Fall Season - Week Six - October 19th

8:00 PM- Emaan (1-2-2) vs Haya (2-0-3):

	Emaan	Haya
Rank	7th	3rd
Division Standing	3rd in Medina	1st in Mecca
Context	Currently sitting outside of a playoff spot, a win on Friday will almost most certainly move them into the playoff picture	Only one of two teams to remain undefeated. They are looking to claim second or even first overall. Also weary of division rivals, Sabr (yellow) who can pass them in the standings if they slip up Friday
Streak	With a 3-3 tie last week against Taqwa (black), they have put together a 2 game unbeaten streak (2 weeks ago they beat Ikhlas-green)	Collected 3 out of 4 points against Sabr last week. Unbeaten in 5 games
Goals For	13	11
Goals Against	17	9
Shots Given Up	106 (through 5 games)	65 (through 5 games)
Most Points	Mudasser Hussain: 6	Yasin Admani: 5
Top Goal Scorers	Mudasser Hussain: 4 Zubair Wahid: 3 Rizwan Hassan & Brain Beauvais: 2	Yasin Admani: 4 Sufyaan Shaikh: 3 Erfan Bhanapatel & Waqar Khan: 2
Who’s Hot	2nd Star vs Taqwa: Shahrukh Shah (2 Assists)	1st Stars vs Sabr: Waqar Khan (1 Goal) & Yasin Admani (2 Assists) 3rd Stars vs Sabr: Erfan Bhanapatel (1 Goal) & Sufyaan Shaikh (1 Goal)
Hamidi Prediction	--	Haya Win

  

9:00 PM- Shukr (2-1-1) vs Taqwa (3-0-1):

	Shukr	Taqwa
Rank	5th	1st
Division Standing	2nd in Jerusalem	1st in Jerusalem
Context	Winner takes top spot in The Jerusalem Division	Winner takes top spot in The Jerusalem Division. Also looking to stay first overall in the entire league
Streak	With a 3-2 win last week against Ikhas (green), they are unbeaten in last 3 games  (a win against Ridha-blue and a tie against Ihsan-teal)	A disappointment showing last week saw them draw against Emaan-orange (3-3). 3 wins in 4 games.
Goals For	7	14
Goals Against	6	10
Shots Given Up	59 (through 4 games)	55 (through 4 games)
Most Points	Sufyan Kazi: 5	Dawood Ciombar & Huzaifa Panchbhaya: 8
Top Goal Scorers	Sufyan Kazi: 4 Humza Chaudhry: 2	Humza Ali: 4 Dawood Ciombar: 3 Ibrahim Hindy & Mohammed Hamoud: 2
Who’s Hot	1st Star vs Ikhlas: Humza Chaudhry (1 G and 1 A) 3rd Star: Sufyan Kazi (1 G and 1 A)	1st Stars vs Emaan: Mohammed Hamoud (1G and 1 A) 3rd Stars vs Emaan: Ibrahim Hindy (1 G and 1 A)
Hamidi Prediction	Shukr Win	--

10:00 PM- Ihsan (1-1-2) vs Ikhlas (0-3-2):

	Ihsan	Ikhlas
Rank	6th	8th
Division Standing	2nd in Medina	3rd in Mecca
Context	With Yaqeen (white) having a bye week, this is a great opportunity to close the gap in the Medina division.	This is a playoff game for Ikhlas. Ihsan has the last playoff spot, so the time is now for this team to get their act together.
Streak	Absolutely demolished by Yaqeen last week 7-2	One of two teams that have not won a game so far. This season has been a disappointment.
Goals For	12	10
Goals Against	13	14
Shots Given Up	58 (through 4 games)	73 (through 5 games)
Most Points	Idrees Deen & Ajmal Esmatyar: 6	Mehmed Rizvanovic & Salman Syed: 4
Top Goal Scorers	Idrees Deen: 3 Naeem Akhter: 2 Ajmal Esmatyar: 2	Mehmed Rizvanovic: 3 No other multi-goal scorer on the team
Who’s Hot	3rd Star vs Yaqeen: Faraaz Alvi (1 G and 1 A)	2nd Star vs Shukr: Farrukh Khan  (2 A)
Hamidi Prediction	--	Ikhlas Win

