Saturday's win over Cardiff, securing our play-off place, felt like a real landmark in Wednesday's recent history. Attempting to predict the outcome of the play-offs, incessantly dubbed 'a lottery', is basically pointless, save to say a couple of excellent performances over Derby and Cardiff have put us in a strong position. So what can we expect next season, whether it's off the back of a Wembley victory or not?
The Premier League
If the dream comes true and we make it back after a 16-year absence, you can be sure that the pain of the near two decade absence will be enough to spur on a fight to stay up. I've lost count of the number of times well-meaning neutrals have told me the Owls 'should' be in the top tier or are a 'sleeping giant' since the Millennium. Owner and tuna king Dejphon Chansiri and manager Carlos Carvalhal have talked a great game - i.e. promotion this season would be a bonus, the target was always next year. But, Leicester City excepted, long-term goals from football club owners ("we'll be in Europe in four years!") are rarely worth anything. Not least as managers aren't given more than 12 games if results start to turn sour.
So expect instant spending on deepening the squad, improvements to the ground (how long does it feel since the Great Scoreboard Investment debate?), in a year in which the Hillsborough disaster is again under the microscope, and more commercial deals. Will Chansiri attempt to further boost Wednesday's profile in Asia using his own business links? Moreover, after the bad blood at the start of the season over ticket prices, can we expect matchday admission prices to shoot up? The chance to offer top dollar for the visits of the Manchester clubs, Arsenal and even the Foxes will surely be too much to resist.
Unlike Southampton and Coventry, we hadn't spent years beating the drop by the skin of our teeth. Just two years prior to relegation, a Carbone and Di Canio inspired side ended 7th in the league. If the Owls return to the big time, it will not be with the Big Gun status with which we left it. That said, a team containing Bannan, Lee and Forestieri are unlikely to start hoofing it and could play some attractive top-flight football. Emulating Bournemouth, Swansea and Watford is the goal.
The Championship
And so to the less appealing. Conventional wisdom would assume that, with Carlos' new contract signed and talk of promotion really being the target next season, we will build on this season, and potentially target automatic promotion. The top six finish and the feel good factor around the club should be enough to hang on to our most talented assets - Forestieri, Hooper, Westwood, Bannan - even if a lower-end Premier League team came calling, you'd hope. In recent years a cluster of sides including Watford, Derby and Middlesborough have bounced back from playoffs defeats to put in strong follow-up seasons.
In the unlikely event of an implosion, or even a distinctly average season, Chansiri's next move will be fascinating. New to football ownership, how important is it that the memorabilia-wearing businessman's South Yorkshire asset shows instant progress? On the plus side, potential matches with Aston Villa, Sunderland and Newcastle United (and perhaps even locals Bradford or Barnsley) could provide some blockbuster crowds in S6 while the Blades continue to languish, failing to provide Steel City derbies.
The squad
The implications for every squad member of the next, potentially, three matches of their career are too multitudinous to go into. But there are some intriguing prospects. Given a full season, especially if we remain in the Championship, Marco Matias' latent attacking talent, especially combining with a maturing Lucas Joao, would be great to see. Meanwhile, a run in a Premier League team for the injury-prone and oft-suspended Sam Hutchinson would be great to see. His classy passing and assured style could be a real benefit if we're to do more than just scrap it out.
The club
For the club and community as a whole, promotion would be massive. The spiralling debts and ill feeling of the post relegation years were symptomatic of a team which didn't expect demotion.
Unlike Southampton and Coventry, we hadn't spent years beating the drop by the skin of our teeth. Just two years prior to relegation, a Carbone and Di Canio inspired side ended 7th in the league. If the Owls return to the big time, it will not be with the Big Gun status with which we left it. That said, a team containing Bannan, Lee and Forestieri are unlikely to start hoofing it and could play some attractive top-flight football. Emulating Bournemouth, Swansea and Watford is the goal.
No one wants to pay more for something than they have to, but a sense of value for money is paramount. It is a lack of this sense that enabled new Sheffield Wednesday owner Dejphon Chansiri to hike home matchday ticket prices - using a plethora of inexplicable categories for games - to as much as £52.
The anger at the sudden decision has enraged Owls fans and supporters organisations. The general feeling has been that this is an obscene amount to pay to watch second division football at Hillsborough which, last season in particular, has not exactly been home to spectacular top dollar football of late. It is unreasonable to expect a family to pay this (not least as the old ground hasn't exactly got great family facilities) when people are still struggling to find work in South Yorkshire and the next generation of kids who want to go may be deprived of the experience. What's more, the timing of the decision, after all the cheap early bird season tickets have finished sale, meant those on those on the fence about renewing or buying a season ticket who didn't have been heavily stung if they want to visit Hillsborough a bunch of times this season.
As an ardent fan proud that we were amongst the cheapest teams to go and see in the league it has been a painful turn of events.
To put the decision into context, Chansiri bought the club in January, taking over from Milan Mandaric - widely seen to have saved the club and who was even granted a 'Thank you Milan Day', unusual among chairmen. But, as Mandaric agreed to stay on to advise, we must assume he had some say in the ticket pricing decision. Chansiri, who has been popular with Owls fans, keen to see the seafood magnate spend big to achieve his much stated goal of reaching the Premier League.
"Chansiri has approached his reign like a Prime Minister's - charm on arrival before dropping bombshells"
In a delayed letter explaining the ticket price hike, he used funding transfers (the only language that gets fans on side, we hardly want to hear the ticket cash is being spent on plush back room facilities) as a justification. It's pathetically transparent behaviour: bang on about attacking football, which of course everyone wants to see (but can be difficult in a tight division led by a new manager inexperienced in English football) and then demand the fans pay for it.
