How to promote parity in hockey pool leagues?

[kevinsrangers]

every rule we ever implement seems to favor the weaker teams. if you reward a team with first pick because they finished low it will only help that team in the first round if they don't do any study on the upcoming draft. I see year after year of teams picking eighth or ninth in every round who come out with stronger draft results because they did some homework.
I encourage every new team to not make the first trade of the year. guaranteed to get trade raped. figure out the league settings and player worths. ask other managers about your trade offers. there's a reason a new gm has trade offers from nine other gm's. but a new manager wants to make the team his own so inevitably they start out by making a bad trade. eventually your left thinking, eff it, let the best teams( who do the most work) win.

[als_revenge]

In my opinion, a league only needs to be "reset" if it is generally not fun for the majority of players anymore. In terms of your ideas:

- I don't think doing a Keep 10 and Keep 11 for top 2 teams will have any impact. If you really wanted to do a reset to re-energize the league, you could do a Keep 5 or Keep 6 for a year, and then go back to your Keep 12. There will be lots of trading from top to bottom given quality guys you can't keep. And the redraft acts as a way to re-settle things. But this only works, in the long run, if you have managers that have the same level of commitment and skill. [You could combine this with contraction, if there are existing teams that aren't committed, or skilled enough, to warrant being in your league.]

- I do think leagues should have a veto mechanism. The reason being if you have one or two unskilled GMs....it's usually one or two sharks that do all the pillaging. Personally, I see no skill in that. And no fun in it either. If somebody else wants to think they are the greatest GM on earth because they traded three scrubs for McDavid...well, good on them. In my opinion, a no veto system only works in leagues where it's demonstrated that the GMs are committed and knowledgeable (i.e. a competitive league).

Just my two cents, for whatever it's worth.

[Chunkys_Choice]

I don't think doing a Keep 10 and Keep 11 for top 2 teams will have any impact. If you really wanted to do a reset to re-energize the league, you could do a Keep 5 or Keep 6 for a year, and then go back to your Keep 12. There will be lots of trading from top to bottom given quality guys you can't keep. And the redraft acts as a way to re-settle things. But this only works, in the long run, if you have managers that have the same level of commitment and skill. [You could combine this with contraction, if there are existing teams that aren't committed, or skilled enough, to warrant being in your league.

Yeah I think you're right about the winners keep 10/11 idea. From my roster below, my 11th and 12th keepers will probably be something like Lee and Carlson. If I win and lose those two and the bottom two teams use their first round picks to draft those guys, all that's going to do is give Dahlin and Svechnikov to someone else. I like the One Year Keep 5 mini-reset idea! Thanks for those two cents

[lucafen4]

If you want to rebalance, reduce to 5-8 keepers and redraft. Keeps the top teams good, but offers a soft reset

[DAAKS]

I can tell you from experience that raising the money doesn't help. I'm in year 4 of running my keeper league with a $100 buy in and I still have GM's that appear disinterested. In the inaugural season we were a full keeper and have reduced our keeper list each season. We are now at 12 keepers (from 25). This has helped a bit. I also spread out the prize money quit a bit so that more people have a chance to win. We have prizes for 1st ($400), 2nd($200), 3rd($100), playoff winner($100) as well as $50 per month for the team that had the strongest month. This means that even the team in last place has a chance to get some money back if his team has a strong month. I've also collapses weak teams dispersing the players back into the draft and have held expansion drafts which forces the top teams to relinquish some talent and depth. At the end of the day my league is more balanced now then it once was but we still have work to do

[agentzero]

Most hockey pools start among friends because you are friends first and hockey pool people second. If that is the case, there is very little you can do, other than blowing a few things up here and there to shake it up. It is generally true that the top guys will always be the top guys, because they are either better scouts, spend more time in it, harass GMs for more trades and are generally better decision makers.. If it's not a friends thing, then follow the advice above, recruit selectively and that should help. No league is perfect, but changing things up in the format here and there generally helps.

[ericdaoust]

Not all GMs are equal. Some invest more time than others and some people simply figure things out faster. No matter what you do the same people will find ways to get back on top because they'll do a better job adapting to changes.

Also make sure you get rid of slacker GMs ASAP. Don't let the problem linger, because if you wait six months that's a lot of time for the team to sit on its current roster and not take advantage of opportunities to get better under new ownership. You'll swing and miss often bringing in new GMs but you have to keep trying if you are going to find a good one at some point. If this is a group of friends then you will be restricted in booting people but this is what I feel is best for a long-term fantasy league.

[hockeyrobot]

Not all GMs are equal. Some invest more time than others and some people simply figure things out faster. No matter what you do the same people will find ways to get back on top because they'll do a better job adapting to changes.

Also make sure you get rid of slacker GMs ASAP. Don't let the problem linger, because if you wait six months that's a lot of time for the team to sit on its current roster and not take advantage of opportunities to get better under new ownership. You'll swing and miss often bringing in new GMs but you have to keep trying if you are going to find a good one at some point. If this is a group of friends then you will be restricted in booting people but this is what I feel is best for a long-term fantasy league.

That is great advice. Only ED could say it so perfectly.

[Kofax]

Switching to a 1-year league is probably the easiest way.

Reducing the number of keepers is the next easiest. (I get the impression you want to keep some form of keeper aspect, so this is what I'd do).

Weeding out poor GMs is also a good idea, but it is much harder to determine who is a good GM to take their place.

Really though, even with all these changes, the good GM's will still be the good GM's and will find a way to compete, while the weaker ones, unless they put the time and effort in, likely won't improve.

[ericdaoust]

Also, simplifying the league will lead to better parity. The more complex things are, the more tools weak GMs have at their disposal to set their franchise back even more.

Examples for simplifying your league:
-fewer teams
-smaller rosters
-fewer keepers
-fewer scoring categories
-one-year league

Examples for adding complexity to the league:
-more teams
-larger rosters
-more keepers
-more scoring categories
-salary cap
-farm teams (to stockpile prospects)
-keeper league

[Chunkys_Choice]

Great points here everyone, much appreciated! I think I'll bring a whole bunch of these options to the league and see what everyone thinks. Who knows, maybe this is all my head and everyone thinks the status quo is fine. Anyway, thanks again. If admins ever consider adding a specific forum for fantasy league rules / commissioner talk, I think that would be a great idea!

[EdmontonCrunch]

I'll say this much:

A league is only as good as it's weakest GM

This ! At a certain point some GM's just don't have the knowledge and passion for a league. When putting together a league you just need to hope for the best and do your best to make the league fun.