  

11:00 PM- Sabr (2-2-2) vs Ridha (0-4-0)

	Sabr	Ridha
Rank	4th	9th
Division Standing	2nd in Mecca	3rd in Jerusalem
Context	First place in their division and overall is still possible. However they need to take care of business against the league’s worse team	This is a playoff game for Ridha. Teams are pulling away from them in the standings.
Streak	Haven’t won a game since Sept-21-2018 (3-2 win vs Ikhlas-green)	Haven’t won a game period.
Goals For	12	9
Goals Against	14	15
Shots Given Up	90 (through 6 games)	68 (through 4 games)
Most Points	Mohammad Bilal, Razi Ahmed & Ali Murtaza: 5	Yusuf Ingar: 6
Top Goal Scorers	Mohammad Bilal: 5 Rizwan Malik: 2 Razi Ahmed: 2	Yusuf Ingar: 4 No other multi-goal scorer on the team
Who’s Hot	2nd Stars vs Haya: Mohammad Bilal (1 G) and Shuaib Shaikh (1 G)	Coming of a bye week
Hamidi Prediction	--	Ridha Win

Fall Season - Week Five - October 12th

7:30 PM – Yaqeen (2-1-1) vs Ihsan (1-0-2):
The Medina Crown is there for the taking. Yaqeen (white) is coming off their first loss of the campaign against Taqwa by a 4-3 score. With this loss things are coming fast and furious as they look to fend off Ihsan (teal) from taking over the top spot in the division. It was pointed out the Yaqeen over-relied on Maaz Haq to help win games. The funny thing is they got secondary scoring from Saleem Malik and Suleman Bhatti with Arif Bijabhai picking up a pair of assists but still ended up losing last week. Nonetheless if they continue to get contributions throughout their lineup then Yaqeen is shaping up as a well-rounded team. Their downfall last week was they could not recover from a poor first half where they allowed three straight goals. Contrary, Ihsan had a strong first-half and their offense exploded against a very good Sabr team. Seven goals, the most scored by any team so far, saw all but one of their players register a point. Stand-out performers include: Huzaifa Manjra (4 points), Idrees Deen (3 points), Akib Malik (2 points), Naeem Akhtar (2 goals), Zulqarnain Imtiaz (2 points) and Ajmal Esmatyar (2 points). With the exception of a two minute span where Sabr scored three straight goals, Ihsan looked really dominant from start to finish. They scored every way possible- EN, EV, SH and PP. If this Ihsan team shows up this week then there is little doubt we will have a shift in the Medina Division.

Prediction: Ihsan win (Ajmal Esmatyar with the GWG)


8:30 PM – Taqwa (3-0-0) vs Emaan (1-2-1):
Taqwa (black) had a hot start against Yaqeen and never looked back. This game was never in doubt. The only thing you can accuse them for is not maintaining their intensity for the full 30 minutes. Humza Ali went on to collect hats, and him along with line-mates Dawood Ciombar and Huzaifa Panchbhaya are second, third and fourth in overall scoring. Taqwa’s first line is arguably the most feared line in the entire league. They look to stretch their win-streak to four games as they continue their tour of the Medina Division with a matchup with Emaan (orange). They will be under stress right from the opening face-off as either Ciombar or Ali will be in the penalty box for not submitting a recap last week (live reaction of their penalty killers here). Emaan will be looking to capitalize on this opportunity considering that Taqwa has surrendered a short-handed goal in two of their three games. Things are looking up for Emaan as they are no doubt the most improve team in the entire league. All their defeats have been close, so we expected it was just a matter of time until they broke through and finally win a game. With a big first half against Ikhlas, Emaan was able to secure their first victory powered mainly by Mudasser Hussain (4 points) and Brain Beauvais (3 points). With the high possibility of either Yaqeen or Ihsan not collecting any points in the 7:30 game this will be a great opportunity for Emaan to move closer to the top spot in the Medina Division.

