Hey, a fellow James is helping me out, nice!:)
Thanks for the response James, and I get where you are coming from. Despite reading up on Google's algo, and being familiar with the concept of google discerning topic and not keyword(s), it can be tough to get out the superficially easier mindset of focussing on keywords!
Based on your response, and supplementary reading, it looks like an article for the 'Capitals and the Tampa Bay Lighting' this year, and a new one if/when they play again next year is the best approach. I like your focus on the user, more important than Google, they may gain context/insight from article 1 even after the fact, and also, two articles give two opportunities to (hopefully) impress on google's algo that I am worthy of ranking.
My additional reading also gave me some insight as to how google is becoming far more context aware. If someone searches on that topic this time next year, and google has spidered both my articles, I suspect its context engine would be clever enough to serve the more recent content, assuming that is what the searcher is after.
I suppose the only things I need to watch out for is to put some seasonal context in my URL structure, and to tell Yoast to be quiet if it complains about keywords already being used when I create article 2 on the same topic:)
Again, I appreciate the advice James, as you say, my next move is not a black or white situation, there are subject nuances so I'll keep this open to see if I've missed anything supplementary.....
