ESPN TBL Fantasy Hockey 2008/09

Post by **batdad** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 11:51 pm

All he needs to know are Hawks...he might win just with them.

Hawks rock! And tell him I miss chatting with him.

Oh, and I have made about 10 changes to my list. I am gonna let ESPN decide how I do...which judging from the fact that Bryzgalov is about 4th among goalies...will not be well.

I will be more active after the draft, shaking and moving like I did last time

Post by **getzlaf15** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 12:12 am

How do ESPN rank their players? Theodore as the third goalie, not sure about that one. And Price as the 15th ranked overall player? Just curious as to what makes these guys... what do they call them... Experts?

I think most TBL'ers would (and will) compile a better list.

Post by **B. Stinson** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 12:57 am

Anyone do a mock draft yet? I just finished one, and it was pretty nice. Though, I'll warn you, the timer does not at all help; It's easy judging players from afar, but when you know you've got only 90 seconds to pick, it's a whole new situation.

Especially in those later rounds when it's a bunch of guys you don't know much about.

Plus, it gives you a good idea of where players may go, giving you a chance at forming some strategy.

Post by **getzlaf15** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 1:11 am

Didn't know you could do that. I'll just adding the final touches to my draft listings then i'll going to try it.

But you will have to tell me where it is to do it? I've found draft testing which is all good but where is this mock draft you talk about?

Post by **B. Stinson** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 1:31 am

If you go to the fantasy hockey home page, there should be a stack of six blue "buttons" on the right-hand side of the page: Create a League; Join a League; Mock Draft Lobby; etc... Click the 'Mock Draft Lobby' one. That should take you to the lobby with a list of available draft rooms(don't worry about the names, you can join any one you want).

I would recommend picking one that's about ten minutes away, 'cause the Java-based draft app. will configure itself which takes a minute or two.

P.S. I think mock drafts use the default ESPN rankings list. So you may not be able to use the one you've been tinkering. Just a warning so you don't get utterly lost when looking at the list like I did at first.

Post by **B. Stinson** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 2:08 am

Scratch what I said about giving time for the app to set-up. That'll all happen when the draft begins, so you won't actually waste time.

Also, I'm just now beginning another draft, and it says the results get emailed to you when the draft is done.

Post by **getzlaf15** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 2:31 am

Good stuff, thanks, i was going to say lets do one together, but then my player preferences would be in the wrong hands.

Post by **getzlaf15** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 3:02 am

Just completed my draft and i'm happy with the team, but it's obviously going to be a lot different, this draft only has 10 teams most of which were autopicks, compared to the 16-20 teams that will all have their own lists, so it's not the best for realism.

Also, i couldnt view my list that i had made, i only had ESPN's list of players, which im guessin i will be able to see on the actual draft?

Post by **B. Stinson** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 3:19 am

I just finished my second draft with the last pick, and did pretty well. I'd say better than my first one when I had 9th pick.

As for your list, I'm sure it'll be there in our draft. It probably uses the defaults for the mock drafts since it doesn't recognise our real teams on the side.

tabascoward · Post by **tabascoward** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 10:47 am

can i join my email is guy24794ward@btinternet.com

Post by **getzlaf15** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 2:54 pm

B. Stinson wrote:I just finished my second draft with the last pick, and did pretty well. I'd say better than my first one when I had 9th pick.

As for your list, I'm sure it'll be there in our draft. It probably uses the defaults for the mock drafts since it doesn't recognise our real teams on the side.

In my draft i had second overall, and that went well, i think i would prefer more central in the draft though to be honest.

Post by **B. Stinson** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 5:28 pm

tabascoward invited. 17 teams, 3 more spots possible.

P.S. I probably shouldn't admit this, but in my first mock draft, I made it all the way to the 11th round before I realised... I hadn't a single defenseman on my team.

Needless to say, I fixed that minor oversight for the next draft.

StarboardWinger · Post by **StarboardWinger** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 6:50 pm

Hi all, I love to join.

starboardwinger@gmail.com

I have problem with the draft time though as one of my yahoo hockey is drafting at 4pm ET on September 27. Also it would be great if we can make this an annual thing to make it more interesting!

p.s. please change the draft time.

Post by **archibalduk** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 9:06 pm

How long did it take you to complete the draft? I'm wondering how long it will take with 17-20 teams.

bruins72 wrote:I mentioned the honorary trophy title to him the other day and he got a good laugh out of it. He said he had kind of fallen out of touch with fantasy hockey so much that he probably wouldn't know anyone outside of his Blackhawks players. I can kind of relate. I don't follow the rest of the league nearly as much as I used to.