Prediction: Taqwa Win


9:30 PM & 11:30 – Sabr (2-1-1) vs Haya (1-0-2):
Before the season started this was our predicted finals matchup. The fate of the Mecca division could be determined after the completion of this double header. Sabr (yellow) is coming off their first defeat of the season in which they were thoroughly embarrassed. They had to take the ball out from the back of their net seven times last Friday. Their undisciplined play reared its ugly head once again but this time it cost them dearly as Ihsan capitalized on 2 powerplays. Mentally where are they at? And can they put last week’s abomination behind them? At the other side of the rink, their opponents, Haya (grey) are coming into this contest on an emotional high. With their leader Waqar Khan leaving the game after taking an inadvertent stick to the face, the boys rallied together to score on the PP (courtesy of Erfan Bhanapatel) to come away with surprisingly their first victory of the season. Prior to this series of events it looked like Haya was on route to another tie. However, after seeing one of your own go through a devastating incident, an event like this can cause a team to come together and getter’ done for your fallen brother. Whether or not Khan has recovered, it is important for Haya to continue to ride the momentum they are currently on remembering their leader would love to be out there on the battle field with them.

Prediction: Sabr wins the 9:30 pm game but Haya will bounce back and win the 11:30 pm game


10:30 – Ikhlas (0-2-2) vs Shukr (1-1-1):
The award for the most disappointing team of the season (so far) goes to Ikhlas (green). They have not won a game and we are approaching the halfway point of the season. This is simply inexcusable for a team that had the first overall pick. Attention all Ikhlas players where was your sense of urgency last week… you fell behind four to nothing before the first half was over and then decided to play? This team needs a harsh dose of truth. They can start by looking at where they are in the standings and hopefully that sparks them to bring intensity right from their start. Their opponents are Shukr (red) who had last week off. This game is huge for Shukr in terms of a) preventing Ikhlas from passing them in the standings and b) a win on Friday will help them keep Taqwa in their sight for tops in the Jerusalem Division

Prediction: If Ikhlas does not win, we will never pick them again for the rest of the season.

Fall Season - Week Four - October 5th

8:00 PM- Ikhlas (0-1-2) vs Emaan (0-2-1):
A pair of win-less teams that both sit at the bottom of their respective divisions square off against each other. Ikhlas (green), the basement dwellers of the Mecca division continue to find ways to lose valuable points. In last week’s edition of the previews the importance of the first 2 minutes and last 2 minutes of a period was stressed. We also pointed out that Ikhlas needed to have better hockey sense and greater awareness of the clock. Yet again they repeat the same old song and dance, this time losing out on a point as Sabr’s Mohamed Bilal tied the game on a power play with roughly a minute left. This week the task of holding onto the lead (or even getting the lead) will be more difficult as Arif Khan (their lone goal scorer last game) and Aazar Zafar are not expected to be in the lineup. On the other side, Emaan (orange), the basement dwellers of the Mecca division are coming off a 3-0 loss to Yaqeen. They are tied with Ihsan for conceding the most goals (11). This team does not make things easy for their netminder, Yasir Hussain as he has faced the most shots. Not only that, but his team has never had the lead not even for a second this season; this puts tremendous pressure on a goalie. As much as Emaan has relied on their goalie, this might be a game where they would like him to steal for them against an opponent that has underperformed and will be missing some key players.

Hamidi Prediction: Ikhlas win if first overall pick Emmad Khawaja scores


9:00 PM- Haya (0-0-2) vs Ridha (0-3-0):
The last time we saw Haya (grey) was back in Week 2 after stalemating with Yaqeen 1-1. I had to do a double look because it is hard to believe that Haya is winless so far. They are coming off a bye week and with any team coming of a break the main question is ‘how did they spend their time?’ The body does not lie and not being active will especially show in the first half as players struggle to find their running legs. This was in fact what happened with Taqwa (the first team to have a bye this season). Taqwa was absolutely under siege in the first half and looked really sluggish against Ridha. Ridha (blue), Haya’s opponents this week, sits dead last in the league with 3 straight loses, the latest coming against Taqwa 5-3. This is another team one wouldn’t think would be winless at this point in the season. In fact many spectators last Friday thought Ridha had last week’s game in the bag. As we seen so far all it takes is one mistake to do your team in and this is exactly what occurred to allow Taqwa’s Huzaifa Panchbhaya to fire a rocket in his friend’s net. Again for this Friday, Ridha faces off against a team returning from a bye week (Haya). They need to use their young legs in a similar fashion as they did versus Taqwa and try to blitz Haya before they are able to find their legs. For Haya, the focus should be on limiting Yusuf Ingar who has scored in each of this team’s game, including two goals last week.

