Although they failed to finish with a winning record for the first time in the CEFL, the Budapest Wolves also didn’t have a losing record. At 4-4, their season maybe seems poor compared to some of their previous years, but in reality, being forced to play in a group with two of the best teams in the league would’ve been hard on anybody. They were 0-4 against the two finalists, and 4-0 against everybody else.

“When the groups were set up last year, no one could foresee the problems the Gladiators or the Dukes were going to have. The top teams in each division looked strong on paper, so there was no way to predict that the league would be so unbalanced. We played the Blue Devils and the Vukovi twice each and failed to get the job done, so we really can’t take the attitude that things were unfair for us. However, at the end of the season, we did feel that we were maybe the 3rd best team in the league”, says Lee Hlavka, their longtime Head Coach, and by far the most experienced coach in the league.

Considering that in the end, the 4-4 score would’ve still been enough if they had played in the other group, they could have every right to feel this way. This year, other than being a new opportunity, is also one where the team should be on a level playing field. However, all is not perfect.

“I really don’t like it because of the small number of teams … In spite of this problem, I do like the idea of playing each team twice … The level of competition should be very good and that should make for a very compelling season.”

“We have most of our core players back from last year, but we are missing some important back-ups, and young players from past season. We have had a very difficult off-season. We have some serious financial problems and our junior team, along with some of our young players, and coaches defected with the hope of forming their own independent team … On the field our starts will be almost the same as last year and hopefully we should be able to improve our performance.”

The junior team problems are especially hard for a team like the Wolves, a team that relies almost exclusively on home grown players, or in special cases some foreign players, but even those are far from professionals that some of the other teams have.

“Coming from the US, I have a problem understanding the mindset of the people involved in making the decisions regarding these young players. I learned a long time ago about the importance of being loyal and the value of improving yourself through a higher level of competition … However, we do have four young players from the Wolves 2, who should get extensive playing time.”

“I think that if you eliminate all paid foreign – American or Canadian – players from all the teams, then we would be a contender every year. We have some Americans playing for us, but we did not recruit them and they do not get paid. Their level of experience, except Peterson, is limited to high school. We will never be in a position to pay players so it is something that we have to deal with.”