2005-06 Fantasy Hockey League

Anyone intereseted in joining a Fantasy Hockey League.

I've set one up over in Yahoo Fantasy Hockey.

It is set up the following way :

Automated Draft . ( Being that so many players are now gone, and there was no season last year to base stats on, I figure that an automated draft where you can pre-set your picks if you want will work better and take less of everyones time).


League Name: GangsterBBFHL

Draft Type: Autopick Draft

Max Teams: 12

Scoring Type: Head-to-Head

Max Moves: No maximum

Max Trades: No maximum

Trade Reject Time: 2

Trade End Date: March 9, 2006

Waiver Time: 2 days

Can't Cut List Provider: Yahoo! Sports

Trade Review: League Votes

Min Games Played: 3

Weekly Deadline: Daily - Tomorrow

Start Scoring on: Week 1

Roster Positions: C, C, LW, LW, RW, RW, D, D, D, D, G, G, BN, BN, BN, BN, IR

Stat Categories for Players: Goals, Assists, +/-, Penalty Minutes, Power Play Goals, Game Winning Goals.

Stat Category For Goalies : Wins, Goals Against Average, Save%, Shut Outs.

If anyone is seriously interested in joining the league, PM me YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS and I will send you the password and an INVITE with a direct link to the site.


Don Cardi

(Edited to add blue arrow)

Automated drafts aren't good, IMO.

If I already have a goalie and need a center, and my turn comes and the next available player on my list is another goalie, I'm stuck with that, even though if the draft wasn't automated I could have picked the center I need.

You can rank your players, but depending on what you need and who is available, you may not want to follow your rankings.

Or am I misunderstanding the way an automated draft works?

We just did the Yahoo football draft with 14 teams drafting 16 player each (224 total) and it only took about 2 hours.

Can I have all left wingers? I don't want any right wingers on my team.

(I assume you knew that was coming)

Troublemaker.

I understand what you are saying. But let's remember that there was no hockey all of last year, many of the players who've lost a season have either gone on to retire or went to leagues in Europe, and there is a new influx of young unproven players that many of us do not really know about. Hockey is probably a tough sport to draft normally. And add in these factors that I just mentioned, and it's that much tougher. Because of this a draft may take too long because most will not be familiar with the new players.

Anyway I've set up the league where you have UNLIMITED free waiver moves/pickups, and unlimited trading.

It makes for a more interesting way to build your team.

Troublemaker. Don't start debating me in here, or we're gonna go to war! j/k.

Just frigin join up and take the hand that you are dealt. :p


Don Cardi

Then you'll have to call your team "The Lefties."

Oh, btw, in this league we say the pledge everyday. And to be a member, you must include "One Nation Under God." :p


Don Cardi

Sorry, but I'm not much of a hockey fan...

Why should that stop you?

Update on Fantasy Hockey.

If you are interested in Playing in this league. Then PM me your E-mail address so that I can send you an invite from within the site, which should make it much easier for you to sign up.


Don Cardi

Do you know whether or not if in an auto-draft you can change the order or rankings of your players as the draft progresses?

No. You can Pre-set your rankings and put the players/postions in the order that you want them drafted. But I believe that once the draft starts, you cannot change what you have already set.


Don Cardi

I dunno, then.....While it's true what you say about being out of touch with hockey for more than a year, if it's the same as football then Yahoo ranks the players by position, so even if I have no idea who to pick I can still use the Yahoo ratings.

Two years go in Yahoo football I got really screwed when my computer crashed during the draft.

I had picked Dante Culpepper first, and when my turn came in the second round, the next highest player who was available based on my pre-draft rankings and, therefore, who Yahoo picked for me, was Michael Vick.

So I wound up with a backup QB before I had picked a RB or WR, even though there were plenty of good ones available.

If someone is capable of pre-ranking their players for an auto-draft, they're capable of making their own selections in a regular draft. If they don't know enough to do that, they probably shouldn't be playing on the first place.

Hockey is a very strange sport. The few serious fans of the game are very dedicated.

The draft is key element in forming your team, and a lot of fun besides. I think that anyone here who is interested enough to play is gonna agree with me about not having an auto-draft.

Not looking to make trouble with the commish before the league even starts.....just my .02

Well to be perfectly honest with you Plaw, I just do NOT have the time to sit down for 2 hours straight and live draft a fantasy sports team.

Whatever hand I get dealt in an automated draft is fine. Because if I am not happy with what I get, I'll just build through waivers and trades. That's the fun of a fantasy league to me.

You don't have to join if your not comfortable with the auto draft. Although I'd like you to play.


Don Cardi

Sorry guys... Not a big hockey fan.

Sorry DC, I am not into hockey at all.


DS

This may be a very small league.

I'll join, Don Cardi. Sending the PM asap.

BTW - we need a live draft, I hate autodrafts.

If We do not get 12 players by the end of next week, then I'll just have to delete the whole league.


Don Cardi

Why do we need 12 players?

I believe that is a requirement by the site. I know in my Fantasy FB league over at NFL.com, if a league did not get 12 players, it was deleted.

I'll have to look into that in the rules of the site that hosts the league.


Don Cardi

I just researched the rules of this league. Being a head to head league, we need a minimum of 4 teams and the number of teams MUST be an EVEN number, so as we can play an equal amount of head to head games.

Have you signed up yet Plaw? Didn't see your name there yet.


Don Cardi

Get your asses in the game.

Is anyone interested in Hockey? You can watch them this year on the Outdoor Channel. Don't they play Hockey Indoors?

Is anyone interested in Hockey? You can watch them this year on the Outdoor Channel. Don't they play Hockey Indoors? [/b][/quote]I'll take that as a no.

Seriously though, have you ever been to a live NHL game?


Don Cardi

Yes. I went to Rangers game once. I had good seats; about 5 rows off the ice. In front of us was a father and his young son. In front of them was a Ranger fanatic who constantly stood up and yelled stuff like, "You're a fucking asshole scumbag shithead" or " you couldn't ref you're way out of a fishes asshole." The hockey action was great though. A year ago I went to see the Wilkes Barre Penguins (Pittsburgh's AAA). Great action. I went to college at Oswego NY. They played in a tough division. Great action. Not a TV sport though.

I went to a fight once, and a hockey game broke out.

(I know, an old one. Sorry. But when you ask someone if they've ever been to a hockey game, you gotta expect someone to trot that joke out.)

Just sent you a PM Don Cardi.

I've got two people ready to join if we can have a live-draft!

I'm telling you, DC, anybody that wants to autodraft can pre-pick, while the rest of us can sit at the live draft.

We have 6 teams in the league. We are supposed to have 12. I am giving it until this Sunday to fill up the league. If not the league will unfortunately be dissolved.

Yours Truly,
Gary Bettman


Don Cardi

only 6 of 12, eh? That doesn't look too promising.
Oh well...don't worry, I would have kicked your asses in the pool anyway! :p

And don't mention Gary Bettman's name again! I cringe whenever i hear, or read it.

GO LEAFS GO

As you discovered already (above), the MAX is 12 -- the MIN is 4, and, it needs to be an even number. So, 6 meets those qualifications.

I will sign up I thought it was later, didn't realize hockey started (yeah I'll do good in this league) lol

Geoff is correct, as usual. I went back and read the requirements and we are ok. In my fantasy football league, you need ALL 12 to start a league, so I assumed that it was the same in Hockey. We all know what happens when you ASSume. Now if DMC signs up, and Plaw, we'll have 8 teams. Thanks Don Malta.

Don Cardi

I'm in.

Plaw's Left Wingers.

I'm in as well, my team name is DMC but maybe I should change it to GWB.....

that way the left wingers have someone to blame when they do bad :p :p


(that joke would have been better and made more sense if it was Pat or DonT rather than Plaw )

When will our draft (hopefully live) be?

No politics allowed in fantasy sports.

My team name has no poltical connotation whatsoever. :rolleyes:

I simply consider left wing to be the most important position on a hockey team.

Draft was yesterday and everyone has their teams in place.

There are a lot of good players still left on the waiver list.


Don Cardi

Wow. It doesn't look like many people changed their default rankings.

I think that most did not change their default rankings because like myself, many just did not have a clue as to who are the good players and who are not this year. More than a year away from the game changes a lot of things. However they have to go to the waiver wire. There are really a lot of good players out there.
Some good teams can be built from that waiver list.


Don Cardi

It should be interesting. I'm building my team around S. Crosby.

I would have ranked my players if I knew when the draft was.

Also, looking over the teams and trying to reconstruct the draft (strangely, there's no link for draft results like we have in football), there are a few things that don't make sense.

Two examples (there are many):

The guy who had the 3rd pick (Five for Fighting) should have also had the 14th pick, but his second-highest rated player is 25th and his 3rd highest is 37th.

Meanwhile, Ray Dunlop wound up with the 2nd pick, and then wound up with the 13th and 14th highest rated players as well.

Doesn't make sense to me.

Also, Could we have the identities of all the players?

I can figure out who DMC, JJ, and JL is, but not the others.

PL, I think you're assuming that we got our players using the default rankings. There is no chance I would have would up with Iginla, Crosby, and Jagr using the default rankings. I had re-rated my top 30 or so picks.

I was assuming that no one had ranked their players, and that whoever we wound up with was based on the Yahoo rankings.

So you ranked your players, then?

Actually Plaw, I think that you wound up with a pretty good team.