Hamidi Prediction: Haya Win


10:00 PM- Taqwa (2-0-0) vs Yaqeen (2-0-1):
Taqwa (black) the top team from The Jerusalem division faces off with Yaqeen (white) the top team of Medina division. Taqwa is coming off of back to back wins against Ridha. Though they accomplish their task of sweeping the series with Ridha, last week they were definitely challenged. But give them credit because despite trailing on two separate occasions they were able to stay compose and emerge as 5-3 victors. Now after beating up on the league’s worse team how will they fair against one of the better teams? At the other end of the rink, Yaqeen is also coming off a series sweep against Emaan (orange). The final result was 3-0 but it was a lot tighter than the score implies. Maaz Haq powered the offense with assists to Ahsan Wasif and Amir Multani (twice). At some point in the season however others on this team will need to step up to create the offense. For now, Yaqeen goes as far as Maaz can take them.

Hamidi Prediction: Yaqeen Win


11:00 PM- Ihsan (0-0-2) vs Sabr (2-0-1):
Ihsan (teal) is win-less thus far into the season. Last week, they had to settle for a tie against Shukr who were missing their starting goaltender Zaid Majoo (score: 0-0). They looked like a frustrated group all game long, especially Huzaifa Manjra as he ended up taking two penalties last week. Not sure how to assess this team as it was constructed with a lot of players unfamiliar to the I-slam Hockey environment. With that said, we should get a better idea of what this team truly is when they go up against a top ranked team, Sabr (yellow). In their last game, Sabr stole a point away from Ikhlas to remain undefeated for the season. Their goaltender, Ali Khawja has been steady all season only surrendering 3 goal in 3 games. Their offense seems to be done by committee, point and case as Ahmad Ibrahim, Shaukat Khan, Shehryar Khan and Shuaib Shaikh have yet to score a goal. The main concern with this team is they tend to take penalties especially when fatigued. In the dying moments of their last game, Razi Ahmed took a needless penalty to give Ikhlas a chance to win the game. 

Hamidi Prediction: Sabr Win

Fall Season - Week Three - September 28th

8:00 PM- Ihsan (0-0-1) vs Shukr (1-1-0):
In Week Two we got to see Ihsan (teal) for the first time. There was a lot of hype generated after the draft as GM Huzaifa Manjra constructed this team with many unknown players. Last Friday they came storming out of the gate with two goals from Ajmal Esmatyar and one from their last pick, Zulqarnain Imtiaz (if this becomes a regular occurrence he will be drafted much higher next season). With a 3-1 lead against Emaan and only 4 minutes left to play, Ihsan could not manage the pressure as they had to settle for a tie (although probably felt like a loss). They need to take the experience from this game and use it to learn how to finish games. Their opponents, Shukr (red) are coming off an impressive 4-2 win against Ridha. Prior to this victory we were wondering where the goals would come from for this team. We got our answer: Sulman Azm… sorry typo ;) Sufyan Kazi scored a hat trick in his I-Slam Hockey Debut. Two of his goals were on the power play. There is no doubt that Shukr will try to keep feeding him on the man advantage. Shukr has their eyes on the top spot in the Jerusalem division and win here could see them there by the end of the night.

Hamidi Prediction: Shukr win


9:00 PM- Yaqeen (1-0-1) vs Emaan (0-1-1):
This matchup features two teams from the Medina division. Yaqeen (white) goes for the sweep after defeating Emaan (orange) two weeks ago 5-2. The score is misleading as Emaan made a game and came very close in tying this contest (score was 3-2 before two empty net goals). Instead what happened was they saw Maaz Haq collect hats that night. In fact, the line of Maaz Haq, Suleman Bhatti and Arif Bijabhai combined for 9 points that night. Emaan must find a way to contain this line. It would also help if they don’t fall behind the eight-ball to start this game. In their two games so far, Emaan gets burnt in the first half, however in fairness to them they do come roaring back in the second half. At some point though it would be nice to have the lead instead of trying to dig yourself out of a hole you created. From Yaqeen’s perspective they probably have a little fire in their bellies after reading Emaan’s recap of Week 1. The recap threw some shade at Yaqeen’s victory and will probably serve as bulletin board material for their team What’sApp chat.