But is this really fair? In the Premier League, ticket income vastly lags TV rights and advertising revenues to fund multi-million pound transfers. With reduced access to that in the Championship, Chansiri has clearly decided the fans, rather than canny deals brokered by his business, will fund his ambitions. It appears he has approached his reign like a Prime Minister's parliamentary term - charm on arrival and shortly afterwards before dropping the bombshells, knowing you've bought yourself some time before the masses can really turn on you.
In response to the price hike - to £39, Bristol City fans have understandably decided to boycott the season opener at Hillsborough on August 8. We've seen a propensity, particularly at Premier League level, for teams to raise away prices against those who overcharge their fans and the temptation with a well supported club like Wednesday will doubtless be they will see the blue and white pound and do just that.
But I think this may be what it takes. As an exiled Owl in London, I go to plenty of games in the south and am always proud to stand amongst a heaving WAWAW faithful. If this number starts thinning out, the supporter numbers are held up against previous years and - after a few seasons of inflated revenge pricing - we become a less lucrative club to host, then Chansiri may be shamed into cutting prices. Empty seats at Hillsborough is one thing, but a true protest needs to reverberate far wider.
Although his background is very much not a footballing one, the more the new Owls owner becomes embedded in the flash, trophy asset world of football club ownership, the more his reputation will play a part. If this is as someone charging Premier League prices to see sub-par football, this may just force his hand.
On the pitch
There's been few seasons which have not ended in shredded nerves over the last decade, but this was one such. In fact, not since the 2007-08 Championship campaign have the Owls truly not challenged for promotion or fought to stave off relegation in the closing weeks. However, head coach Stuart Gray will be pleased to have seemingly consolidated the Owls' position in the second tier and shown signs they can challenge wealthier rivals, albeit falling away after early promise amongst the play-off contenders. This season's iteration of the Blue and White Wizards have been far more defensively resolute than previous incarnations, thanks largely to super-keeper Keiren Westwood and it will be intriguing to see if Gray continues to focus on a mean defence (the Owls finished 13th with -6 goal difference, above Forest who had +2).
The owner
Sheffield expects. When Dejphon Chansiri bought the club in January, the expectation that the Thai seafood tycoon, inspired to take an interest in football by his son, would splash the cash was clear. With the first full transfer window under his stewardship opening in July, the trio at the top of the club - Gray and new recruits and Glenn Roeder and Adam Pearson - will be looking to strengthen. A relatively light-weight midfield and an inconsistent attack will doubtless be at the top of their list of problems. For Chansiri, this will be the first test of how willing he is to put money where his mouth is to achieve his bold target of bringing Premier League football back to S6 by 2017.
The manager
A mid-season fan campaign to force Stuart Gray out of a job after a cluster of lacklustre performances, not least at home, could easily have succeeded. With a new owner in, the man in the blue sportswear looked fairly likely to be shown the door. However, with Roeder and Pearson alongside him, there appears to be a recognition that Gray is a good man manager and a move to a more collegiate recruitment approach - with Chansiri's cash behind them - could well prove a canny move. I have my doubts about Roeder, given his patchy management record, but contacts in the upper echelons of the game are vital for Championship teams to nab nifty loan deals.
The players
Gray would have hoped to have named a more settled team through the season than he was able to. A combination of injury and form meant chopping and changing was the order of the season. A strong defence has been undermined by a midfield - with the exception of fan favourite Keiran Lee - that has lacked resolved, whether from the inconsistent Lewis McGugan or Jacques Maghoma, who needs to rediscover his finishing after bagging 26 goals in his four-year stint at Burton Albion. Up top, Stevie May has failed to delight. His record in Scotland made him an attractive signing, and his industry is an asset, but what looked at first like bad luck has spiralled into a host of missed chances. The £800,000 signing needs to be replaced with proven Championship quality. Alongside him Atdhe Nuhiu has probably done enough - not least through his dramatic party-pooping equaliser at Watford - to retain a starting position, although his lack of pace is a continual frustration and leaves Wednesday lacking when compared to the strike forces of Blackburn, Ipswich and Brentford this season.
Player of the season
No contest. Westwood's form - which landed him in the Championship Team of the Year - will doubtless have caught the eye of bigger fish. If the Owls can hang on to the Irishman, and keep Chris Kirkland happy as understudy, then the defensive solidity his wonder stops have provided will prove the bedrock for development. The magnitude of those saves - worth around 15 points no doubt - cannot be underestimated.
Moment of the season
The turnaround at Rotherham, in which Wednesday turned a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 win with the help of Lee, ranks among the great last gasp wins thanks to an enormous seven minutes injury time. Nuhiu's sharp finish at the Etihad in the FA Cup defeat to Manchester City comes a close second.
New teams in prospect
With a new season, will come some interesting away games. Sunderland or Aston Villa could potentially fall out of the Premier League, so a trip to the Stadium of Light or Villa Park could provide tasty fixtures, as well as QPR and Burnley who could make swift returns to the division. At the other end, a return to Bristol City's Ashton Gate will provide Owls fans with happy memories of numerous victories although MK Dons' soulless Stadium MK is a less appealing prospect. Naturally, the Blades play-off challenge will be watched keenly by their neighbours and a Steel City derby for the first time since 2011-12 could be on the cards.
So expect instant spending on deepening the squad, improvements to the ground (how long does it feel since the Great Scoreboard Investment debate?), in a year in which the Hillsborough disaster is again under the microscope, and more commercial deals. Will Chansiri attempt to further boost Wednesday's profile in Asia using his own business links? Moreover, after the bad blood at the start of the season over ticket prices, can we expect matchday admission prices to shoot up? The chance to offer top dollar for the visits of the Manchester clubs, Arsenal and even the Foxes will surely be too much to resist. 