C J. Sakic (Col - C) 33 54 11 42 13 3
C P. DatsyukNA (Det - C) 30 38 -2 35 8 4
LW R. Smyth (Edm - LW) 23 36 11 70 8 6
LW J. LeClair (Pit - LW) 23 32 20 51 8 4
RW M. Hossa (Atl - RW) 36 46 4 46 14 5
RW B. Guerin (Dal - RW) 34 35 14 109 9 10
D S. Gonchar (Pit - D) 11 47 -14 56 6 0
D D. Boyle (TB - D) 9 30 23 60 3 2
D S. Zubov (Dal - D) 7 35 0 20 4 1
D J. Pitkanen (Phi - D) 8 19 15 44 5 2
BN S. Gomez (NJ - C) 14 56 18 70 3 1
BN P. Bondra (Atl - RW) 26 23 -16 38 14 5
BN O. Kvasha (NYI - LW) 15 36 4 48 5 3

G A. Raycroft (Bos - G) 29 2.05 .926 3
G S. Burke (TB - G) 16 2.72 .909 2
BN J. Giguere (Anh - G) 17 2.62 .914 3

Don Cardi

Hey, this thing is for fun and for free. Is there any need to scrutinize and pick apart every fault of how yahoo structured this thing? C'mon, just go and pick up some free agents and have some fun.


Don Cardi

Yes, I ranked my players. I would have never gotten my team with the default rankings. That's how I managed to snag Crosby (rookie) and Heatley (injury in 03). I did mess up a little with goaltending, but other than the top 3 or 4 goaltenders, it's tough to tell who'll be starting for each team right now.

Osgood not too shabby. 31 WINS with a 2.24 GGA

Don Cardi

Did I complain about my team?

(Altho in a league with 8 participants and at least 30 starters at every position, no one should have a bad team.)

That's great, if he starts. It looks like Legace could be the starter, or at the least splitting time with Osgood though.

The biggest problem I had with the default rankings was that some of the older players on the downside in 03 where rated higher than young players on the upside.

Yes Lou, I noticed that also, and it bothered me. That is why, IMO, this season, everyone basically is taking a "shot" playerwise. Many of the stars have reached the 40 year old plataeu and are on the down size of their careers. And it is hard to judge the new young guys because we were afforded that opportunity to see these kids at the end of last season, etc., because there was no last season.

That is why my approach to Fantasy Hockey this year was to just take the cards dealt to me and have fun with it.


Don Cardi

No, I didn't say that you complained. I was just surprised myself when I learned that you did not pre-set your rankings and still wound up with the team that you did.
So I was saying that for someone that did not pre-set his rankings, you wound up pretty good.

So stop being so crabby and sensative. :p


Don Cardi

I didn't even know the draft happened (hence my earlier post about the "live" draft)...

Holy shit! My team kicks ass! Martin St. Louis, last years (seasons) MVP?!? Nikolai Khabibulin, arguably the *best* active goalie in the league right now?

Fuck yes, go autodraft!

I'd argue that. Right now, IMO he's not even in the top 5 anymore.

I'd rank them this way:
1)Brodeur
2)Turco
3)Luongo
4)Aebischer
5)Nabokov
6)Kiprusoff
7)Theodore
8)Roloson
9)Khabibulin
10)Esche

hey guys,

I just entered my name, didnt rank my players, and used the auto draft. All things considered, my team isn't that bad, but isn't half as good if I would have put some damn effort into this!

Anyway, good luck to all!! This should be fun to watch.

Paul,
Maple Leafs,
REG DUNLOP (Main character (Paul Newman) from Slap Shot)

Just a reminder that the season starts this week. So get your starting lineups in and propose your trades.


Don Cardi

This should be a new experience for me as I've never participated in fantasy hockey. I'm not real sure how this is going to end up. I might have 5 players playing on any given day while my opponent might only have 2 on that same day.

Oh well it's free and should be a lot of fun since I love hockey. Now I just need to call my cable company to order NHL Center Ice.


I can't complain about my team I noticed I do have Mario Lemieux. I'll admit he's one of the greatest hockey players ever. I just can't stand the team he plays for.


To end this I wish to add.


Go Dallas Stars!

Don't forget to set your starting lineups.

This week's matchups :

The Broadway Blues vs. Five For Fighting
Buffalo Chill vs. DMC
The Ice Picks vs. Reg Dunlop
Staten Island Rockets vs. Plaw's Left Wingers

Good luck to all!


Don Cardi

League Opens Tonight!


Don Cardi

GangsterBBFHL Standings after Week 1 :


1 The Ice picks 8-1-1
2 Staten Isle Rockets 5-4-1
3 Buffalo Chill 5-4-1
4 fiveforfighting 5-4-1
5 The Broadway Blues 4-5-1
6 Plaw's Left Wingers 4-5-1
7 DMC 4-5-1
8 Reg Dunlop 1-8-1


Don Cardi

My God, I got smacked!!

I am going to the Leafs/Flyers game tonight...GO LEAFS GO!!

I guess Don Cardi and I are the only ones playing this game.
Everyone else has most of day's players sitting on the bench.
:rolleyes:

I've been pretty good at keeping track of who's playing at not playing and moving them around. Although that came back to bite me in the a** I was tied with DMC then I activated David Aebischer(sp?) as my 2 other goalies had off. So what happens when I check back the next day I was behind DMC haven't caught up yet. I just checked I'm down 7-0. Colorado's goalie has been f***ing me this whole week.

Oh well on a side note my Dallas Stars are 4-1.

Question.....

I couldn't seem to find the answer in the "League Settings".......

Is there a maximum number of games at each position?

There doesn't appear to be a limit on games played. Don Cardi should know for sure. He set it up. Also, the rules state we should be able to put someone on IR, but we can't as far as I can tell. I already had 2 goaltenders go on IR.

Your commish needs to do a better job with the standings -- like, showing who's who... Aren't you Ass Commish, Plaw?

Me? No

I'm barely even playing :rolleyes:

Actually I posted the first weeks standings last week. And I was about to post the results of the second weeks standings. As for the IR option, well I am going crazy trying to locate it myself. It does state that a player can be put on IR, but I cannot find anything remotely close to an IR list on this site! So far it looks as though Yahoo is horrible for Fantasy Hockey.

As for games played by a player it seems that there is a minimum requirement for the stats of the palyer to count, not a maximum. Here is a list of the league settings :
Scoring Type: Head-to-Head

Max Moves: No maximum

Max Trades: No maximum

Trade Reject Time: 2

Trade End Date: March 9, 2006

Waiver Time: 2 days

Can't Cut List Provider: Yahoo! Sports

Trade Review: Commissioner

Post Draft Players: Follow Waiver Rules

Min Games Played: 3

Weekly Deadline: Daily - Tomorrow

Start Scoring on: Week 1


Roster Positions: C, C, LW, LW, RW, RW, D, D, D, D, G, G, BN, BN, BN, BN, IR

Stat Categories: G, A, +/-, PIM, PPG, GWG, W, GAA, SV%, SHO


As you can see I set it up with an IR slot. But I can't find that IR slot under my roster.


Don Cardi

Hey DC -

When you post the standings, could you do it by member name (initials are fine, like Plaw and I do it), so those not playing know who's who?

I wanna see who's stinking up the place! lol

LEAGUE SET-UP

Goaltender Appearances

Note:
Each week, your goaltenders must reach the minimum of 3 appearances. If you fail to reach this mark, you will lose all of your goaltending games for that week.

This section will show you an updated total each morning. The numbers will appear red until you have reached the requirement.

In a Head-to-Head League, your team will square off in a weekly matchup against another manager's to see who can compile the best stats across a number of different categories.
A new weekly matchup begins every Monday and will consist of a set number of games based on your league's statistical categories. Each stat category counts as one game, with the win going to the team that finishes the week with the highest total in that category (the cumulative total after each Sunday's games).

So, if in a given week, your team scores more goals than your opponent's, you would be credited with a victory. However, if your opponent's team ended the week with a better save percentage than your team, you would be charged with a loss. If the two teams end up tied in a given category, each will receive credit for a tied game.

This weekly win-loss total will be added to a cumulative season record where each win counts for two points, each tie counts for one and each loss counts for none. The total of these points will be used to determine standings and playoff seedings.


Don Cardi

Look who's talking.

The Hockey Wuss.

Hockey sucks. I just wanna see who I know sucks at fantasy hockey... lol

Ok, I'm working on it right now. But only if you make this topic a sticky so I don't have to search for it everytime I want to post something.

BTW : Weren't you the one who declined my invitation to play?


Don Cardi

League Standings As Of Monday October 16th 2005


1 DMC 12-6-2 DonMichaelCorleone
2 fiveforfighting 11-7-2 Just Lou
3 Buffalo Chill 11-7-2 DoubleJ
4 Staten Isle Rockets 8-7-5 Don Pelosi
5 The Ice picks 9-9-2 Ice Man
6 Plaw's Left Wingers 7-11-2 Plawrence
7 The Broadway Blues 7-11-2 Don Cardi
8 Reg Dunlop 4-11-5 Maple Leafs


This Weeks Schedule:

The Broadway Blues vs The Ice picks

fiveforfighting vs Buffalo Chill

Staten Isle Rockets vs DMC

Reg Dunlop vs Plaw's Left Wingers



When they signed up, they never actually told me what there board names were. So fellas, please correct me if I've given the wrong names to the wrong teams.

BTW, the league settings show that I set it up with an IR slot. But I don't see an IR slot on anyones team list!