I'm in a similar position. I barely followed the league at all last season because I didn't have internet access for a large part of it and I couldn't record any of the games they show on TV late at night in the UK. However, now I have the internet and I have my digital video recorder (which came just in time for the Playoffs) and so I'm all raring to go for this season! However, I'm not sure how well I will perform in the fantasy hockey - but I'm in it just for fun rather than competitively.

It's quite tough drawing up the draft list because there's just so many players that I could choose for my team. Also, it's hard to decide how to prioritise the positions - e.g. do I select goalies for my top three preferences or do I choose some forwards or a mixture??? I've shuffled a few things around and will probably continue to tweak it for the rest of the month. I think quite a lot of it will be similar to the default ESPN list.

Post by **getzlaf15** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 10:02 pm

The draft doesn't take too long at all, i think mine was about 20 mins at the most.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 4:11 pm

I'm sure the live one with everyone involved with take a lot longer, probably more than an hour.

Post by **getzlaf15** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 6:31 pm

Indeed, most of the picks when i were playin were computer auto picks, so they went instantly.

Post by **archibalduk** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:14 pm

How many rounds does the draft involve? Isn't there a limit of 90 seconds per pick? Thus with 20 teams it would take a very maximum of 30 mins per round - probably a heck of a lot shorter, though.

Post by **getzlaf15** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:41 pm

The draft is 22 rounds long. 90 seconds per pick is right.

That, as Archi said, is a maximum length of each round of 30 minutes. And I make the maximum length of the draft 660 minutes (11 hours). So hopefully it won't take that long. Some of us have sleep to catch.

Post by **B. Stinson** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 10:53 pm

StarboardWinger wrote:Hi all, I love to join.

starboardwinger@gmail.com

I have problem with the draft time though as one of my yahoo hockey is drafting at 4pm ET on September 27. Also it would be great if we can make this an annual thing to make it more interesting!

p.s. please change the draft time.

Invite sent. We're now at quite an impressive 18 team league, with only two more slots possible.

As for the time thing, that might be pretty sensitive. The reason behind 15:00 ET is so everyone gets at least a decent time in their time zone. With a 15:00 start time, our current span is from 12:00 noon on the west coast US/Can, 22:00 in Finland/eastern Europe, and 08:00-10:00 in east Australia. Unfortunately, shifting an hour or two backwards would definitely make it too early for Australia, and would be borderline early for west coast US/Can.

So, I have no problems with adjusting the time, but I'm gonna let everyone discuss it first.

And on the subject of an annual league... I agree. That'd be a lot of fun having everyone return next year to continue. Though, I don't think players would carry over in standard leagues. I think that's only in "keeper leagues". But despite that, it could still be a fun TBL tradition.

Post by **getzlaf15** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 12:09 am

Indeed, the annual league would be good and our way of being GM's, we should have more awards and have the winners state their awards they have above their avatars. If that makes any sense.

As for the draft, thats a tough one, im up for anything but i dont think that the times are too bad, plus people who cant make it will have their list that drafts for them, so it isnt too bad.

Post by **B. Stinson** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 12:29 am

we should have more awards

I'm definitely hoping to make more. It'd especially be nice if we did do this year to year, 'cause then traditional hockey style end-of-year awards would be meaningful (and fun to aim for).

I was even thinking of using real NHL awards, and adapting them to our league. Like the team who has the most goals could get the Maurice Richard, the team with the best overall goaltending stats would get the Vezina, etc., etc. I've also got one in the works for the New England Patriots of our league: the team who finishes with a perfect 180 points(or 190 with 19 teams; 200 with 20 teams). Quite a prestigious one that would be.

Post by **getzlaf15** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 1:18 am

The Partiots Award - Don't you mean the award for falling at the last hurdle.

Year-to-year would be great idea. Most of the TBLers have been here for some time and i think that doing this would keep people interested. Would give us some good friendly banter.

Good idea about the awards too.

StarboardWinger · Post by **StarboardWinger** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 4:04 am

Wow, we have people here from Australia?

Post by **B. Stinson** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 4:20 am

Seven yearly trophies added. You can check them out in the league's trophy catalogue. And view it's 'History' to see it full-size.

Note on the Calder: I guess we'll all be up for this one, since we're all rookies this year.

StarboardWinger wrote:Wow, we have people here from Australia?

Indeed we do. Even one from Japan. ...TBL's a melting pot of World hockey fans.