Hamidi Prediction: Yaqeen Win


10:00 PM Ikhlas (0-1-1) vs Sabr (2-0-0):
Sabr (yellow) looks to extend their win streak to three games against Mecca rivals Ikhlas (green). Last week these two teams faced each other with Sabr getting the win with 23 seconds left on the clock courtesy of Mohammad Bilal. With Sabr now going for the season sweep, Ikhlas needs to have better hockey sense and greater awareness of the clock. What I mean is the first 2 minutes and last 2 minutes of a period can be huge momentum swings in a game. Therefore, your team wants to avoid giving up a goal during those times. Unfortunate for Ikhlas Sabr scored all three of their goals at the beginning and ending of the period (Razi Ahmed with 6 seconds left in the first half, Rizwan Malik at the start of the second half and Mohammad Bilal as mentioned above). Another interesting fact is Ikhlas has seen leads evaporate (Week 1 against Haya and Week 2 against Sabr) and in result have left points on the table. This does not bode well for Ikhlas as it is expected that Aazar Zafar will soon be tied up with his Max Gala commitments; so they should show more urgency in securing points now while he is in their lineup (side note: if you haven’t been to a Max event make sure to check it out to see the exceptional work of Muslims throughout Canada). For Sabr, they can expect the rematch to be tougher than last week’s game as Mehmed Rizvanovic will probably in the lineup for Ikhlas (he was a DNP last week). Regardless of who Ikhlas does or does not have on Friday, Sabr needs to be more discipline (as stressed in last week’s previews). Their un-discipline play cost them last week as Ikhlas’ Salman Syed scored on a penalty shot. If you play with fire long enough, you will eventually get burned.

Hamidi Prediction: Tie


11:00 PM Taqwa (1-0-0) vs Ridha (0-2-0):
Ridha (teal) aka the “Young Guns” from Malton came from a gym league with high hopes of running things in I-Slam Hockey. Things have not turned out this way at all and in fact they are off to a disappointing start. Losers of two straight to start the season, both to teams within their division (Jerusalem)- Taqwa and Shukr. If Ridha goes on to lose a third straight game, then they can kiss the idea of finishing first in their group goodbye (Note: mathematically they won’t be out of the running but losing three of your four division games would make it hard for any team to win their division). The lone bright spot for this team has been Yusuf Ingar who has managed to score in both games so far. They will be relying on Ingar to do what he did in Week 1 and score at least a goal against Taqwa (black). Yes, this is a rematch from Week 1 where Taqwa emerged as victors 2-1. However, many felt that Ridha was owning the play in the last 10 minutes of the game but could not find a way to bury their chances. Whatever the case was, Ridha will be looking to avoid the season sweep at the hands of Taqwa who are coming off their bye week. It will be interested to see how Taqwa performs particularly in the first half. If they did not remain active (ie. get a run in, hit the gym, bike, etc.) then their bodies will be crying ‘uncle’ early and often throughout the game. However even if they did stay active nothing can quite simulate a hockey game. This means Taqwa is coming in with a little bit of rust, especially considering last week was their bye and the week before that there were no games. Therefore, they had a two-week layoff and now have to fend off a team starving for a win.

Hamidi Prediction: Ridha win

Fall Season - Week Two - September 21st

8:00 PM- Yaqeen (0-1-0) vs Haya (0-0-1):
Yaqeen (white) enters this contest by hanging onto dear life against Emaan for the victory in Week One.  Despite a very strong start in the first half, it was Yaqeen that was on their heels near the end with Emaan having several opportunities to tie the game.  Definitely there could be improvements on the way Yaqeen closed out that game.  On a positive note, Maaz Haq and Arif Bijabhai were particularly impressive with four and three points respectively.  Their efforts see them ranked 1st and 2nd in the overall points board.  Is this a slight glimpse of a new dynamic duo in the making?