Don Cardi

I see... so you and Plaw suck, and DMC and "The Master of All Fantasy Sports" (JL) rule! :p

If you want to find your thread easier, then go back to the original post and change the Message Icon to something unique, like maybe " " or something...

Ok, will do.

Oh, and it's only the second week of the season. Plenty of time my friend, plenty of time.

BTW I am 6 and O in one of my fantasy football leagues, and 4 and 2 in another.


Don Cardi

Which is the league that you invited DM and DS to play in, but not JG or myself? :p

Oh, wait. Maybe you invited JG and he declined.

Hi everyone, I'm new to the boards. I am currently playing fantasy Hockey with some of you guys. My team is the Staten Island Rockets.

Which is the league that you invited DM and DS to play in, but not JG or myself? :p

Oh, wait. Maybe you invited JG and he declined. [/b][/quote]Actually Mr. Plaw, I did invite you and Geoff. You never answered my e-mail invitation, and at least Geoff had the decency to tell me that he was already in too many leagues, but would play if I couldn't fill the league. He answered. you didn't bother!

I did send you an invite Plaw, but you never replied.


Don Cardi

You'll play, and you'll like it.

As the person on top of the leaderboard I think it is my duty to say welcome Don Pelosi

Don't let my grand knowledge of fantasy hockey intimidate you in anyway, heck I didn't think I was going to be in first after this week. But after my center scored a touchdown with 2 outs in the 4th quarter, here I am

Not to mention that I had to PM him and ask him why he had injured players starting in his lineup! :rolleyes:


You guys do realize that you can preset your lineup for everyday of the week. Just click on the dates above your team lineup. Mon/Tues/Wed/Thurs/Fri/Sat/Sun

Each day will show you which of your players teams have a game for that specific day.


Don Cardi

A little warning. If you set your lineup in advance, then make a roster move, it changes your lineup back to before you made the lineup changes. Why? I don't know, but it just does. At least it does if you make the moves and changes on the same day.

Thanks for adding that Just Lou.

Don Cardi

I noticed this last night. I set my lineup for the week, and then picked up Staal on waivers. My lineup went back to the way it was before the changes. Then I picked up David Aebischer on a waiver claim this morning, and again I had many players on the bench for the rest of the week.

BTW, I see you jumped on Lundqvist. I was at the game last night, and was wondering "who the hell are these guys"? They can't be the Rangers. I don't think I've seen them own a team for 60 minutes, like they did last night. they toyed with the Panthers. I hope it continues.

You bet I did!

It's only the third week of Hockey, so I'm not getting that excited about The Rangers. Comes around Christmas time, then I'll start to believe. Toomuch past history with this team and their letdowns.

Maybe we'll hook up at a game this year.

I don't know why these sites make things so difficult, like this setting the lineup, etc. I play Football on NFL.com and it has to be the most easiest site to navigate, simple procedures to set your line-up. make trades, etc. Everything is right there for you.

This yahoo Hockey site is very confusing and not that easy to navigate.

I'm still confused as to why we don't have an IR slot in our lineups when the league says that we are set up for it.


Don Cardi

I've been down that road too with the Rangers. The only reason it may be different this year is, they stocked the system with young European style players that seem to be made for the new NHL. The first thing I noticed at the game last night is that under the new rules, there was almost no hitting at all. It was all up and down the ice, just like the Europeans play. It may change after teams get used to playing under the new rules, but right now the Rangers have a good chance to get a head start. Maybe I'll put my money where my mouth is. I'm off to Vegas tonight, and I'm going to check the line on the next 2 Ranger/Isles games this week.
...I had 4 goaltenders get hurt already, 3 are on IR right now. I would have liked to keep one of them until he was healthy. I was going to grab Lundvqist, but Renney is still stating Weekes is the starter when he comes back.

That would be ridiculous if Renny did that! I heard the same thing, but I don't agree with that move. You have to go with the Hot goalie!


Don Cardi

I would agree is he was a real untested rookie, but he has so much International experience and success, that I would leave him in there as long as he continues to play at the level he is.

This looks like a tough week for me. I have several days with little or no players playing.

For reasons like this I am starting to lean more towards Fantasy scoring then Head to head scoring.


Don Cardi

For reasons like this I am starting to lean more towards Fantasy scoring then Head to head scoring.


Don Cardi

I hope the "Kevin Weekes Experiment" is over soon. :rolleyes:

For reasons like this I am starting to lean more towards Fantasy scoring then Head to head scoring.[/b][/quote]That's what I don't like about the head-to-head format that we use in Yahoo Fantasy Football.

Too much depends on the luck of the schedule and who you happen to be playing on a given week.

You can have the second or third highest score for the week, and just happen to be against one of the one or two players with a higher score, and come away with a loss.

Conversely, you can have one of the lowest scores of the week, and just happen to be playing someone with an even lower score than you, and come away with a win.

Last year in our football league I was able to construct a schedule for each player that would have enabled him to finish first or second had that been the actual schedule for him, with the other players schedules built around it.

In Fantasy Football there is an even amount of games every sunday, so with a head to head league, if my team is playing your team this sunday, it's a head to head game and the scoring would be fair for both of us because every NFL team, except the two with a bye
( where you would replace them with your reserve players that week ) plays the same amount of games per week.

In hockey, a player on your team may only have two games on the schedule for a specific week where a player on my team may have four games on their schedule for that specific week. And that is where the weekly head to head scoring competition becomes lopsided with Hockey. I've realized that Fantasy scoring with hockey is much much better, and more fairer then head to head scoring.


I use NFL.com fantasy football, head to head and it is very fair and works very well. IMO NFL.com is the best, and most fairest fantasy FB league out there.


Don Cardi

Ok, now I understand what you are saying about the Fantasy Schedule itself. But if you really think about it, NFL football itself works the same way. The Giants can play Dallas and score 21 points and lose if Dallas scores 24 points. But by the same token the Giants can score 17 points against Washington and win if Washington only scores 14 pts. So at least fantasy football mirrors NFL football as far as matchups for a teams schedule.

But as I said, fantasy Hockey is more of an unfair type schedule when using head to head scoring because of the specific reason that I stated above.


Don Cardi

It looks as though Just Lou and I are the only ones actively playing this game.

What's up guys? Ever hear of waiver pick ups? :p


Don Cardi

Yeah, DC, but the difference is this:

In real football let's say the Giants lose this week 35-28, and their 28 points would have been good enough to beat 10 of the other 12 teams that are playing this week.

But it was their defense that allowed the 35 points.

In fantasy football, if I have a great week that was good enough to beat everyone else in my league except the team I had the misfortune of being scheduled against on that particular week, my "defense" - since there is no defense against what your opponent scores - had nothing to do with the loss.

It was strictly the bad luck of the scheduling.

Then there are the "bye week" factors.

Whoever happens to play Turi in the Gangster BB League on Peyton Manning's bye week, or whoever plays Don Sicilia on Ladian Tomlinson's bye week, obviously has an advantage that no one else has when playing either of them, and that advantage, again, is based strictly on the luck of the scheduling.

I believe that overall points are the only absolutely fair way of scoring.

True, there are injuries which can affect your team, but that's part of real football too. The scheduling quirks in a head-to-head fantasy game are not.

For reasons like this I am starting to lean more towards Fantasy scoring then Head to head scoring.
[/b][/quote]Well, it didn't matter this week. The team I was playing just left his players on the bench.

In week two action, Just Lou bumps DMC down a notch in the standings and climbs into the first place position. Maple Leaf's "Reg Dunlops" make a huge move in the standings, climbing out of the cellar and into 4th place, leaving Plaw's Left Wingers, who won only two games last week, in last place. Double J also took a plunge falling from 3rd place to 7th place in the standings!

C'mon Plaw, DoubleJ, you guys have to set those lineups and use the waiver list!


League Standings as of Monday October 24th 2005 :

1 fiveforfighting JustLou 19 -7-4
2 DMC DonMichaelCorleone 16-10-4
3 Staten Isle Rockets Don Pelosi 12-11-7
4 Reg Dunlop Maple Leafs 12-13-5
5 The Broadway Blues Don Cardi 12-14-4
6 The Ice picks Ice Man 12-14-4
7 Buffalo Chill Double J 11-15-4
8 Plaw's Left Wingers Plaw 9-19-2


------------------------------------------------------------


Don Cardi

"Maple Leaf's "Reg Dunlops" make a huge move in the standings, climbing out of the cellar and into 4th place"

**************PROPOSED LEAGUE SETTING CHANGE****************

Right now the league is set up that a Goalie must make a minimum of THREE (3) appearances for a team per week. I personally don't think that this is realistic. In the NHL if a goalie plays only one game that week, his win or loss counts in the NHL. So why shouldn't the same apply here?

I can change it to 1

Does anyone object to changing this Goalie appearance requirement setting from 3 games per week to 1 ?

A simple YES I AGREE TO THE CHANGE or NO I DO NOT AGREE TO THE CHANGE will suffice. No 100 word post are needed for this. :p

Don Cardi

I think a good reason for not having it at 1 would be if one of your goalies at the begining of the week has shutout, or only gives up a goal and has a great save pct, you could bench your goalies the rest of the week and win GAA and SV%. 3 Goalie starts, with 3 goalies, is nothing for a whole week. If people are playing everyday, they should have at least 6 or 7 starts per week.

Good point Lou. But by the same token if your Gaolie has a shutout at the begining of the week and then only plays one more NHL game the rest of the week, you don't get credited for that shutout.


