We're six weeks in and there have been some beauty games. I have to admit that I haven't watched as much as some of you but I think for me, I find more enjoyment in the fantasy game than I do in the actual game. Weird I know, but it's true. I enjoy coming home from church on Sunday morning and seeing how close my match up is or how badly I am crushing my opponent or how badly Eli Manning is doing. Honestly with a name like Manning he should be good all the time!
Some have been very active in the free agent market and have had varying success with your strategies. Others have left their lineups alone. Whether that is on purpose or out of apathy I'm not sure but it has worked for some and not for others.
16 teams, each with a manager who has a style and strategy of their own. We still have a long way to go and so much can happen over the next few weeks that could turn out standings on their head. One injury to a key running back or a QB who hits the skids and starts to make decisions like Jason Campbell or a receiver who starts acting like Jerry Rice could change a teams fortunes in a single weekend.
For now though, here are our current standings.
Our friend from the West Coast the Victoria Vikings are in a three way tie with the superbly manages Big Punters and Fishfan (who have successfully implemented the heavy of the free agent strategy) for top slot.
Favre's Flip Flops, the Slayers, and worst to middle of the pack Super Bowl Kings sit at 4-2 with First Don and the Hot Tigers one game back at .500.
The lower half of the pool is in a log jam as Meanmachine, Bone Crusher, Soccerslack, Titans, The B Team, the Cold Lions, Pack Attack, and Al's All-Stars are working on moving up into playoff contention. Unfortunately for some it may be a rebuilding year, but you never know, crazier things have happened
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
0
Week 1 Is Upon Us
The teams are drafted and games start in just a few hours. If you're like me you probably had a few of those "who the heck is that guy?" moments. Hopefully I'm not alone in that one. Anyway not to fear, you can make trades, claim players off of waivers or pickup undrafted players throughout the week.
A few little side notes as we go into the real deal. Each week is a head to head match up. Points are given out for each position and bonus points for major milestones reached by an individual player. You can check out all the scoring details under the League tab on the yahoo site.
Week 1 sees some pretty high octane match ups
Favre's Filp Flops v. Titans
Hot Tigers v. Cold Lions (totally random first week match up but that's AWESOME!)
Slayers v. Bone Crushers
First Don v. Soccerslack
Mean Machine v. Victoria Vikings
Superbowl Kings v. Fish Fan ( the kings may need a little help with Matt Stafford starting QB)
The B Team v. Pack Attack
The Big Punters v. Al's All Stars
Should be an epic first weekend.
If anyone has any questions or comments leave them in the section below or e-mail me.
A few little side notes as we go into the real deal. Each week is a head to head match up. Points are given out for each position and bonus points for major milestones reached by an individual player. You can check out all the scoring details under the League tab on the yahoo site.
Week 1 sees some pretty high octane match ups
Favre's Filp Flops v. Titans
Hot Tigers v. Cold Lions (totally random first week match up but that's AWESOME!)
Slayers v. Bone Crushers
First Don v. Soccerslack
Mean Machine v. Victoria Vikings
Superbowl Kings v. Fish Fan ( the kings may need a little help with Matt Stafford starting QB)
The B Team v. Pack Attack
The Big Punters v. Al's All Stars
Should be an epic first weekend.
If anyone has any questions or comments leave them in the section below or e-mail me.
Monday, August 30, 2010
0
Next on the docket...
It has been quite the summer for sporting events. The World Cup dominated the beginning of the warm months and just as it was finishing up the Tour de France kicked into high gear. Then everything kind of went quiet...TDF ended on July 25th and it is now the 30th of August. Sure NFL preseason is underway and Tiger gets to swing a club for a few hours a week but unless you are a die hard MLB fan you've been stuck watching the Kraft Celebration Tour on Sports Centre followed by the litany of World Series of Poker shows.
But now, as September is just on the horizon, life comes back to the sporting world. Never mind that the least of the Grand tours is into it's third stage, where Cav just relinquished the red leaders jersey to Philippe Gilbert of Omega Pharma-Lotto, now is the time when NFL Fantasy pools rule the workplace, when NHL training camp is so close you can smell the rancid stench of hockey cologne , when every true sports fan wonders who the next Mr. October will be, and when wives wonder why nothing is getting done around the house.
It is a wonderful time of the year!
But now, as September is just on the horizon, life comes back to the sporting world. Never mind that the least of the Grand tours is into it's third stage, where Cav just relinquished the red leaders jersey to Philippe Gilbert of Omega Pharma-Lotto, now is the time when NFL Fantasy pools rule the workplace, when NHL training camp is so close you can smell the rancid stench of hockey cologne , when every true sports fan wonders who the next Mr. October will be, and when wives wonder why nothing is getting done around the house.
It is a wonderful time of the year!
