Another exciting season has ended these days, and it might have been the most exhilarating one this franchise has gone through to date. The HAMBURG SEA LIONS have been in the discussion for playing in the postseason until the very last week of the regular season, and it came down to a questionable game management decision on the second to last game day that denied us the first playoff appearance since we entered the Elite league.

Other than the first 3 seasons at the highest level of RZA football we started the season with a record that could not have been any worse: We lost the first 3 and were 3–5 after half of the games were played. At this point no one truly believed that we would return to the Elite after S56. But thanks to being in a close division and a stretch of 5 wins on the back-end of the schedule we had the chance to make a playoff push.

A bad decision in week 17, when we had our last home game against the mystics, made it fall apart, though. Due to a brainfart the manager was convinced that they only needed to win against the opponent from the NC East to secure first place in the division... and he used MOTY. That resulted in a spectacular match, which they won. But their position against their division opponent Chelt Nam Bobbers was not made better with that win, and on the last game day the mightiest Dragon won against a depleted SEA LIONS team, using MOTY himself, taking the #1 spot in the West and leaving them in tears on the outside looking in.

It was a tough lesson learned for the SEA LIONS about proper evaluation of the schedule and how to navigate through the games to get where they want to be. And it feels like the window in which the team was good enough to compete for a postseason spot has closed. Crucial members of the squad get up there in age or have already signaled that they will retire at the end of this season. And although there are a lot of promising young players to fill the open spots they still might be not good enough to pose problems for the teams they’ll be up against.

S57 will be an uphill battle for the SEA LIONS once again, no one should be all too surprised if they start 0–3 again. We have multiple retirees on crucial positions, as RB1 Jefferson Micombero will end his playing career after this season, as will longtime contributors Offensive Guard Zahit Rahuma and Strong Safety Lazar Ognyanov. All three of them will be sorely missed, as the last game of the season, a friendly visit at the FJB-Field of Dark Matter, showed convincingly.

Chances even aren’t that bad that they won’t be able to come around to play for another season in the Elite again this time. It’ll be all about developing a new core of players for the seasons to come… and enjoying the ride while it lasts.

It’s Tuesday before season rollover, and that’s, as always, Bowl game Tuesday.

The SEA LIONS are not playing in one, mind you, as they could not make the jump from regular season to the postseason. But they celebrate nonetheless, as they had their season-ending encounter with the visiting All Stars today, which they won 34:21. And later in the day they’ll visit the KMN Mandalorians from the Elite division NC East to play a friendly game while following the Bowl game between the Space Kraken and the Sunrise City Prairie Dogs. It is quite a happy ending to S55, and it does, if you put all these little annoyances aside, fit.

In the league the SEA LIONS managed to score a record of 10–6, which was another step forward after being 9–7 and 8–8 in the seasons prior. They began hot and won 8 of the first 11 games. But then they hit a stretch of games where experience and preparedness ultimately made the difference. So in the end they were on the outside looking into the playoffs. But they managed to secure another season in the Elite league through winning some tough games, also, so S55 is celebrated as a success, nonetheless.

The team also had quite a successful run in the Supercup this season, where they were able to get to the fourth round for the first time in franchise history.

One player that has a big part in why the SEA LIONS are that successful, sadly, will be retiring at the end of the season, and this one will have a lasting impact as he’ll not be replaced so easily: DE Pariat Vanich decided that this would be his last season playing football. Right from the start when he joined the SEA LIONS he was a dominant force on the defensive line. In this final season he finished second in the league in Tackles for Loss, had a tackling success rate of 88.5 % and even two sacks. His presence will be sorely missed. Also retiring will be assistant coat Vaidotas Stankevicius, who has been in charge of the DL, as well as AC Bisujaksha Jana, who had been overseeing the development of the WR-corps.

Nonetheless: Especially on the defensive side above the ball the coming season will be a challenging one. Offensively the front office was able to keep together the dominant OL for another season, but there are retirements looming on various positions, too. The starting QB, our best TE, possibly 3 OL-players, maybe even our leading rusher… this coming season may be the last one in which the Offense of the SEA LIONS is able to compete at this level.

So we’ll try to make the best of it, no?