We also have the option to make it a minimum of TWO games if we want to. We can do that also.

I personally think that a 3 game minimun start is just to many. There are many instances where a starting goalie on an NHL team will get hte first two starts for the week and then the backup guy gets the third one.

So maybe changing it to TWO games minimum would be more realistic.

So we can decide if it should stay at 3 Games, be changed to 2 games, or changed to 1 game.


Don Cardi

I think that 2 games is a more realistic number.

The same goalie doesn't have to play 3 games. It's 3 games total for all your goalies. It has to be that way, because I've yet to have 1 goalie play 3 games in a week, but I still got credit for goaltending stats.

2 goalies is fine by me.

GO LEAFS GO!

Are you sure about that? If you are then I misinterpreted the rule.

Why then would they have that rule? It's not as though you can sit all of your goalies on the bench. And if that is the case, and all three of your goalies have a start that week, then you would be able to do what you originally said, you can sit the goalie that got the shutout in the begining of the week and just start your other goalies in his place.

Am I misinterpreting something with this rule, Lou?


Don Cardi

Ok Lou, I researched the rule. You are right. I misinterpreted it to mean NHL starts. It's Fantasy League Team starts.

"In all public leagues, a goaltending tandem must make at least three (3) appearances each week. Should a tandem fail to meet this requirement, their fantasy team will automatically lose all four of the goaltending matchups."

We are a private league, so therefore we can change the minimum number of required starts.


So the question to everyone now is : Should we just leave it at three or make it two?


Don Cardi

Yes, it has to be. If you check your "matchup score" for the week, at the top, your score for W's, GAA, SV%, and SHO, are the totals and averages of all your goaltender starts. I'm
99.9% sure I've never had a single goalie play 3 games in 1 week. Until recently, I didn't even have the same goalies all week.

Do you object to changing it to two games minimum?

I researched the rule and you were right. Thanks.


Don Cardi

If it were up to me, I'd increase it to force the people in our league to actually play the damn game. Otherwise, I'd leave it at 3. With 3 goalies on your roster, even if you never change them you should still have more than 3 games played in a week.

It doesn't matter to me. I don't see it making much difference.

I agree to the change.

Ok. The majority of the team owners in our league agreed to make the change from a 3 game requirement to a 2 game requirement.


Don Cardi

I like the change from 3 games to 2 games a week. I haven't been feeling well the last couple days that's why I haven't posted on this until now.

This week Plaw managed to claw his way out of the cellar with an impressive 7-1-2 record.

Just Lou held on to sole possesion of first place by posting a 6-3-1 record for the week.

Maple Leafs had a bad week posting a 1-6-3 record and dropped into 7th place in the standings.

But the bomb of the week was from our friend Double J who has now taken over last place from Plaw by posting a 1-7-2
record for the week.

Who says that the Left cannot overcome the Right?

******LEAGUE STANDINGS AS OF MONDAY OCTOBER 31st******


1 fiveforfighting 25-10-5 .688 55pts. Just Lou
2 DMC 22-11-7 .638 51pts. DMC
3 Staten Isle Rockets 16-16-8 .500 40pts. Don Pelosi
4 The Broadway Blues 17-18-5 .488 39pts. Don Cardi
5 Plaw's Left Wingers 16-20-4 .450 36pts. Plaw
6 The Ice picks 15-20-5 .438 35pts. TheIceMan
7 Reg Dunlop 13-19-8 .425 34pts. Maple Leafs
8 Buffalo Chill 12-22-6 .375 30pts. Double J

------------------------------------------------------------


Don Cardi

I have a question for the more knowledgable fantasy hockey league players here. Ok here it goes like I stated earlier in this thread this is my first time of playing fantasy hockey. And the way this league is set up Just what all is determined in a players record for the entire week?

Iceman, if you go into the leauge site and click on league settings, there should be a list of what stats are used to determiine scoring for a player. If you have a hard time finding it, let me know.


Don Cardi

Lemme put the standings in the code format for you, for readability.
I could be dangerous if

a) I knew anything at all about hockey besides the names of maybe 10-15 players, and
b) I started paying attention to my lineup every day.

So I trade for a better goalie who gets hurt the day after, and I don't start Alfredson on a monster night against my Sabres backups (who might as well have been an empty net).

I hate fantasy hockey :p

Sorry about that. Really, I don't have a crystal ball to see these things coming.

It's just funny - I didn't preset my rosters, I was winning.

I preset my rosters, trade for (what I thought) a better goalie, he gets hurt, and I keep losing.

I'm going back to not setting my rosters, it worked before :p

Here are the standings as of Monday Nov. 7th 2005

Just Lou (Five For Fighting) and DMC hold on to first and second place respectively.

The Broadway Blues (Don Cardi) Knock the Staten Island Rockets (Don Pelosi) out of third place.


Plaw's Left Wingers and The Ice Picks (The Iceman) both move up a notch in the standings.

And the Reg Dunlops (Maple Leafs) and Buffalo Chill (Double J) continue their fight for possession of the cellar.


Don Cardi

We have no "maximum number of games played for each position," right?

No, the only maximums are the 2 appearances for goalies.

The goalie thing is a minimum, isn't it? :p

Besides that.

yeah

Besides that no, there are no maximums lol

That explains your success. No math to contend with.

STANDINGS AS OF MONDAY NOVEMBER 14th 2005


Just Lou's Five For Fighting moved into sole possession of first place!

Don Cardi's Broadway Blues and Plaws Left Wingers continue their climb in the standings and take second and third place respectively.

DMC's team continues their decline in the standings falling back into a tie for 4th place with The Staten Island Rockets, after DMC got spanked by Cardi's Broadway Blues.

The Iceman's Ice Picks went from 5th place to 6th place.

Reg Dunlops ( Maple Leafs ) and Buffalo Chill ( JJ ) continue their battle for last place with Buffalo Chill closing in point wise on Reg Dunlop.


Don Cardi

All I can say is it's a good thing for you guys that I know virtually nothing about hockey, and I go back a ways.

I remember when there were only six teams, and I could name all the players on the top three lines on every team.

I was always a stats nut, and when I was a kid I made up a solitaire "Table Top" hockey game played with dice.

First you would roll the dice for each team to determine the final score.

Then, after determining how many goals each team scored, you rolled the dice again to see which line scored each goal, or if the goal was scored by a defenseman.

Then you rolled again to see which player on the line scored the goal.

Then you rolled again to see if the goal was unassisted, or if there were one or two assists on the goal.

Then after determining the number of assists, you rolled a final time to see if the assists were by the goal scorers linemates, or by a defenseman.

All of the rolls were more or less weighted, based on what I figured the probabilities to be.

For example (amazing how I remember this), I set it up so that 40% of a team's goals were scored by someone on their top line, 30% by someone on their second line, 20% by someone on their third line, and 10% by a defenseman.

And 20% of all goals were unassisted, 30% got one assist, and 50% got two assists (made for higher individual scoring totals).

I'd play out a whole season and the playoffs - it took maybe 10-12 hours - the purpose of which was to have a complete set of season stats when I was all done.

Yup.

I did the same thing for baseball, too.

Roll two dice, 36 possible outcomes.

Four of them walks, 8 hits, so you got a league batting average of about .250 (remember, this was the early to mid sixties, a pitcher's era), one home run, etc.

I played out a whole NL season a few times, which took a while with ten teams -- 810 games to play, about half an hour per game after recording the stats.

So about 405 hours to play out the season, 2-3 hours a day, took about as long as the real season.

STANDINGS AS OF MONDAY NOVEMBER 21th 2005


Just Lou - Five For Fighting
Don Cardi- The Braodway Blues
Don Pelosi - Staten Isles Rockets
DonMichealCorleone - DMC
Plaw - Plaws Left Winger
TheIceMan - The Ice Picks
Maple Leafs - Reg Dunlops
Double J - Buffalo Chill


DJ, I made you a trade offer, but you haven't replied!


Don Cardi

What's the purpose of the "can't cut" list?

I imagine it's to prevent collusion between someone who's out of the running from placing a really good player on waivers, so his friend, who may be #1 in waiver priority, can pick him up.

But if two people want to do that anyway they can, simply by making a trade. The manager acquiring the so-called "good player" would have to drop someone, so he can just trade him instead.

Since the commissioner can overturn trades in which collusion is suspected, what's the point of a "can't cut" list, then?

If you wanted to have a can't cut list that goes into effect after the trading dealine, that would make sense, because anyone wanting to cut a good player would have to make their decision prior to the deadline or be stuck with the guy the rest of the way, but I don't see why we need this list so early in the season.

It's too early for anyone to consider themselves "out of it", so there'd be no reason for anybody to collude.

I ask because there's someone I may want to get rid of that I can't.

Nobody knows?

The site itself implements a can't cut list rule. And as the commisioner I cannot even turn that option on or off, as the site does not give me the power to do so.

As you said, I guess it is implemented to prevent collusion. I guess that the league feels that even a commissioner may pre-arrange a deal with another player, so the site has this no cut list that not even the commissioner can control.

NFL.com does the same thing also.


Don Cardi

Are you sure?

I'm commissionering our Yahoo basketball game, and in "Commissioner's Tools" they give you the option for "Can't Cut List" to be either "none" or provided by Yahoo Sports.

I chose "none" for our league, but it appears as if I still have the option to change it.

