Year Long Hockey League idea

[doulos]

After watching some really good World Jr hockey and being involved in a fun pool that was points only, free and yet remarkably awesome, I was reminded of why I started playing in hockey pools from the start. Not to be a mathmetician, not to manage a salary cap and feel like a real GM, and not to find a detailed system for beating out the other GMs using a combination of sneaky add/drop tactics, streaming, an Excel sheet that balances 19 different stat categories and spits out a ranking, and a permutation based on air pressure.

In the past couple years I have been involved (and still am to a degree) in some of those types of leagues and they have sucked the fun out of the whole reason I like to be in hockey pools. I appreciate that for many folks they really love that aspect of things, but I find myself wanting to get back more and more to just points and hockey knowledge - a great combination!

Here is my idea for a hockey league and I would love to know if people would be interested in such a thing. The fundamentals of the league would be based on hockey knowledge, a great fun culture, and good competition.

The idea is to create a league that incorporates all sorts of hockey leagues/tournaments and find a winner at the end of the year based on how someone does in every event.

For example:

The World Jrs
The Olympics
The NHL Regular Season
The NHL Playoffs
The Memorial Cup
etc

Each event would be run separately and would have it's own Champion, but they would also earn points towards a final league champion at the end of the year.

This would mean that most of the league would involve drafting for the various events, and keeping track of totals as the season went along.

Awards could be given out with a Hall of Fame etc, and it could be a really FUN idea for a league that wouldn't be a massive amount of work for any one person (I don't think)

Some questions I have are:

What events should be in a league like this?
Would the multiple drafts during the course of a year make it too difficult for most people?
Is it even remotely interesting?

Would love to hear some feedback on this as I like the idea but maybe it's just something only I would like, or perhaps there are some other factors I have not considered that would make it even better or would make it a no go.

I think making the league free would also be the idea, with the focus being on creating an exceptional league culture with lots of opportunity for GMs to be creative.

[Shoeless]

I like it. Start in the offseason - perhaps throw in the KHL as well. Maybe have teams of GM's that had to communicate with one another to make decisions. Easy enough to do something like this on a board - might need a statistician.

Very interesting Doulos.

[Chinny]

if something like this does happen i am sure i can find someone to collect the stats

as long as they can be found on the internet that is, and yes i agree the KHL and maybe even SEL, OHL

i kind of picture 1 draft with a need to have so many players from each league or a max number of guys per league/event, as i type i realize it would be hard to have 1 draft and count events like mem cup but perhaps you can use guys from your roster and have a filler draft if guys need some fill ins, that will add to the skill of the draft perhaps.

[Nights]

The idea isn't bad, although would the players you draft be for all the events? Meaning your prospects count si nevery league? Or do we have 1 NHL draft, 1 playoff pool, one WJC pool, etc... That could be interesting, and I'd be interested (as long as it's free and good fun).

I, at this point meaning don't hold me up for it next year, but I love looking into stats if I have the time, although I am in no way insane with Excel...

[metaldude26]

Wicked idea for sure. Love the back to basics approach that is still only for diehards.

I think one issue would be the weighting of each mini-pool. Would each pool be weighted the same? I could see people wanting the NHL regular season weighted differently than a tournament like the Olympics because it doesn't last nearly as long so is kind of a crap shoot.

I definitely like the flexibility that this would provide. As you said not much work for any one person. You could essentially designate one person to be a commish for each mini-pool and since it's points only it wouldn't be overwhelming.

[doulos]

I would certainly see each "event" being a separate draft. If it was one draft I see it being a bit too technical.

Weighting the "events" would be an interesting idea as well, and I didn't even think of the KHL and SEL, that would be crazy but really fun. Would certainly mean some good research needed, though I wonder if that might take it too far, tough call.

The bonus would be you could keep track of each individual event top 3 for posterity, but also have a total winner at the end!

[Nights]

It does sound like a good idea. There will be such a thing as too many leagues at some point, but hey, if yo uget all the important ones (NHL, KHL, WJC, Olympics, Mem cup, Calder cup) then we're good to go.

I would look at the avg Pts/G for each league, then see how each point is worth compared to other leagues. The season long leagues should be worth more I'd say then the shorter event, because one huge game in a 82 game seasons is not equal to one huge game lolke Bourque's 7 pointer in the WJC.

[doulos]

Yeah I think a percentage system could be worked out initially to be sure all of the leagues/tournaments are weighted fairly.

The World Championship each year is another one I forgot about.

That one is much trickier to figure out rosters and stuff for though so not sure if it would even be possible.

[JagrBomb]

interesting and complicated at the same time. if you can somehow pull this off, it could be very fun...otherwise, a complete disaster lol. best of luck!

[ultrawhiteness]

i'm interested in anything that makes owning Radulov hurt less. :P

nah seriously, this is an alright idea. combine a simple points setup for the full season leagues with something similar to what Reeveta runs for the world juniors for the tournaments.

i like the idea of weighting the full season leagues a little higher. say, 10 points awarded to the winner of the NHL reg season, but only 5 to the winner of the WJC.

the breadth of knowledge required to win em all would be monumental. and hey, big bonus: soooo many drafts, which is the funnest part of fantasy sports anyway, right?

[fantasyhockeygeek]

I'd be into this too... sounds like a real test. I'd keep it as simple as possible for each league (just points, simple F, D, G positions) - it's the breadth of the different leagues/tournaments that will make this concept successful.

It seems like, logistically, this could be a real bitch to pull off though, unless you made each member of the pool a sub-commish for one of the events, where they were responsible for tabulation of the stats.

[Chinny]

It seems like, logistically, this could be a real bitch to pull off though, unless you made each member of the pool a sub-commish for one of the events, where they were responsible for tabulation of the stats.

Getting the stats will be no issue, I can handle that, getting the concept and rules down will be the hard part!

[doulos]

Chinny is pretty much bionic when it comes to this sort of stuff.

I need to think on the timing, like when a good time to start it is. The offseason would likely still be the best time, but then it would be 4 years until the next Olympics!

[fantasyhockeygeek]

I think we'd still be OK... plenty of fodder, both in terms of leagues and tournaments:

• NHL regular season (+playoffs)
• AHL regular season (+playoffs)
• KHL regular season (+playoffs)
• Eliteserian regular season (+playoffs)
• Spengler Cup
• World juniors
• World championships
• Olympics (ever 4 years!)
• World cup (if it ever comes back!)
• Memorial cup

I'm sure there are more...

Here's a question - does it make sense to combine the tournaments with the other leagues? Or would it be better to separate them all? I don't have a preference either way, but they're very different animals so...

[Nights]

Well, if anything, the leagues are year-long, and the tournies less then a month usually, so you could award more points for the leagues tneh the tournies, or just have a league standings and a tournament standing.

The hardest part, in my opinion, would be to get as much info as possible, and being able to settle for times for each individual draft.

As for the stats, in my opinion the hardest part would be creating the sheet itself (excel). Some of us just like punching numbers in (me for example), but don't have the knowledge to pull off a magical excel sheet that does everything for him, and all he has to do is add numbers.