Fantasy hockey.
Every year around this time, people start setting up leagues, ranking players and devising strategies. Me? I never thought about it much, skipped over the pages of fantasy analysis, pitied those who missed drafts and ended up with a bad team. I’ve never been one of the girls who hates fantasy leagues, I just never really got into that part of sports. That is, until this year.
Bryan put up a post calling for people to join a HW league. Initially, I glanced over it and didn’t think about it too much. But then I thought to myself, "Self, how lame will you be if you don’t join the fantasy hockey league for the site you write for?" So I sent Bryan a quick email asking for a basic explanation and tips. A few hours later, I received an essay back detailing what was basically fantasy hockey for dummies. I emailed him back telling him that I was in.
So now I guess I’m playing fantasy hockey this season. And I’ve already encountered some obstacles.
1) Naming my team. Seems like a fairly simple process, right? It’s the first thing you do after entering the league id and password. And yet, I struggled. The naming requirements are easy enough – 20 characters max. I wanted something witty or punny, hockey related and awesome. It’s harder than it sounds. I consulted many people, but few had good answers. Some of the naming suggestions I received included Puckaroos, I’ll be the Stick to your Puck and Jonathan Towes is a Hottie (her spelling.) Eventually, I named my team Fedoruk’s Face.
2) Ranking players. Bryan informed me that I should rank players in preparation for the draft and that, while Yahoo! did a ranking of their own, I should do it myself also. Did you know that there are a lot of players in the NHL? It was a somewhat overwhelming task. And by was I mean is, because I still haven’t done it yet.
3) I’m not a stats person. I’ve never been into numbers. Even in school I’ve always disliked number subjects like math and science. I like specific players most of the time not because of certain stats but because of their overall game and attitude. For example, I know that Jonathan Toews is fantastic at faceoffs, but I like him more because of how unbelievably competitive he is. Unfortunately for me, fantasy hockey is based on stats, so I guess I better start paying better attention.
4) I still harbor loyalties. Sure, Sidney Crosby might be a great player to have on my fantasy hockey team, but a little part of me still doesn’t want to draft him because I don’t really like him all that much. And yeah, Roberto Luongo might get me some wins…but he’s a Canuck.
So join me in my foray into the world of fantasy hockey and see what happens. It could be good, it could be bad, I really don’t know what’s going to happen. But it will most likely be entertaining.
Up next: The Draft