You were correct Plaw. Yahoo, unlike NFL.com does provide that option to their commissioners. I changed it to none as I agree, it's just ridiculous that you cannot cut certain players.

I am in another Yahoo FHL and I have a goalie who was rated as a top pick in the draft. He's basically been sent to the bench in favor of some hot rookie goalie, and I cannot cut this guy! Ridiculous.

Again, I had assumed that the CCL option was not given to me as over in my FFL the commish is NOT given that option.

But now I changed it for our league.

I have never played in a Yahoo Fantasy League before, so I was not familiar with the options of the commissioner.

Thanks for pointing that out.


Don Cardi

In a custom league, the commissioner should be allowed to do anything they want to and set up their league any way they wish.

Another thing that bugs me - which, after corresponding with Yahoo, I found out cannot be changed - is that when you add a free agent, he should be able to go on your roster immediately. There's really no reason why you should have to wait until the next day to use him, unless there's something I'm not thinking of.

Well that rule makes sense. think about it. If they allowed you an immediate pick up, then an owner could stack his roster every game. Example: Suppose it's a Tuesday and one of your player's team is not playing their NHL game that night. If you were allowed to immediately add a free agent to your roster, you could find a comparable player who's NHL team IS playing that night, and add him to your roster for the game that night. Then on Wednesday, you do it again. Etc. etc.

If the free agent was added immediately to your roster when you picked him up on the same day, in theory an owner can manilulate his lineup to having his players play almost every night.

That rule, in my opinion, does make sense.


Don Cardi

Well, you can still do that to a certain extent by planning one day in advance.

And also, you'd have to drop a player and risk losing him permanently if you wanted to do that.

In a league which has a maximum number of games limit, you would never want to do that because theoretically you would want to use your games with your best players.

In our basketball game, for example, we have two guys at each position with a maximum number of games of 82 at each position, for a total of 164.

My two shooting guards are Vince Carter and Dwane Wade, and I want them each to play as many games as possible, since no one on my bench is as good as either one of them, and there are obviously no free agents I could get who are as good as either one.

Even if there were no max # of games at each position, if I cut one of them to add a lesser guy who was playing on a night wwhen one of them was off, someone else would pick them up and I'd lose them forever.

In our hockey league, since there's no max # of games at each position it could be a danger, but you would only want to do it with your most marginal players - those, as you say, who could be replaced with guys of equal value.

But, theoretically, if we have a league with 8 teams and 16 players on each team, aren't the best 128 players already taken?

Even if I drop my worst player on a night off to pick up someone else who is playing, I get the benefit for that one night but, again theoretically, I'm now stuck with a guy of lesser quality than the one I cut.

Yes, but you have the chance of his getting points for you by playing that night. Even just + / - can help you out. And if your opponent for that week does not take the same strategy as you do, you can literally crush him.

I personally like that rule of having to wait a day for the new free agent player to play on your team.


DB and Geoff were both right about you with Fantasy sports.






Don Cardi

I guess there's a difference between a league with a maximum # of games at each position and one with no maximum.

As far as JG and DB go......

I hope you're not implying that they said I cry and whine a lot?

JG, being major whiner himself, might, but DB would never say such a thing.

And besides, I never (well, hardly ever, and certainly not with good reason) cry and whine.

If you're implying that they said that I nitpick, well, yeah, I'll sort of plead guilty to that, except I view it more as trying to take an intelligent approach to the game, questioning what doesn't make sense, and offering opinions and solutions based on logic.

And besides, if I'm not gonna argue with you about the ACLU, rape, the death penalty, the war in Iraq, terrorism, sex education (Am I forgetting anything?), politics, or the Patriot Act (I think that covers just about everything), then what's left but fantasy sports? :p

That's what you think! :p



Don Cardi

I was watching the news and the referre had some object to measure how curved the guy's stick was. How does a more curved stick make it better?

The more curved the blade of the stick is, the more movement the puck makes when a shot is taken. Almost like a spitball in baseball.


Don Cardi

When I used to play, we used to heat the blades of our sticks up with a blowtorch to curve them. I didn't like too big of a curve because although you could get off a wicked wrist shot, it took away from the slap shot, and made back-handers near impossible.

You are talking about hockey, right? :p

You are talking about hockey, right? :p [/b][/quote]You are so predictable

You're just losing your touch I think. :p

Can we please get a commissioner's ruling here before these two guys are allowed to hijack this thread with penis talk? :rolleyes: :p

We used to do the same thing when we played Street Hockey.
The sharper the curve, the more movement you would get on a wrist shot. The torch method worked really well on the street hockey sticks with the plastic blades.

But when I played in an Organized Ice Hockey League, they were pretty strict with the curve rule and would check hockey sticks from time to time throughout the season.


Don Cardi

The NHL's illegal stick rule dates back to the late 1960s. At that time many players in the NHL were using sticks that had curves resembling a C . In 1968, the league brought in the rule that no curve could exceed one inch and a half. The next year, the league changed the rule to an inch, which still stands today.

The rule was originally put into effect because of the fear that goaltenders may get injured. When the curves first appeared in the 1960s, goalies did not wear masks.


Don Cardi

I probably still have a couple of Mylec Air-Flo sticks somewhere in my garage. Time is flying by. It's hard to believe I haven't played in over 20 years. It seems like yesterday.

Hey DC. Where did you use to play? We used to play in the middle of the night at what used to be "Ice World" in Totowa NJ. We also used to play almost every day on the lake in James Braddock Park in North Bergen.

I used to play in the Gordie Howe Ice Hockey League which eventually became the NNHA. Played our games in the middle of the night also. From Ironbound, to Mennan Arena, over to South Mountain Arena, McKay Arena and all the way up to Monsey New York.


Don Cardi

Standings through: Sun, Nov 27


Don Cardi

That's cool. You were more organized than us. We used to just rent the rink and play against whomever we could find. It was still fun though. I played center, and was pretty good. Only problem was, I was very thin built at the time. 5'11" and about 145lbs. Luckily there wasn't much hitting when we played. Kind of like the new NHL.

BTW, see that Malik goal Saturday?

Was that beautiful or what? What a goal!


I used to play Goaltender in my league. I stopped playing once my first child was born. It became almost impossible to go out and play at 2:00 in the moring on a worknight with a new born baby.

I did eventually get back into Hockey by becoming a coach in a youth Ice Hockey league. I ran a goaltenders clinic once a week and coached a house team of 7 & 8 year olds for about 5 years.


Don Cardi

At first, I didn't realize what he did. I was wondering why JD was going so nuts. Then I saw it on the replay.

I played goaltender when we played street hockey in the summer.
Not that really I wanted to, but I was the only one that would agree to do it, that had some ability to do it. :rolleyes:

I woulda thought you played right wing, DC :p

Actually as a goalie, the buck stopped with me. But for some strange reason I always seemed to stonewall the left wingers more than the right wingers.


Don Cardi

This may be a stupid question, but since when has that ever stopped me in hockey?

"PIM" is penalty minutes?

Why is beating your opponent for the week in PIM considered a positive?

Why doesn't the team with the fewer penalty minutes get credit for the win?

It isn't a stupid question. It makes no sense to me too. :rolleyes:

Where's the commissioner?

For every ten minutes in penalties that your player gets, he is awarded 1 pt.

This was probably implemented back when Hockey was a different style played game and teams would have a Goon on their roster. So basically the league decided to award points for penalties.

I think that this is a stupida fockin stat, but that's how Yahoo does it.

Years ago I played in a league where you were allowed one goon position on your starting roster. And that player was NOT awarded ANY points except for penalty minutes.

But I cannot understand why a league would award points for for accumulated penalty minutes for all of your players. Makes no sense to me.

But anyway, I am enjoying playing fantasy hockey and I'm sure that after this season the fantasy leagues will adjust many things to coincide with the new rules in hockey.


Don Cardi

That can't be a mandatory category with the point values you mentioned in a custom league, though, can it?

Well when I go into the settings, there are several categories that I am allowed to change, but it won't allow me to change the scoring. So I guess that the league sets that category itself.

This is the first time ever that I've played Fantasy Hockey through a site. Years ago when I used to play Fantasy Hockey it was through work where one of the guys used to do everything through his computer himself, without using a site. Next season I will search for other sites with other options that are more closer to real hockey.
This year it seamed as though there were not that many sites to choose from and several had late start ups.

But this is pretty enjoyable for now.


Don Cardi

I will consider any and all trade offers for Goalie Martin Brodeur.


Don Cardi

I'll give you a bag of pucks.

How does the NHL count shootout goals in a goalie's GA average?

I assume they count ovetime goals; Is a goalie's GA average pro-rated for minues played?

Goals scored in O/T count against GAA. GAA is based on 60 minutes played, and O/T minutes count. Shootouts do not count against GAA.

I'll give you a bag of pucks. [/b][/quote]If you throw in a stick you have a deal.


Don Cardi

I'll have to sleep on it.

So GAA is figured the same was as E.R.A. in baseball then, right?

If a guy gives up two goals in regulation, and then one more in four minutes of OT, his GAA would be 2.81?

(3 x 60/64)

Sleeping on a bag of pucks and a stick? That would hurt......

I'm too tired to check your math, but it appears to be correct.

Had trouble sleeping on that bag of pucks, huh?

No. I had to get up 4AM to go to work, and I went to bed after midnight.

Regular Season Standings as of Monday, December 5th.
Don Cardi

Are we required to carry three goalies, or can we carry only two and use that roster spot for another forward or defenseman?

