puzzle pieces can be put together.
This is a challenge not only facing Ikhlas but all other 7 teams; over the
course of the next four months uniting a group of strangers getting each member
to accept their specific roles & responsibilities while at the same time
realizing all roles are critical to the overall team’s success in order to
reach your common goal, The I-Slam
Cup
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