In comparison to Yaqeen, Haya (grey) would start slow but finish superb in Week One against Ikhlas. After going down by two goals, they would rally and walk out of The Hangar with a point for their efforts.  Just don’t tell the rest of the league how scary this team could potentially be as they overcame adversity without the following players: Adeel Awan, Sufyaan Shaikh, Waqar Khan and Yasin Admani. So definitely, these boys are feeling themselves and spectators will be interested in seeing how lethal this team is with their full roster (remember we had Haya going to the Finals in a preseason previews).

Hamidi Prediction: Haya win


9:00 PM- Shukr (0-1-0) vs Ridha (0-1-0):
These two teams from The Jerusalem Division battle it out in a huge four-point game. Both Shukr (red) and Ridha (blue) are coming off defeats. Shukr was the only team not to score a goal in Week One as Sabr’s Ali Khawja collected his first shutout of the young season. Shukr’s downfall in the first week was they lacked a sense of urgency to start the game. They looked very tentative and out of sync as in the first half they mustered a measly six shots on net. You can’t expect to score if you don’t get shots on net. Sufyan Kazi did miss Shukr’s first game, so having him in the lineup should help the offense. A disaster outcome for Shukr is if they get shutout again or score only one goal and lose. I say this because scoring goals stems from confidence and if Shukr can’t find the net again then this will become a psychological struggle they will have to deal with all season.

Ridha (blue) also suffered a defeat in the opening week at the hands of division rivals Taqwa, 2-1. As advertised in the preseason previews Ridha plays a run and gun style. What this means is they want the game played at a quicker pace and challenges their opponents to keep up. With things wide open, Ridha will get plenty of chances and likewise the other team will also get chances. If you want a basketball analogy, their games is like watching The Golden State Warriors vs Houston Rockets play. In Week One, they simply did not have enough fire power beyond Yusuf Ingar. With the amount of chances this team creates other players on this team need to chip in in order to be successful. Lastly, coming into the season not much was known about goaltender, Mohammed Patel, he had a solid performance in particular in the first half turning away 14 of 15 shots faced. A loss against Shukr would be disastrous for Ridha as that would make it back to back defeats from divisional opponents.

Hamidi Prediction: Ridha win


10:00 PM- Ikhlas (0-0-1) vs Sabr (1-0-0):
Out of all the teams, it is safe to say Ikhlas (green) is having the worst start. If you were to tell me that my team would have a two-goal lead with 11 minutes to play and the other team would be missing one of their GMs (a guy who lead the league in points last year), in addition to their second, third and fourth round picks, then there really is not a scenario where I can imagine where my team does not win. However, such is I-Slam Hockey - you can’t take your foot off the gas pedal until the final buzzer.  Ikhlas’ fortunes does not seem to be improving as Brian Beauvis, a replacement player GM’s Haris Mallick and Mehmed Rizvanovic tried to bring in was claimed by Emaan through the waiver wire.  Nonetheless, they need to put these series of unfortunate events behind them and focus on the task at hand which is a huge four-point game against Mecca divisional foes, Sabr.

Sabr (yellow) is coming of a 2-0 victory against Shukr. It was well known coming that this team is very deep upfront. This was shown in Week 1 as they got goals from both the second and third line- Abdu Sharkawy and Rizwan Malik. Early impressions of this team is that no matter what line jumps over the boards they will be a threat to score. One aspect Sabr can work on is being more disciplined as they accumulated 12 minutes (nearly an entire half) in penalty minutes.

Hamidi Prediction: Sabr win

11:00 PM- Emaan (0-1-0) vs Ihsan (0-0-0):
Last week against Yaqeen, at least for the first half, Emaan (orange) looked like the “weakest team coming out of the draft”. You looked up at the scoreboard and it was 3-0 for Yaqeen with little less than half a period to play. Then all of a sudden Yaqeen get a power play and Rizwan Hassan gives his team some life. Not too long later Mazhar Hussain would score to make the closing minutes of the game really interesting. Did we prejudge this team too harshly? I mean, Emaan could have just went through the motions after falling behind by a field goal. To their credit they kept on chipping away and could have very much tied their Week One game. Not bad at all considering they were missing their first round pick, Zubair Wahid. The focus for this team is to carry that momentum they found late in the second half against their Medina Divisional Rivals, Ihsan.

