Today was a good day.
I noticed (was told, actually) that Yahoo's fantasy hockey registrations were open. Immediate reaction? Set up the private league I play with friends every year. Next? Quickly survey the office to see if there's enough interested people to form a league.
I can't count the number of odd looks I received. Fantasy hockey? What's that? It's to be expected from people who don't follow hockey, or sports at all. But people who are avid fans? To not have indulged in the fantasy aspect? Insanity!
More than one person has asked me how to play, so I believe it's about time for a brief initiation.
First, there are many kinds of fantasy games. There are head-to-head leagues, rotisserie leagues, points leagues, salary capped leagues, keeper leagues, and more that are inventions of the bored minds across North America.
Regardless of the specifics, fantasy hockey involves you assuming the role of general manager. You, generally, draft a team of NHL players. These players will be "playing" for you during the season. The points, penalty minutes, plus/minus, wins, etc..., that they accumulate will help your team compete for the league title.
Before you enter your draft, it is quite common to perform some preliminary research. This may be limited to giving yourself a quick refresher of the players on your favorite teams, or may be as involved as reading the in depth fantasy previews provided by magazines, websites, and scribes such as myself. They will generally offer some kind of prediction for how they think things will play out during the upcoming season, and you can weigh your drafting decisions at least in part on this information.
The actual format of the draft varies with the league format.
In most head-to-head, rotisserie, and keeper leagues, all the teams in your league will enter a draft where all the players expected to play in the NHL in the upcoming season will be available. Teams will take turns picking players until their rosters are full. For example, in the classic Yahoo Rotisserie leagues (the web's busiest), participants are required to draft 2 centers, 2 left wingers, 2 right wingers, 4 defensemen, 2 goalies, and 4 bench players. These bench players, as you might expect, occupy spots on your bench. If one of your "starters" goes into a slump, you can sit him out in favor of a streaking bench player.
More advanced players may participate in an "auction" draft, where each team is given an amount of "money" to spend on players. From there, each payer is bid upon. He will end up on the roster of the highest bidder. This format is more popular in baseball, as that sport can claim to be the founders of fantasy competition and this format was amongst the earliest to be found.
A head-to-head league should be familiar to anyone who's played in fantasy football, as the format is very condusive to that sport. Each week, your team will be matched up with an opponent from your league. Your players will compete in a number of statistical categories. From there, there are 2 popular formats. The first involves the team who wins the most categories being assigned a "win". The second involves teams being assigned "wins" and "losses" for each category. At the end of the season, the team with the best "record" is declared the champion.
A points league is very simple. You draft a number of players, and the standings are directly determined by the number of points, wins, etc..., accumulated by those players.
Rotisserie leagues provide a slight twist on this. In a rotisserie league, teams are assigned points based on their "ranking" in a given statistical category. The points are then totalled for a "total score" and the teams are ranked by this total in descending order. For example, in a 10 team league, the team with the most goals will be assigned 10 points for goals. The team with the 2nd most goals will be assigned 9 points, and so on. Same thing for assists, +/-, wins, etc... These points are totalled for each team to arrive at the league standings.
Salary cap leagues are a relatively new invention to fantasy hockey, and provide a great twist on the competition. It also happens to be the format used here on HockeyBuzz. In a salary cap league, each team is given an amount of money to spend. Teams then assemble a lineup of players whose values fit under their cap. Some leagues use actual salaries, some arbitrarily assign a value based on the players' statistical output. Some leagues permit daily transactions, others work on a weekly basis (like HockeyBuzz). These leagues are generally unlimited in size as the entire player pool is available to each team.
A keeper league is traditionally for more advanced players. For this to work effectively, you need a dedicated group of players that will participate for a number of years. Essentially the keeper league can function under any format, with the differing point being that each team can "protect" a certain number of players from year-to-year. For example, a team may be able to protect 1 player from each position off a 15-man team. This means that those players aren't entered into the draft. Participants in keeper leagues tend to be rabid in their participant of hot rookies, as drafting an Ovechkin, Crosby, or Malkin could make or break a team for the next 10 years.
Once your team is drafted, and play begins, you get out of "team-building" mode and into "team-managing" mode. You will have to respond to transactions (players sent down, called up, traded, etc...), injuries, slumps, and other unforeseen events. You will be able to (in most cases) add players, drop players, and, most importantly, trade players.
Trading players is one of the most entertaining aspects of the fantasy hockey season. Trade speculation and rumors are one of the most enjoyable parts of being a hockey fan; fantasy hockey allows you to do more than just speculate. Propose trades, review trade offers, it's all in your hands.
At the end of the season, a league champion is crowned. Sometimes this happens after a short playoff, sometimes not. Again, it depends entirely upon the league format and commissioner.
And there you have it. A brief, and I mean brief, introduction to fantasy hockey. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at
[email protected], or leave a message in the comments.
Join the Discussion:
»