[Editorial note: As the beat writer for the HAMBURG SEA LIONS has been incredibly lazy these days due to „nothing really going on, no?“, we decided to let the fans have their voice and chime in through short messaging]

+ + + „Another season in the Elite: AWESOME! Congrats to the squad, keep up the good work. You rock!!!“ + + + „More difference makers to help Nico Stanzetti! We can’t rely on the old mans arm 2 much! Who knows how long he wants to play like that!!!“ + + + „Winning another World Bowl FC was cool, but we lost too much after that. Wished ‘twas the other way, some of these losses damn hurt :/„ + + + „Would have preferred if you’d kept Chad Cannon and sold Jeffe Micombero instead! Dude’s WAY to slow and has no hip movement anymore XoX“ + + + „2nd year on a row that the team couldn’t finish the season properly. It’s a shame! The OC should come up with something, do your job, man!“ + + + „IDK how people think this season SUCKED??? We still 1 of the best 16 teams in RZA, so chill, y’all *facepalm*“ + + +

The HAMBURG SEA LIONS are proud to announce the very first inductee to enter their Hall of Fame. He is one of the most valuable players that the SEA LIONS acquired early in the history of their franchise. And although he was almost 30 years old when he joined the team his impact can not be under appreciated, as he helped win the young franchise their very first league title in S52.

Welcome Enric Montserrat!

He was drafted in the second round of the S41 draft by the Mongolian Prairie Weasels 2 in the Galaxy league. As they were already a really good team he sat his first 5 seasons with only very limited participation in league games. He did gather experience on the highest level, though, as the Prairie Weasels won the Conference Championship twice and therefore were members of the Elite league in these seasons. But he had to wait until his 6th season to make his first rushing TD on league level. He had 3 overall that season, and again 3 in the following one. Then the manager of the now defunct Prairie Weasels decided to sell him, and so he landed with the HAMBURG SEA LIONS in the Admirals League in S49.

In his first season with the new team he rushed for over 1.000 Yards and scored 10 Touchdowns, more than he did with his former team in 8 season combined. He helped tremendously to establish the young franchise on D1 level, even to get to their first playoff appearance in just their third season. That season, S50, was another successful one for him personally with over 750 Rushing Yards and 8 TDs.

His numbers dropped in S51 due to the fact that the SEA LIONS had drafted and bought other RBs to help him carry the load since he did not get any younger at this point, being 32 years old already. So at the beginning of S52, just after the franchise had relocated to the Dragons league, he told the front office of the SEA LIONS that he would retire at the end of the season.

That did not stop him from turning in the third best season of his whole career, though. He scored 8 TDs in the league, one of which was the winning one in the Championship Game against the perineum bandits. He was awarded in this game with his third career MVP. In the ensuing Super Bowl game he was instrumental in getting the OT-win against the Alaskan Fur Trappers and was able to celebrate the first league title for the franchise with his teammates. Talk about ‚going out with a bang‘.

He may not have played very long for us, but his contributions are still felt today. So it was a no-brainer for us invite him to be our first Hall of Fame inductee, and we’re glad that he accepted.

For the second season in a row the HAMBURG SEA LIONS had faced the ALASKAN FUR TRAPPERS for the last league game of their season. And for the second time they were fortunate to beat them in that last league game. The difference to last season, though, was that this game had not the implications it had the last time. But we’ll get to that later.

The first foray of the SEA LIONS into the Elite of RZA started wondrous, with 4 consecutive wins at the highest level to start the season. There included were impressive wins against the San Diego Blitz and the conference championship participant Zombaes, with the latter clearly being caught on the wrong foot.

But then began the struggles that were anticipated, with 3 losses in a row. The SEA LIONS rebounded with 2 wins, but lost 5 more games over the remaining course of the season, which had them at a record of 8–8 in the end. 6 of those 8 losses were by a TD or less, with 3 being even by a FG. Those were especially hard to swallow, although they had them realizing that playing the Elite is a game of detail and experience.

That was apparent in the last two losses against the Deflators and the division opponent Chelt Nam Bobbers, where both games were lost because of in-game-decisions made by the OC that cost them the win and, overall, their chance for the playoffs. But they were lucky enough as the Fur Trappers were a bit more unfortunate in the last stretch of the season and had another season in the Elite secured at the second to last game day due to a loss by the Fur Trappers to the mystics. So they had no pressure entering the field for their last game of the season, where they not only won, but showed promise to the attending crowd to again give their best shot in the coming season.

In the regular interview that he gives at the end of each season Joe Chrill, Manager of the HAMBURG SEA LIONS, said: „We met our goals this season with securing another go at the highest level. And I think the fanbase, the team, the whole franchise can be very content with the accomplishments. We had highs and lows, started strong and lost some close ones. But us being one of only three surviving teams of those that were promoted speaks volumes about our work, and of course shows the high level at which is played in the Elite.“

In the offseason the top performers were given new contracts to avoid a drop off in combat strength, and obvious holes in the squad were filled with promising talent to make the team hopefully even stronger. Said Joe Chrill: „The team will continue to grow, as it has last season. Of course the main goal will again be to avoid relegation, which will be hard enough. But seeing the state of the squad it would not be too boisterous to aim at a spot in the Playoffs this time.“

It would be exciting, that’s for sure.