Fantasy Hockey

Da King · Post by **Da King** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 3:28 pm

Cross-posted here from Groucho at ICJ's request...

(And advance props to Jonsey and gsdgsd for already signing up... niiiiiiiiiiice)

Hey everyone...

For the last week or so, 6 of us have been test-driving a fantasy hockey
league (of sorts) at www.whatifsports.com <http://www.whatifsports.com> . In
a nutshell, you get $50 million to spend putting together a fantasy hockey
team, of any combination of players from any era. For example... you could
have a goalie from the 1920s, playing with Bobby Orr in front of him, and
Peter Forsberg up front. Admittedly, the 6 of us that played a 10-game
exhibition season are pretty much hooked (at least most of us are).

That being said, we want to play a full 82-game season (plus playoffs) with
a full 24-team league. I'm sending this email out to everyone who I think
might be interested in playing for just a $9.95 signup fee. I've got about
20 people or so on this invite. Feel free to forward on to any other fantasy
hockey leagues you might be a part of, or to any other friends who enjoy
hockey. I'm not holding spots for anyone... the first 24 to sign up are IN.
If we dont have a full league after 7 days, I believe it will open up the
league to outsiders until it fills up. So if you are interested, SIGN UP
SOON!

This thing gets very in-depth. You need good players on both offense and
defense, as well as solid goaltending, to be successful. You can spend $15M
on Gretzky or Orr in their primes if you want... but that one player will be
about 30% of your cap. Money management is key. As you play the season,
you'll have players get fatigued and need to sit for a game or two. You'll
have injuries. You'll have to waive high-priced guys to pick up a couple
lower-cost guys to field a healthy team. Trades are not only allowed, but
encouraged. You can set offensive schemes (which lines are aggressive, which
are conservative), defensive schemes (same as above), when to pull your
goalie if he's playing poorly, which players on the other team you want to
key on... etc etc. You dont NEED to set all these things, but it just adds
to the realism. The exhibition season that we played only had limited
functionality, and we were all hooked. I really think the "real" season will
be a blast.

If it ends up being REALLY successful, we can even do a 10-year franchise
league (with a player draft, free agency, etc).

Here is a link to the site to sign up. If you have any questions, feel free
to call or email me here or at work. I want to get this league full ASAP. It
really will be a great time.

http://www.whatifsports.com/x.asp?u=/nh ... 0.ptf=9.95
<http://www.whatifsports.com/x.asp?u=/nh ... f=9.95&r=3
88246> &r=388246

If this link doesn't work, go to www.whatifsports.com
<http://www.whatifsports.com> , and join an existing hockey league. The
league name is NHL9310.

Good luck everyone! And again, please forward on to ANYONE who you think may
be interested!!

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 1:58 pm

I played Steve for the first time this season. I win, I WIN, 5-0.

HOORAY!

AArdvark · Post by **AArdvark** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 2:31 pm

This IS like D&D hockey. Twenty sided NHL dice and all.

THE
MIKE BOSSEY
SCORED AN ORC
AARDVARK

gsdgsd · Post by **gsdgsd** » Mon Mar 14, 2005 7:58 am

I lost to Steve pretty much right off the bat. But since then, the Czech Mates have gelled as a team, aside from poor broken Vaclav Nedomansky.

I play Robb Wednesday, and am practicing all my "Slap Shot" quotes in preparation.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Fri Mar 18, 2005 4:55 pm

gsdgsd wrote:I play Robb Wednesday, and am practicing all my "Slap Shot" quotes in preparation.

I won this game 9-1, I should add.

However! I am like 5-10 on the season. I can't beat any of these other assholes. I hilariously lose the majority of my games by one goal.

Well, after 15 games of having my first and second line on "aggressive," it's time to scale things back. If I can prevent one more goal a game I think that I would be right back in the thick of things again.

Knuckles the CLown · Post by **Knuckles the CLown** » Fri Mar 18, 2005 7:42 pm

Fantasy sports with fake games. Why is reality so difficult for all of you? You people would turn down the holodex or whatever the fuck that thing on ST NExt Generation was called.
"Hey ICJ I got this computer that completley simulates life and you could play left wing for the flyers"
"NO THANKS I HAVE A SCENERIO THAT USES CRUDE STATITISTICS TO DETERMINE THE OUT COME OF FAKE GAMES"

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 1:06 am

Knuckles the CLown wrote:Fantasy sports with fake games. Why is reality so difficult for all of you?

Maintaining a checking account can sometimes be stressful. You should join a fantasy league that allows you to do one. You should join a fantasy league on Yahoo! that allows you to balance a checkbook, make a rent payment and purchase food other than Gerber's creamed banana formula. ROLL DIE TWENTY FOR STRAINED PEAS.

Greg · Post by **Greg** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 6:18 pm

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:I won this game 9-1, I should add.

I was without Vaclav Nedomansky. That cost me eight goals right there.

