…The NHL Season!

As a good Canadian boy, I loves me some hockey.  I still remember growing up and watching “The Hockey Sweater”, a quintessential story of the rivalry between those pesky Canadiens and my beloved Maple Leafs.  (Funny thing, I just re-read and re-watched the story with my girlfriend, and just realized how abrupt it ends.  She thought it would be a feel-good story about a boy learning to cope with adversity and bullying, only to have a priest tell the boy to go to church and pray away the Leaf sweater.  What a great rivalry!)

I also remember the many days and nights where a group of friends and I would get together to play street hockey, ball hockey, or foot hockey.  I would always be the goalie because 1) I was bigger than most of my friends, and 2) I was slower than most of my friends.  I never had the chance to play real hockey on ice, unfortunately, due to a major fork in the road in the form of a Christmas present decision when I was younger:  join a hockey league and learn how to skate, or an N64.  My parents are thankful that I went for the latter, and my friends and former housemates learned that I can hold my own on a handful of those wonderful 64-bit games.

But I’ll be honest here…as much as I’m excited to see how my Leafs will do this year…I’m more excited for my fantasy hockey teams.

Yes, I know, “fake” sports.  The name itself contains a word synonymous with imagination, but I proudly admit that it is my guilty pleasure.  I’ve been in various fantasy sports leagues since 2002, but have always loved the hockey leagues.  As mentioned before, I grew up surrounded by hockey.  One of my first ever memories as a child is watching the Leafs vs. Blues in the playoffs, with CuJo getting beat by Dougie Gilmour and the gang in 7.  But fantasy hockey allowed me to watch the game from a different perspective.  Instead of just watching the Leaf games and cheering for wins, I was watching other teams and players, seeing who was scoring or assisting, who played on which lines, and even minor details, like who made the most hits or got penalty killing time.

Nowadays, I have two keeper leagues going.  One not-so-intense one where we keep 5 players (3 forwards, 1 defenceman, and 1 goalie) and re-draft the remainder of the team.  This league is 8 teams, all childhood friends, and it’s always a great way to secure bragging rights (*Ahem* 2015/16 champ right here). The other is more intense: a 14-team league where you keep all players on the team, there’s a salary cap, and a whole prospect draft and development system.  Both these leagues keep me excited, but the second, more intense league, is something that I love.  Even now, during the off season, I’m looking up stats on kids who are playing on farm teams, I’m checking out historical data, and reading up on news about players and teams.  But I eat it all up.

I present to you, the salary cap structure of my 2016-2017 fantasy keeper league.  I think I’ve put together a fine team, although it can always improve.  I’ll update the blog as the season goes along, but I have some confidence in this lineup this year.  But no matter what happens, GO LEAFS GO!