Advanced Fantasy Hockey

By Johnny Fantasy

I’ve made plenty of criticisms of fantasy hockey setups.  Indeed, the whole inspiration for this blog was to start a conversation about how we choose the rules for our fantasy hockey leagues and ways to improve those choices.  But I’ve been thinking: what if, rather than just making adjustments within the established fantasy hockey system, we might do better by tearing down the fantasy hockey model and starting from scratch in a way that better reflects the sport as a whole?  Continue reading “Advanced Fantasy Hockey” →

Basic Strategies for Fantasy Hockey

by Johnny Fantasy

So, after learning how fantasy sports work in my last post, you’ve decided to jump in and play fantasy hockey.  If this is your first time playing fantasy hockey, there are a few things to keep in mind that will help you succeed throughout the fantasy season, because unfortunately fantasy sports doesn’t necessarily just come down to choosing the players who have the best real-life value.  Here are some tips to help you avoid some common pitfalls in playing fantasy hockey.

Continue reading “Basic Strategies for Fantasy Hockey” →

Fantasy Sports for Beginners

by Johnny Fantasy

It’s that time of year again – summer is winding down, and hockey season is coming up in a matter of weeks.  You’re once again organizing a hockey pool and, as always, you have that one friend that’s a big sports fan, and who you’re convinced would really enjoy your league, if he (or she) would just give it a try.  But, they’ve never played a fantasy sport before, and they’re not really sure how it all works.  If only there were a straightforward introductory article that could bring them up to speed on the basic concepts….

Continue reading “Fantasy Sports for Beginners” →

Summer Wish List

by Johnny Fantasy

The fantasy season has ended.  We fantasy managers are now leisurely watching the NHL playoffs (Go Rangers!  Caps!  Bol…Sharks!) and some of us are already looking forward to the next fantasy season.  In doing so, I can’t help but wonder what new features my platform of choice (Yahoo) will introduce.  There’s usually one or two new things each year, but Yahoo does have some catching up to do compared to some of its competitors.  And further, as the supposed “official partner” of the NHL, shouldn’t Yahoo strive to be the market leader here?  With that in mind, here is my wish list of new features and ideas that I’d like to see them incorporate for next season. Continue reading “Summer Wish List” →

Calculating a Cap Hit

by Johnny Fantasy

Many fantasy leagues incorporate a salary cap concept – whether as part of a continuous cap scheme or simply as a mechanism to select keeper players.  For those leagues that base player salary costs on real-life cap hits, figuring out what the actual cap hit for each player is very important.  Continue reading “Calculating a Cap Hit” →

Guest Post: An Explanation of Yahoo’s Standard Deviation Stat Filter

By Johnny Guestpost

A few years ago, Yahoo introduced a new option for filtering its player list in fantasy hockey: standard deviation or “std dev”.  This may have gone under the radar for a lot of people but it can actually be a very useful tool, especially in stat-category leagues, if you know how to use it.  Continue reading “Guest Post: An Explanation of Yahoo’s Standard Deviation Stat Filter” →

A Commissioner’s Manifesto (Part 5 – In Search of the Perfect Points System)

by Johnny Fantasy

Setting up a fantasy hockey league is no easy task if you want to do things right.  While it’s impossible for fantasy to exactly track reality, I always wanted to find a league setup that did the fairest job of approximating reality and that would provide the best experience of managing a hockey team of NHL players.  To that end, there are the some basic principles I’ve settled on over the years.  In part 4, we tried to find the best balance of categories for a stat-categories league.  Here in part 5, we’ll try to figure out the best way to weight the stat categories for a Yahoo fantasy-points league. Continue reading “A Commissioner’s Manifesto (Part 5 – In Search of the Perfect Points System)” →

A Commissioner’s Manifesto (Part 4 – Finding the Right Balance of Stat Categories)

by Johnny Fantasy

Setting up a fantasy hockey league is no easy task if you want to do things right.  While it’s impossible for fantasy to exactly track reality, I always wanted to find a league setup that did the fairest job of approximating reality and that would provide the best experience of managing a hockey team of NHL players.  To that end, there are the some basic principles I’ve settled on over the years.  Judging each stat category as we did in part 3 is an important first step, but how good a league will be will depend on what the chosen categories look like as a whole.  Here in part 4, we’ll try to figure out the right balance for choosing categories in a stat-categories league.  Continue reading “A Commissioner’s Manifesto (Part 4 – Finding the Right Balance of Stat Categories)” →

A Commissioner’s Manifesto (Part 3 – Stat Categories)

by Johnny Fantasy

Setting up a fantasy hockey league is no easy task if you want to do things right.  While it’s impossible for fantasy to exactly track reality, I always wanted to find a league setup that did the fairest job of approximating reality and that would provide the best experience of managing a hockey team of NHL players.   To that end, there are the some basic principles I’ve settled on over the years.  In part 1, we looked at the different platforms available (we settled on Yahoo and the rest of our discussion will focus on that); in part 2 we looked at the different league formats.  Here in part 3, we’ll look at stat categories. Continue reading “A Commissioner’s Manifesto (Part 3 – Stat Categories)” →

A Commissioner’s Manifesto (Part 2 – Formats)

by Johnny Fantasy

Setting up a fantasy hockey league is no easy task if you want to do things right.  While it’s impossible for fantasy to exactly track reality, I always wanted to find a league setup that did the fairest job of approximating reality and that would provide the best experience of managing a hockey team of NHL players.   To that end, there are the some basic principles I’ve settled on over the years.  In part 1, we looked at the different platforms available (we settled on Yahoo and the rest of our discussion will focus on that).  Here in part 2, we’ll look at league formats. Continue reading “A Commissioner’s Manifesto (Part 2 – Formats)” →