Da King · Post by **Da King** » Sun Mar 27, 2005 11:15 am

If Vaclav Nedomansky was out there on waivers right now, I would pick him up SOLELY for the purpose of playing him against you so you could taste his sweet medicine.

On a related note... I'm playing the Gridiron Dynasty on that site now too. I totally effed up the recruiting though. I'm effed this year.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Sun Mar 27, 2005 3:56 pm

In fairness I would like to say that Da King and Greg beat me the last time I played both of them. I am nowhere near a playoff spot.

gsdgsd · Post by **gsdgsd** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 11:18 am

I finally dropped the injured VN, and have pretty much been a .500 team since then. Of course, I was a .500 team before the move, too.

The Cancerpucks are about the only team I've been able to beat lately, and I didn't exactly avenge my 9-1 loss, so it was a phyrric victory.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 5:25 am

Note! I am now in the 8th seed in the east and currently IN the playoffs, if the season ended today.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 8:42 am

Well, it all comes down to this. Greg needs to win or tie to get the last playoff spot, and I need a win and a Czech Mates loss.

My guys played like complete kneebites down the stretch. I think I only won two games out of my last 15.

The thing that bugs me is that I got severely cheated out of points. The thing models some no-name maggot who shot a fluke 25% one year (Lou Franschetti or something) but I'm off by 30 points from what Recchi got and 10 from what LaFontaine got. Give me a break.

I don't know what the answer is, because things go all out of whack when shitty players aren't involved. The reason Barry Bonds hits 73 home runs is because he's not going up against Bob Gibson's 1.12 ERA every other game. But still. I got fucked. Greg's gimmick team is doing better than me. A DAMNED GIMMICK! I hope he knocks the shit out of the #1 seed though. The only way I can possibly see to do it with the team he'll be going up against -- the "Artist Formerly Known as Wegmans Puke" (???) -- is to use the fact that exhaused guys seem to recover in one day. Take your best players and double-shift them. Play 'em everywhere. Try to get them a half hour on the ice a piece. Yes, you'll be fucked for the next game, but odds are the #1 seed was going to win it anyway. I dunno. I think I'd like to do another league, but I'm not sure what I should have learned about the experience, other than there are some sim-breaking players.

Casual Observer · Post by **Casual Observer** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 9:07 am

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:The reason Barry Bonds hits 73 home runs is because he's not going up against Bob Gibson's 1.12 ERA every other game.

No, he hits those home runs because of his steroids.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 11:32 am

Son of a bitch. I triple shifted my best players and still couldn't beat a garbage team (no offense if he's out there) to win to put my guys in a spot to get into the playoffs. Boy did my guys suck down the stretch.

Greg won, however, and I really hope he wins his round.

I saw something in the rules that said that the five best teams get more "player units" for upcoming seasons. That, to me, is the DUMBEST THING I've ever heard. There are some guys who have figured out fake hockey and that's fine. Knowledge is always fine. But the thought of then going up against a guy with $5 mill more to spend on players than me -- no fucking way. You all know my take on salary caps, so I don't need to go into it, but if guys aren't playing with the same amount of money I'd never bother doing whatifsports.com again.

gsdgsd · Post by **gsdgsd** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 1:29 pm

Ah, the Czech Mates may be a gimmick, but only in the sense that the Czech Olympic team is. Them Czechs are good. A team composed entirely of Mexican players would be less fruitful.

I'm really not sure how I got in. I certainly backed in-- my team's sucked lately. But hey.

Posted it on the board but in case it slips by... I'm definitely up for another league, but I'll be out of the country most of the next month. So I guess it depends when the next one is running.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 1:44 pm

gsdgsd wrote:Ah, the Czech Mates may be a gimmick, but only in the sense that the Czech Olympic team is. Them Czechs are good. A team composed entirely of Mexican players would be less fruitful. I'm really not sure how I got in. I certainly backed in-- my team's sucked lately. But hey.

Yes, by "gimmick" I meant that you put a restriction on yourself and still made it to the playoffs. I had no such restriction, the whole of NHL players to pick from... and that didn't work out for me at all. You would think, all things being equal, that if you had one guy choosing from everyone and one guy choosing from SubSet X, that... well, you know where this is going. I am terrible at hockey. As is my way, I would like to blame everything but myself for my failures.

(But seriously, Recchi was down 30 points from where he should be. I guess I don't care about the assists too much, but when Recchi, LaFontaine and LeClair all don't have enough goals and assists, plus they were playing together, well, I think that's a problem with the sim. None of them missed a game in real life so they had stamina, but if I did more than play them one line and one power play line they'd start to fatigue.)

If I had to do it again I would value goals more rather than points. I'd also get a better backup goalie from the start... I dunno, it seemed like my team would always let in 4 goals and usually score only 2 or 3. This went on and on. It was very rare that I blew someone out or got blown out.

I'm wondering if I didn't spend enough for fourth liners. I had my top line at about +13 and my fourth line at about -23. The frustrating thing is not having a resource to talk about why things happened the way they did, except for this thread I guess HEH.