Ihsan (teal) had a bye in the first week. Not much I can write about this team until we see them in action. Of course they have recognizable names such as, Huzaifa Manjra, Idress Deen, Akib Malik and Naeem Akhtar. However rumblings around the league suggests Tayyib Khan and Abdur Zuberi are sleeper picks. Lastly, we simply don’t know much about their goaltender Mohammad Kasuji. We have a lot more question than answers with this team, but we are all curious to see Ihsan in action.

Hamidi Prediction: Ihsan win

Fall Season - Week One - September 7th

To kick off the season the previews for this week will give a brief review of each team coming out of the draft:

Haya (grey):

Positives:
- Best defensive depth in the entire league: Luqman Arshad, Salman Khalid, Adeel Awan and Sadat Malik
- Offense already has chemistry going from Salaam Cup, Cambridge Days and other East-End leagues: Waqar Khan, Yasin Admani, Sufyan Shaikh (Note: We had Erfan Bhanapatel pegged as a top ten draft pick which they were able to pick up in the 5th pick… he should contribute to the goal scoring production as well)
- TMT core has been brought back: members of the Haya 2017 I-Slam Cup Winning Team are returning: Samad Hamidi, Adeel Awan, Salman Alvi, Waqar Khan, Yusuf Kapoor (Playoff MVP), Mustafa Shahbaz, and Salman Khalid

Biggest Weakness:
- Beyond the first line there is not enough offensive depth

Projection: I-Slam Cup Finals


Emaan (orange):

Positives:
- Best defensemen hands-down in the entire league: Zubair Wahid
- Veteran Team: Most of this team is 30+ in years which means they will be playing smarter not necessarily harder; expect this to be a good ball movement team
- The entire “Hussain” family playing on one squad (Azhar Hussain, Mazhar Hussain, Muddasar Hussain, and Yasir Hussain) they will know each other’s games inside and out.

Biggest Weakness:
- Really slow team and a lack of offense. Can these guys last the entire game?

Projection: Miss the playoffs


Ridha (blue):

Positives:
- Offensively highly skilled: Abdul Rahim Manjra, Fahad Panchbhaya, Yusuf Ingar, Yahya Ingar, Ammar Panchbhaya, and Mohammed Kazi
- This is a quick fast running (young) team
- The “Malton” connection should help this team build team chemistry real quick

Biggest Weakness:
- This is a team that mostly plays in a gym league, how will they adapt to the challenges of the arena?

Projection: Will Make Playoffs


Ikhlas (green):

Positives:
- Highly talented offensively in all three lines: Emmad Khawja, Aazar Zafar, Hani Soliman, Arif Khan, Zahid Panchbhaya, Abdul Wahab, Mehmed Rizvanovic, Salman Syed and Ibrahim Khan- This team is a very quick team and could probably match team Ridha in speed
- This is an I-Slam product team: This suggested GMS Haris Mallick and Mehmed Rizvanovic went for the best guy available in the draft by passing any regional or Salaam Cup past associations

Biggest Weakness:
- Attendance issues… ATTN: Aazar Zafar, Hani Soliman and Umair Ashraf. Your attendance issues might come back and bite your team!

Projection: Attendance issues will cause this team to miss the playoffs


Ihsan (teal):

Positives:
- Most felt that GM Huzaifa Manjra drafted the best team
- Faraz Alvi, Tayyib Khan and Abdur Nafea Zuberi will make this the deepest team in the entire league
- Threats from long distance: Faraz Alvi, Idris Deen and Huzaifa Manjra can all blast it from the point

Biggest Weakness:
- Not much is known about their goaltender, Mohammad Kasuji

Projection: Will Make Playoffs


Shukr (red):

Positives:
- Re-united and it feels so good! The dynamic duo of Arslan Mian and Humza Chaudhry will be looking to create havoc in the offensive end (Note: Last season Humza Chaudhry suffered a season ending knee injury. With Chaudhry out of the lineup Mian’s game is severely impacted)
- Solid veterans that know how to play the game and bring a calming presence to a team: Zuhair Fancy, Aamir Hanif, Belal Hafeez, Kashif Taquddin and Saajid Bhayat
- Less stress and more success: expect Sulmaan Azmat and Zaid Majoo to create an easy-going environment. Sometimes you just got to stop over-thinking things, relax, trust your instincts and play the game

Biggest Weakness:
- Their back-end defensive pairing is a little bit on the slow side.