Monday, July 12, 2010
0
Rest Day at TDF 2010
Today was the first rest of the Tour de France. It has been a great first 8 stages with a few surprises, a few disappointments, and more than a few crashes. The cobbles of stage three were a real challenge that produced a few time gaps but the real challenges lay ahead on the weekend.
The riders hit the Alps (Lance kind of fell into them) and one by one on Sunday they began to fall off the back of the main group. Cavanel with his second stint in the Yellow Jersey could not keep the tempo set initially by Team Sky, then Saxo Bank and finally Astana. Everyone was in pain and Paul Sherwen was loving it! "Everyone is suffering now!"he announced cheerily.
But really how bad could it be? It's not that bad if you consider riding 143 km before starting to climb a mountain at 9% grade for 14 km then a quick descent before going for another quick 12km climb at the same grade. What's a measly 9% grade. In riding south of Calgary I've found some pretty stiff hills. I have been humbled many a time by the hills...HILLS! I did the old mapmyride.com thing to check the elevation and grade for a ride that Doc and I did a few weeks ago, because I'm sure they were like 10 km at 12% grade that we rocked.... 4% for 800 meters. I'm a Pansy! Paint my bike pink (not cool pink like at the Giro) and call me Francois. These guys are animals! Just look at Daniel Navarro, (not to be confused with Dave Navarro of Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction fame). He looks like he's having a great time eating up those mountains! In contrast to Navarro's pain, the riders sitting second and third wheel, Contador and Schleck, are actually looking quite comfortable. Navarro put in a ton of time at the front pulling Contador along farther than I think even Contador expected and giving the Spaniard a chance to win the stage.
Shifting gears, cycling is not an overly popular spectator sport here in North America. Even with the emergence of the Tour of California and Lances emense popularity, there still is not the following one might expect. It is only in the past two years that I have started following cycling in earnest and this is the first year that I watched the Classics, which are truly great one day races (Cancellara is a monster).
With that being said, I am continually surprised at how many of my friends are into road cycling and through the wonder of Facebook I have discovered an old friend who is following the tour. Not only is he following the tour, but he is able to carry on a conversation (such that a FB conversation is, about the stages. Fantastic! In thinking of a moniker to bestow upon him, I thought the Predator would be fitting to his location geographically but then I thought that might conjure up images of a young guy with a handlebar mustache sitting around in a hospital gown watching men in spandex grind their way around Franceand we wouldn't want that. So we'll call him Klink, an homage to camp years gone by.
Now onto stage 9, more mountains and more time gaps. Exciting action all morning long.
Klink, enjoy the stage and heal up quick.
The riders hit the Alps (Lance kind of fell into them) and one by one on Sunday they began to fall off the back of the main group. Cavanel with his second stint in the Yellow Jersey could not keep the tempo set initially by Team Sky, then Saxo Bank and finally Astana. Everyone was in pain and Paul Sherwen was loving it! "Everyone is suffering now!"he announced cheerily.
But really how bad could it be? It's not that bad if you consider riding 143 km before starting to climb a mountain at 9% grade for 14 km then a quick descent before going for another quick 12km climb at the same grade. What's a measly 9% grade. In riding south of Calgary I've found some pretty stiff hills. I have been humbled many a time by the hills...HILLS! I did the old mapmyride.com thing to check the elevation and grade for a ride that Doc and I did a few weeks ago, because I'm sure they were like 10 km at 12% grade that we rocked.... 4% for 800 meters. I'm a Pansy! Paint my bike pink (not cool pink like at the Giro) and call me Francois. These guys are animals! Just look at Daniel Navarro, (not to be confused with Dave Navarro of Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction fame). He looks like he's having a great time eating up those mountains! In contrast to Navarro's pain, the riders sitting second and third wheel, Contador and Schleck, are actually looking quite comfortable. Navarro put in a ton of time at the front pulling Contador along farther than I think even Contador expected and giving the Spaniard a chance to win the stage.
Shifting gears, cycling is not an overly popular spectator sport here in North America. Even with the emergence of the Tour of California and Lances emense popularity, there still is not the following one might expect. It is only in the past two years that I have started following cycling in earnest and this is the first year that I watched the Classics, which are truly great one day races (Cancellara is a monster).
With that being said, I am continually surprised at how many of my friends are into road cycling and through the wonder of Facebook I have discovered an old friend who is following the tour. Not only is he following the tour, but he is able to carry on a conversation (such that a FB conversation is, about the stages. Fantastic! In thinking of a moniker to bestow upon him, I thought the Predator would be fitting to his location geographically but then I thought that might conjure up images of a young guy with a handlebar mustache sitting around in a hospital gown watching men in spandex grind their way around Franceand we wouldn't want that. So we'll call him Klink, an homage to camp years gone by.
Now onto stage 9, more mountains and more time gaps. Exciting action all morning long.
Klink, enjoy the stage and heal up quick.