I believe that you can opt to carry a another postition player instead of a Goalie.


Don Cardi

Standings through: Tue, Dec 13
Don Cardi

You still think that I suck Don MALTA? :p


Don Cardi

You really need a comma in there!

I was going to say something, but was good, and kept my mouth shut.

You really need a comma in there! [/b][/quote]In your dreams, Baby!

Ok, do you really think that I suck ,,,,,,,,,,, (in the fantasy Hockey League, Don MALTA?
:p


By the way, did you get my e-mail invite to the fantasy football playoff league?


Don Cardi

Like our head-to-head Yahoo football game, this would be much better if everyone played every day. And, I must confess, to see who had the good luck of playing me the first few weeks when I wasn't (Good thing for the rest of you guys that I didn't, or I'd probably be in first place by now). :p

I totally agree. If you people joined the league, then please stay on top of things so that the league remains a competitive one. Otherwise it takes away all the fun and causes a lack of comtetitiveness.

[QUOTE] And, I must confess, to see who had the good luck of playing me the first few weeks when I wasn't (Good thing for the rest of you guys that I didn't, or I'd probably be in first place by now). [QUOTE]

Excuses, excuses. :p

I'm actually in another league where everyone stays active by staying on top of their teams. In that league I am the New York Rangers. Here's the standings :


Rank Team Pts.
1 New York Rangers 101.5
2 yes... 100
3 THE GRIM REAPERS 88

You get the picture. :p


Don Cardi

There is at least one manager that has NOT touched his lineup in two weeks. As commissioner, I am going to go in and set his line-up for this week and if I do not hear from him after this week is over he's going to be locked out of the league.


Don Cardi

Hmmm.....

This is where we had a problem and a big debate in football, where we had two guys drop out in the middle of the season.

The problem is, everyone who got to play the guys in our league who weren't playing during the time that these guys weren't playing have a big advantage now if you're gonna have these guys start "playing" again by you changing their lineups for them.

Plus, what are you going to do about his lineup in the weeks that you play him?

Not to suggest in any way that you would do anything to benefit yourself in setting his lineup, but the only fair way to do it would be to have someone else set his lineup for the weeks that you play him.

And even if you do that, there are other problems involved. After all, there's some judgement and strategy involved in whether to play goalies or not, and when to play them or who to play them against. The same thing for forwads and defensemen; suppose you have three centers playing the same day, and one has worse scoring statistics than the other two, but is going against an easier goalie? Which two do you play? It's not always cut and dried what to do, there's a lot of opinion and judgement involved.

If you are going to change their lineups for them, you need to set down in advance the exact criteria that you will use; for example you will always play the guys with the most goals, or the guys with the highest rankings, or whatever.

Problem is, and we discussed it a lot in the Yahoo football thread, and sort of came to the conclusion that there was no 100% fair way to handle the situation without jumping through a million hoops.

What we wound up doing was just locking them out for the rest of the season, and if you happened to have played them early in the season in a week when they were trying and you lost to them, it was just tough shit.

This is different though. In football we had a balanced schedule, with everyone playing everyone else only once, and only one win per week at stake. Here we have 10 wins and losses at stake every week, and we play everyone else multiple times during the course of the season.

Here's what I think is the fairest solution, altho it involves quite a bit of work:

1- Decide exactly who you want to kick out of the league.

2- Take all of that player's W-L records for all of the weeks of the season - whether he played and was "trying" or not - and subtract them from everyone else's totals. This is the only fair way, because otherwise those of us who played these guys when they were "trying" are at a big disadvantage to those of us who played them when they weren't.

In other words, for the purposes of our League Standings, you'll be treating them as if they never existed.

4- Going forward, lock the rosters of the non-players, and every time one of us plays one of them, treat it as a bye week.

So at the end of the season, everyone's W-L record will reflect only weeks during which they were playing other players who were participating.

I have to give him a chance to start managing his team again before locking him out. If he does not start showing that he is managing his team, then I'll just start his players that are going to play that day and if it comes down to 3 centers playing I'll go with his two highest scoring guys by using total points ( G + A = Pts.). As for goalies, well right now he has only 2 goalies, so that is not a problem.

I'm not going to throw out his stats for the year and start figuring out who did what against him and so on and so forth. I don't have the time.

The fairest way is to start his players that are going to play and if there happens to be 3 palyers at a certain postion that all happen to be playing that day, I'll go with the 2 highest scoring (POINTS) players.

I think that is the fairest way without having to sit down and go back through all the games played and figure out what to throw out, etc.

But I need to give him a chance to come back first.


Don Cardi

I was looking at everything since my last post, and here's what I think:

We have three problem teams, Reg Dunlop, Buffalo Chill, and Ice Picks.

Reg Dunlop hasn't played since day one of the season, so I would just lock his team now, and by the end of the season everyone will have had the same number of opportunities to play against that same team, so it's fair to everyone.

To start managing his team now is unfair to the people who have to play him more times in the future, since everyone who played him already was playing the same, "un-managed" team.

Buffalo Chill was playing at the beginning, and then towards the end of October he just sorta stopped. Even when he was playing though, he wasn't really playing, since there were almost always days when he had players on the bench who were playing that day, and at the same time had guys in his lineup who weren't.

I'd do the sme thing for him. Lock his team now, and it will come out pretty close to being fair at the end.

Those who played him at the beginning will suffer a bit of a disadvantage, but it's not that big, since even when he was playing, he wasn't playing 100%.

Doing that, I think, is a lot fairer to everyone than to start managing his team 100% in the middle of the season, which is very unfair to those who still have to play him an extra time.

Ice Picks is the only real problem, I think. Let me take a closer look at his day-by-day history and see what I come up with.

BTW, I certainly don't think that we have any obligation to Reg and Buffalo to give them the opportunity to start managing their time again, considering that they basically weren't managing them in the first place.

Remember, DC, you asked me to be Ass Commissioner when we started.

Anyone who wants to be commissioner of a fantasy league that I'm in doesn't know what they're letting themselves in for.

Especially a Yahoo league, where a commissioner has to actually make a decision now and then. Just ask Don Sicilia.

Anyway, after thinking it over and looking carefully at the league as a whole, here's what I think:

Lock these three guys teams until after the 14th week. At that point, everyone will have played everyone else twice under roughly equal conditions.

Then, you can either keep them locked for the remainder of the season or, as commissioner, set their lineups every day.

But to do that for three teams for eight more weeks seems to be a lot of unnecessary work.

I'd just lock the three of them out now, leave it that way, and forget about them.

As I said, we don't owe them the opportunity to start playing again.

What happens if they play for a week or two, pick up a 6-3 or a 7-2 against their oppostition, and then stop playing again?

Then it becomes even more unfair.

I say fuck 'em.

And you still have the option of wiping out their W-L records from the league records and treating them as if they never existed.

Looking back on the weekly results and doing the necessary math shouldn't take more than a few minutes.

Well Ice Man has PMed me and has stated that he wants to continue to play in the league. So I will let him. However I have not heard back from the other two, so for now I am going to lock them out.


Don Cardi

Standings as of December 26th 2005

IMPORTANT : Please read the league e-mail that I have sent to all of you.

Don Cardi

Just read the e-mail you sent out to all players. Thanks for making those players available. I've alrady put in for 4 just have to wait for them to clear waivers.

Thanks IceMan. I originally locked those two teams and put all of the players on those teams on the bench. However I noticed this week that somehow, and don't ask me how, those two teams actually scored a point in a game!

Now that is not fair at all. I don't know how that happened, as I am asuming that there is some kind of flaw in the league program.

So I figured that to make it fair to everyone I would release those players from those teams and put them on waivers so that everyone would have a shot at them if they desired, and also it would help to make the league a bit more competative.

I am glad that you agree with me that it was the fair thing to do.

We must keep in mind that this is a fun thing, something to enjoy, and not something that we should take so seriously when situations like this arise.

As the commissioner of the league, I made a decision because I felt that it was only fair to make those palyers available to the whole league, and to stop those two teams from scoring any more points. ( I'm still confused at how that happened as the players were all relegated to the bench and the teams were locked).

I also waited for everyone to become aware of what I did before I put in for any of those players myself.

Good Luck. Enjoy. And remember to have fun playing!


Don Cardi

I'm playing one of the teams, and it scored a point because its +/- is 0, where my team went -3 the other night. :rolleyes:

Personally Lou, I don't really like the way that Yahoo has this league set up. But after the strike, Yahoo was one of the only sites that was willing to commit to starting a league this year, so I jumped on it. Next year I will be looking for another league on another site.

What is stupid is that even though I am the commissioner of the league, it ( yahoo) won't allow me to completely delete the two teams who've stopped playing. So I just thought that the next best thing to so was to put the player from those two teams on waivers for the rest of the league to pick up if they so desired. I figured that this was the fair thing to do and that it may help some of the weaker teams to become a bit more competitive. After all we all drafted this year not really knowing who was going to be good and who was who because of the strike last year. We really did not have anything to base the talent on this year. So I don't see anything wrong with giving the weaker drafted teams the opportunity to become a bit more competitive.


Don Cardi

I'm still trying to figure out why players get rewarded for taking penalties. :rolleyes:

Yeah that is really odd.

My only objection is that I don't think that such a radical move as putting all of those players on waivers should have been made in the middle of a scheduling cycle - when everyone had not yet played everyone else the same number of times under the same conditions - much less in the middle of a week, when the matchups were already in progress - when it was not necessary to do anything at all in the first place excep freezing the teams belonging to the managers who were no longer participating.