Projection: Unknown… hard to predict which Arslan Mian we will see over the next four months. The Mian from last year, well this team misses the playoffs. The Mian that is on fire when Chaudhry is in the lineup, this team will comfortably qualify for the playoffs.


Sabr (yellow):

Positives:
- The best gm pairing in the league: Shaukat Khan and Mohammad Bilal
- Championship Experience (Ridha 2017 Winter Champions): Ahmad Ibrahim, Ali Khwaja (Playoff MVP), Abdu Sharkawy, Shehryar Khan, Shaukat Khan and Mohammad Bilal
- Similar to Ihsan this team also has a lot of depth: Taqi Ahmed, Razi Ahmed, Rizwan Malik, Ali Murtaza, and Shuaib Shaikh

Biggest Weakness:
- They lost Farrukh Khan from last year’s team. He was a big part of their blue line. This is a hole in their lineup they will feel throughout the season.

Projection: I-Slam Cup Finals


Yaqeen (white):

Positives:
- Will score a lot of goals: Maaz Haq, Arif Bijabhai, Farooq Sani, Saleem Malik and Arssal Shahabuddin
- One of the top three goaltenders in the league: Fahad Mohammad
- Dedicated GMs (Maaz Haq and Fahad Mohammad) that guys like to play for

Biggest Weakness:
- Maaz Haq and Fahad Mohammad have yet they can carry over their regular season success to the playoffs. Also lacking defense (other than Taha Azhar and Arssal Shahabuddin)

Projection: Will make the playoffs


Taqwa (black):

Positives:
- Fastest Player in the league: Humza Ali
- Sound Defense: Mohammed Hamoud, Riaz Lasania, and Humza Hussain
- Dangerous First Line: Humza Ali, Dawood Ciombar and Huzaifah Panchbhaya

Biggest Weakness:
- Beyond the first line the offense does not go much beyond that.

Projection: Will miss the playoffs

Spring Season - Week Fourteen - May 4th

CHAMPIONSHIP NIGHT - 9:00 PM

We started this journey back on January 26th, 2018 and now we have arrived at Championship Night. If there is one day you want to have your best game of the season it would be today. If you are playing today, regardless of what has happened to date, this is the one day in the season where the I-Slam Cup will be in the building. It does not stay at the rink for long… The cup is just waiting to see who is worthy of being its owners for the next couple of months. Ridha comes into this contest up 1-0 in the series. They have their goaltender Ali Khwaja to thank for that. The rest of his team played like dogs getting out-shot 26-5 with Emaan having possession of the ball for most of the game. When you have a goalie who is white-hot they can help cover up a team’s glaring weaknesses long and give them a shot at winning the game. This is exactly how things unfolded, as Arif Bijabhai scored a goal from center (hey man any shot that makes it towards the net has a chance!) and Imran Lakhanpal getting the game winner off a rebound.

So what happens tonight? At this point you got to think Emaan’s net-minder, Kaunain Saiyed expects more from himself and knows he can perform better. He is going to have to forget about his Game One let down and refocus his efforts on being solid for Emaan and backstopping them to the championship. He should be ready to face more shots (and higher quality) as rumours are circulating that Shaukat "Baba" Khan who did not play in Game One will be back in the lineup for this game. Khan will be a welcomed addition to his team and his team will definitely get more than five shots on net this game. If this helps get Ridha the first goal then they will be the 2018 I-slam Hockey Champions. However, if Emaan is able to repeat their Game One performance but just making subtle changes such as shooting the ball quicker and crashing the net then there is a good chance this game is going to overtime/shootout. 

If we get there, the next question becomes which team better manages the pressure?