Then, any moves we wished to make with their players should have been timed in such a way so that they would have gone into effect at the beginning of a week, and at the beginning of a new scheduling cycle.

I don't undertsand what the rush was to do anything at all, other than freeze the teams.

I understand that Iceman is delighted to have these new players available because after not having made a player move for weeks he has plenty of dead wood he can replace and improve his team, but if he claims four of thse guys while someone else who has been playing all season has the need to claim only one, that's unfair to the manager who has been playing all along.

And again - no problem, except that all of this should not have been done in the middle of a week and in the middle of a cycle of the schedule.

I appreciate that DC is trying to keep the league competitive and fun for everyone, but I don't believe that that is one of the roles of commissioner.

By putting these players on waivers, we have, in effect, penalized the managers who who had a better draft because they took the time to pre-rank their players, made the best free agent moves during the course of the season, and made beter use of the matchups by knowing who to play on which days.

The commissioner should try and keep the playing field as level as possible, not change it in the name of competetive balance and more fun for everyonne.

Yes, this is supposed to be fun, but the idea of it being fun and taking it seriously are not mutually exclusive.

FWIW, DC did ask me earlier if I had a problem with this, and I told him no. We will all have a shot at the available players, although the good teams will have to give up better players to get them. ( In my case, the rich will get richer) :rolleyes:
..... This is why I gave up playing in fantasy leagues with a draft. Dead teams always ruined the league.

Well, JL, as Rudyard Kipling wrote, "You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din"

But from your POV, I look at it this way:

The reason your team is doing well is because given the scoring setup of this league, your team has a higher percentage of the more effective players and a lower percentage of the less effective players, while everyone else has a lower percentage of the more effective players and a higher percentage of the weaker ones.

To some extent, that's obvious, right?

So how can you not have a problem with the idea of placing, let's say 8-10 good players in the free agent pool, the acquisition of whom will improve your team to a lesser extent than it will improve, say, Iceman's?

The proof of this will be tomorrow when the waiver period ends and you see who improved and by how much.

Hmmm.....I just looked at the waiver position, so let me amend the above.

Iceman, who needs the most help, stands to get the least amount of help because his waiver priority is 6th among the six of us left. Since he said that he only claimed four players, I have to assume that he's not gonna get any of them.

Even if he winds up claiming someone else later - either one of the guys from the disbanded teams or someone who gets dropped because of a winning waiver claim - who could be better than someone he already has, he may improve his team, but I don't think he stands to improve it as much as the others.

(I think that the way that they run the waiver priority is stupid, BTW. It should always be in the reverse order of the standings, just like in real life. But that's another argument for another day.)

I only put in for four players, also. Since we presumably claimed guys based on the categories in which we needed improvement, I may get one of them, but I'll be very surprised if I do, since my position is 5th.

Of the six of us who remain, we stand to gain the most, I think, in the order of our waiver priority.

Anyway......

If this was a money league, we would have done nothing, right?

Those who stopped playing presumably would have paid their entry fee and that would be that. It would be absolutely unfair to do anything whatsoever with their teams. They paid their money, what they do with their teams is nobodys business.

So just because we're not playing for money, I don't see why the league should be treated any differently, particularly in cases where an action is not equally fair to everyone.

If you want to say that this is just for fun and it doesn't matter what we do, then fine. But let's call a spade a spade.

There was no dire need to do anything in the first place with the three teams that weren't playing, even emailing them to see if they wanted to continue playing.

After finding out that two of them didn't want to continue, there was no pressing need to to do anything with their rosters other than freeze them, since we were in the middle of a schedule cycle and everyone had not had the opportunity to play all of these three teams under the same conditions.

If it was felt to be beneficial to put their players in the free agent pool (which clearly I don't think that it was. I'd still like to understand how doing that benefitted everyone), it should not have been done in the middle of the schedule cycle and in the middle of the week.

This move by me may have been done in the middle of a cycle, but in reality it actually takes affect at the end of the cycle, one day before. Because those players must remain on waivers for several days and it works out to their becoming available to play one day before the new schedule begins. And it just so happens that I actually did try to time it, but I was one day off. Big deal.

Number two, you were the one who probably benefited the most when those teams became inactive. If memory serves me correctly you went 9 - 0 against one of those inactive teams.

We've had this discussion through several PMs and e-mails and I explained to what my thinking was in doing this, along with giving the same explaination to the others, but you are the only one who's bothered by this move.

What's wrong with the commissioner of the league wanting to keep the league both fun and competitive? I actually did feel that by making these palyers availble to everyone, it would keep a level playing field.

Well you seem to be the only one in the league who wants to keep complaining about this.

DMC, Just Lou, IceMan, Don Pelosi and Myself all thought it the fair thing to do. 5 out of 6 managers have absolutely no problem with my placing the players from the inactive teams on waivers to make them available to the rest of us.

And again, they clear waivers one day before the end of the cycle.


So 5 out of 6 don't seem to think it a big deal.

Maybe you should file a complaint with the ACLU! :p


Don Cardi

It was Buffalo Chill, who stopped playing after Week 5.

Subsequent to that, all of us got to play him in his "inactive" mode against the exact same lineup. That I went 9-0-1 was just lucky.

Anyway, I still fail to see how doing this makes things more fun and competitive, and I believe that my point will be proven when the waiver period is over and we see the results.

Meanwhile, I spent the better part of this morning doing a little reasearch (nice to have all of this time on my hands)

Reg Dunlop didn't change his team since day one. The correct move, I believe, would have been to simply freeze it as it was.

Same for Buffalo Chill.

He stopped playing after Week 5, so all of us except for the SI Rockets had to play him while he was still active.

At least that way, the playing field would have been level in that we all get to play both disbanded teams against their same lineup the same number of times, except for the exception just noted, and the imbalanced schedule.

But this is important....

By disbanding two teams, you have, in effect, practically guaranteed a 9 or 8 or possibly 10 win week for everyone else who has yet to play them at least once, and in some cases twice.

Since we are in the middle of a schedule cycle, and since the season has 22 weeks instead if 21, making for an unbalanced schedule in the first place, the following four teams

SI Rockets
DMC
5 For Fighting
Ice Picks

play the disbanded teams a total of three times, giving them a big advantage over the following two teams

Broadway Blues
Plaw

who only play the disbanded teams twice.

Had you simply frozen their rosters, at least there would have been a chance (and a good one - they did practically every week so far) for the disbanded teams to pick up at least a few points against the teams they are playing.

Now, there is virtually no chance of that happening unless, as JL points out, someones +/- happens to end up negative for the week.

You're gonna tell me this is fair?

Hey guys,
My apologies for all the commotion I seem to have caused. This is the first time I joined an online fantasy (and the last!) and I thought that I could simply leave my team as is, and let it coast throughout the year. I *assumed* that since we didnt have to be online on the draft, and that the computer would automatically pick my team, it would automatically ice my team all year, and I could sit back and watch.
As I mentioned to Don Cardi, I still followed the standings and liked to follow the posting/banter between you guys.

Again, my apologies, and I hope this hasn't tarnished me on the boards.
Good luck to you guys, and of course, Go Leafs Go.

Paul

Can we simply delete the teams that aren't playing anymore or do you want to just restore free agents and leave it as is so that it's fair to teams that won't play the no teams as much.

As I've said it really doesn't make a difference to me because I'm only playing for fun, if this was football I would choose to freeze the teams as they were.

I can't see how that would be any fun.

No problem about all the fuss, Maple.

This thing's gotta happen every few months or so - helps to get rid of the bad blood. :p

You can't delete them.

Even if you could, you wouldn't want to because then the teams that have three games remaining against them wouldn't have anyone to play those weeks, so they'd be playing a 19 week schedule while everyone else would be playing 20, so that wouldn't be fair to them .

Also, I don't understand why you would feel differently if this was football.

Presumably, it's because you took football more seriously, which is fine.

But that shouldn't change your objectivity.

PL, you make good points, but I think the whole thing is being blown out of proportion. If you're playing an inactive line-up, you should still score at least 7 or 8 points. The difference IMO is minimal.

I agree. The difference is minimal.

See, I can understand everyone thinking "what's the big deal, this is all for fun."

But in that case, why bother keeping score at all?

Why? Because if we didn't, it wouldn't be any fun.

So if we are gonna keep score, and someone is gonna finish first, and someone else second, etc., then 2 or 3 points in the standings could make a difference.

And that's just adressing the scheduling issue.

The waiver thing is a whole separate argument.

Maybe I'd feel different if I didn't think my team was unbeatable anyway. Same goes for the waiver moves.

Well, then think both issues through objectively.

Remove yourself from the league and pretend you're DB or JG - someone who knows fantasy sports but isn't involved in the game.

Having thought about it, probably the best thing that could have been done would have been DC taking over the dead teams, and setting their rosters every Monday for the entire week.

The problem with that would have been the following:

Reg Dunlop didn't change his team even once from day one, so his should have just been frozen. Then, except for the unbalanced schedule, everyone would have played the exact same team the same number of times.

Nothing could've been fairer than that. To start managing his team in the middle of the season would have been unfair to the people who at that point had played him fewer times.

Iceman had been playing off and on all along. There were times when he missed several days in a row and times when he changed his team every day, seemingly at random.

I would've done nothing with him. No emails suggesting that he play, no nothing. I would've just let him go along as he had been. Just left it up to luck as to who had the good fortune or misfortune to play him on the days or weeks when he was inactive or active, as it had been up until then.

Buffalo Chill stopped playing after Week 5. At that point everyone had played him once while he was active, except for the SI Rockets, so the impact of his inactivity at that point was minimal. I would've just frozen his team as well.

Had we done that, except for the extra week that SI Rockets got to play Buffalo when he was inactive - and, BTW, they were 5-5 that week - the impact of those three teams inactivity on the league as a whole would have been nil.

OK, I'm done for now.

Tune in tomorrow when I examine if putting all of these players on waivers served to increase or decrease competitive balance.

Perhaps someone can answer me one thing. This is a small gripe, but mainly a question. Of the 6 remaining players I'm at the bottom in league standings, yet I'm also at the bottom of the waiver list.

I know in football the worse you were doing the higher you were on the waiver list.

Of the 4 players I put in for, 3 were denied.


Oh well back to the drawing board.

The waiver claiming goes in turn, based on your waiver priority. When you make a successful claim, you then go to the bottom of the prioity list.

When you have multiple claims in, you're only awarded one at a time. Then you go to the bottom of the list.

If no one claims the other player(s) that you did, you would get that player also, but in this case your waiver priority was #5 when all of this started, and the three other players you selected apparently were claimed by people with a higher waiver priority than you had.

Stick around for a while though, IM.

I'm in the middle of writing an analyis of the whole thing. You were lucky to get anyone.

I don't think so.

Unless it's a private league and the commissioner changes the waiver priority order, that do it the way I described above.

And even if you were first in waiver priority, you still would have gotten only one player and then gone to the bottom of the list.

They do it the way you're saying in real life though.

As far as i know, in all sports, the team at the bottom of the standings always gets the first crack at waived players.

But think about it for a minute:

If you would've gotten all four of the players you claimed, your team would've gone from being maybe the weakest to maybe the strongest overnight.

That certainly would not have been fair.

Yeah to be truthful I am surprised that I got one of the players. But actually Plaw I was #6 on the waiver priority, unless I missed something. One of the players I put in for you got.


Yeah it would've.

Yeah, you were #6. I was #4, though.

Here's a breakdown of the results of the waiver add/drops.

I didn't include DMC's goalie pickup; apparently he was the only one who felt he needed one.

The transactions are listed in the reverse order in which they appear on the league transaction log. The log lists them with the most recent first, and the oldest last.

I listed them in the order in which they occured, which, I believe, reflects the waiver priority at the time.

My observations & analysis:


The four best available players were, I believe, Alfreddson, Demitra, Jokinen, and Thornton, in that order.

Although the order in which I put them is arguable, I think that they were clearly the best four. And the best by a wide margin, which, I believe, made this whole thing unfair in the first place since there were six teams involved.

Anyway, the biggest single factor which affected the process, I think, was the failure of the Staten Island Rockets to claim anyone.

He had the #1 pick, and had he used it he almost certainly would’ve claimed one of the “Big Four”.

By not doing so, he left the door open for Plaw to get one of them, as he moved up from 5th to 4th and Iceman, by the luck of DMC’s mistake (read on) to get one with the 5th pick, after moving up from 6th.

Bway Blues took the best player, Alfreddson. Although it could be argued that Demitra is the better right wing, it was his choice.

5 For Fighting took the second best player, Demitra. Although it could be argued that Jokinen is the better center, once again, it was his choice.

Now the plot thickens....

With Jokinen and Thornton still available, DMC wound up with St. Louis.

What I suspect happened here - and I'm suspecting this because I did the same thing - is this:

The players from Buffalo Chill were listed first, followed by those from Reg Dunlop.

What I did, and what I'm certain DMC did as well -and DM, please correct me if I'm wrong - was scroll up and examine the staistics of each player available.

Every time he saw one that he wanted, he clicked the "Add" button.

The four players mentioned above as the best, as well as St. Louis, appeared on the transaction log in the following order:

Alfreddson
St. Louis
Demitra
Thornton
Jokinen

So I think that DMC claimed Alfreddson first, who was obviously claimed by the Bway Blues who wound up getting him because of their higher waiver priority, and then claimed St. Louis second, because he was the next player listed in the scroll that DMC wanted.

The fact that the player who DMC dropped (Knuble) was possibly better than the one he picked up (St. Louis) notwithstanding, it's hard to believe that he preferred St. Louis over Thornton or Jokinen.

If you have multiple waiver claims in at the same time, Yahoo will award them in the order in which you submit them.

Once they are submitted, they give you the option of changing the order since, obviously, if you have more than one claim in at a time you can't be awarded both unless no one else claims those players, and I imagine that what typically happens in a large league, when there could be more than one decent player on waivers at the same time, is that if you claim more than one, Yahoo has to know which one you want more, just in case of the likely event in which you are not awarded both.

I'm sure that DMC, however, did not take advantage of that option, or he most certainly would have wound up with Jokinen or Thornton instead.

DMC, you can check that, BTW. Yahoo sends you an email to tell you the results of your claims, and they do it in the order in which the claims were submitted. So the second email you get from them should be the one tellling you that you were awarded St. Louis.

Anway, that opened the door for me.

I know who I claimed: Alfreddson, Demitra, Thornton, and Jokinen, and in that order: The order in which they appeared on the transaction log.

Although I would have preferred Jokinen, whose stats are clearly better than Thornton's, since I claimed Thornton first, that's who I got.

And then came Ice Picks, who said in a post that he claimed four players.

I'll assume, and IM please correct me if I'm wrong, that the four he claimed were the usual suspects: Alfreddson, Demitra, Jokinen, and Thornton.

With the first two already gone, the only reason he got Jokinen instead of Thornton was because of my mistake in claiming Thornton first and not re-ordering the priority, and the only reason he got any of the four was because of DM's mistake as described above and SI Rockets failure to participate.

So, where does that leave us? What are the results of all of thos folderol?

Well.....

The two best teams definitely got two of the best four players, although they most certainly had to drop two decent players to get them. But their teams did get stronger, even if only marginally.

Also, the two players they dropped will probably be picked up by two of the weaker teams, which should strengthen those teams a bit more.

DMC, IMO, is arguable. I think that they player he dropped was better than the one he got. And he certainly screwed himself out of one of "The Big Four".

SI Rockets also clearly hurt himself by not participating. He allowed the two teams in front of him to get stronger without strengthening his own team, and he allowed at least two of the three teams behind him to get stronger as well. He’s certainly the big loser here.

If he didn’t know about this “draft” for one reason or another, he has every right to scream his head off, I think.

As for me, well, I would've preferred Jokinen to Thornton, but it's not that big a deal. With the fifth spot on the priority list, I was certain that i wasn't gonna get any of the four, so i can't really complain.

The guy I had to let go was pretty decent, too. AAMOF, center was my strongest position, and I would have much preferred Alfreddson or Demitra. So I improved, if only marginally, as well.

So...Marginal improvement for Bway, Five For, and myself, altho based on who we had to give up, I'd say they improved more than I did.
Big improvement for Ice; He's the big winner here because of DMC's screw-up.
No improvement for SI Rockets, and a worsening of his position and those ahead of him got stronger, and at least two of the three behind him did, too.
No improvement, and possibly a worsening of his team for DMC.

Did all of this "help competitive balance"?

IMO, no, it did not.

As JustLou suggested would happen, the rich got richer.

Yes, the team lowest in the standings got help, but that was purely through luck.

And for the three middle-of-the-roaders, SI Rockets, myself and DMC, there was only very marginal improvement, no improvement, or a possible worsening.

The only remaining question is purely philosophical:

"Should actions be taken in the middle of a season designed to make the league more competitive that may, in fact, not make the league more competitive but rather less so, and should such actions be taken even if there were a certainty that they would make the league more competitive, or should things be allowed to simply play themselves out?"

I’ll leave that one open for discussion.

You were right Plaw the 4 I put in for were the four you listed. Obviously I got lucky by getting anyone of them based on your analysis.

I'd have to go back and check my e-mails from Yahoo, I can't recall at this point in time what order I had the waivers in.

It wouldn't have mattered in your case. You could only get the one that was left since you were picking 6th, and SI Rockets and DMC didn't take any of the four.

It mattered to DMC, because when his turn came two of them were left.

And it mattered to me, because since DMC screwed up, two of them were left for me as well.

Thanks for reading that whole thing, though.

I can't believe DC got Alfredsson, and I got 3 players. Luckily you guys overlooked Gaborik. After missing a month earlier in the season, he's been on fire the month of December. He also plays LW and RW which gives a lot of flexibilty in this game.
I gave up Kariya to get him, but he was killing me with his +/-. Same for Crosby, who I gave up for Demitra.

Hmmmm.....

That's another big mistake I made

When I looked at all the player's stats, I never thought to look at their games played.

That's what happens when you don't follow the game, I guess.

Charra was a pretty good pickup for you, too. Him, I just flat-out missed or i wouldv'e grabbed him.

And if DC didn't get Alfreddson, he would've gotten Demitra, I imagine. Not that much of a difference.

The only weakness my lineup had was +/-. I picked up 3 players that besides being top offensive players, are a combined +45.
.....I should be a GM somewhere. :rolleyes:

quote:

---

Originally posted by plawrence:
Hmmmm.....

That's another big mistake I made


By the way, Don Pelosi aka S.I. Rockets was well aware of what took place from the onset.


Don Cardi