0
World Cup 2010 Finale
The games have all been played and we are now able to breathe a little sigh of relief. In my mind the World Cup lived up to all the hype..except for maybe the final. Holland and Spain was set to be a great game between two European titans. Now, don't get me wrong the game was good. Both sides had their chances, really good chances, and if it wasn't for some outrageous goal tending regulation time would not have ended in a nil-nil draw. After seeing the Dutch play several games during the tournament they looked to be in a great position to knock off the European Champions. But when the game started they started to play dirty. It kept getting worse, and worse as the game went on. It was like Lindsay Lohan's past 5 years was being played out on the pitch, which meant that it was only a matter before their was a disaster and the verdict came down the dutch were crying in the courtroom.
I got to thinking how a team that played so well went so bad and I wonder if it isn't partially the fault of the ref. I know, everyone blames the ref. The ref set out at the beginning of the match to show who was in control of the game, him. He called penalties that may have been marginal in hopes that the players would adjust and play a more open honest game. How'd that work for you Howard? What ended up happening was the Spanish adapted and the Dutch got upset and instead of concentrating on the game they concentrated on the officiating. The dutch ended the match with 9 players being carded and one receiving a red card.
From our end we can relax. There are no more games to contemplate, hard decisions to be made, no more calculating who is going to miss the match because of consecutive games with yellow cards. The final numbers are in and we have a champion. There were 8 players who entered teams in the elimination round and so in that spirit we'll list the top eight.
In eighth place is "Regina Rocket" Jim Haney, a couple points ahead was Lumpy who had an impressive streak from the quarters on. Al came in tied with Lumpy at 29 points. My dad and I were unable to resolve anything in the father/son battle as we both cane in at 31 points. Steve finished in the money at 32 points, Jamie made a valiant run, and won the other father/son match up, beating Lumpy by 3 points (sorry Lump). But our Champion who had an edge on us by growing up for a time in Germany is Andrew Shareski at 38 points.
Andrew has the honor of carrying the title of...guy who won the free pool, for the next 4 years.
So until Brazil 2014, when the vuvuzela will hopefully be a distant memory, and we can join in with most fanatical of Football fans in celebrating World Cup 2014!
I got to thinking how a team that played so well went so bad and I wonder if it isn't partially the fault of the ref. I know, everyone blames the ref. The ref set out at the beginning of the match to show who was in control of the game, him. He called penalties that may have been marginal in hopes that the players would adjust and play a more open honest game. How'd that work for you Howard? What ended up happening was the Spanish adapted and the Dutch got upset and instead of concentrating on the game they concentrated on the officiating. The dutch ended the match with 9 players being carded and one receiving a red card.
From our end we can relax. There are no more games to contemplate, hard decisions to be made, no more calculating who is going to miss the match because of consecutive games with yellow cards. The final numbers are in and we have a champion. There were 8 players who entered teams in the elimination round and so in that spirit we'll list the top eight.
In eighth place is "Regina Rocket" Jim Haney, a couple points ahead was Lumpy who had an impressive streak from the quarters on. Al came in tied with Lumpy at 29 points. My dad and I were unable to resolve anything in the father/son battle as we both cane in at 31 points. Steve finished in the money at 32 points, Jamie made a valiant run, and won the other father/son match up, beating Lumpy by 3 points (sorry Lump). But our Champion who had an edge on us by growing up for a time in Germany is Andrew Shareski at 38 points.
Andrew has the honor of carrying the title of...guy who won the free pool, for the next 4 years.
So until Brazil 2014, when the vuvuzela will hopefully be a distant memory, and we can join in with most fanatical of Football fans in celebrating World Cup 2014!
Monday, July 5, 2010
0
Surprises Abound
So this weekend I was poised to move into the lead! I was sure that no one else had thought to select Brazil over the Dutch, or Argentina over Germany, or Ghana over Uruguay, or Spain over Paraguay. How wrong was I!
I didn't even watch much of the action. I caught the score early in the Brazil/Netherlands game and Brazil was up 1-0. I figured that was it. Brazil has never lost a World Cup match when leading after half. It wasn't until the next day that I found out that the Dutch had come all the way back to win the game.
I did see the second half of the Ghana/Uruguay match and the extra time and the shootout. A shootout that never should have happened. For those of you who saw it you will agree. For those of you who didn't this is what happened.
To give us a little perspective on why it was so wrong for buddy to miss that penalty let us turn to mathematics. A soccer goal is approximately 8 feet tall by 27 feet wide. Lets say on average a soccer ball is 8.65 in diameter but to make the math a little easier lets say 1 foot. Lets go a little further and say that a soccer ball is approximately 1 square foot while the goal is 216 square feet. so you would think that it would be ease to put a little ball in a big net....but wait what about the goalie? Fair enough. Let's add them into the equation. At 6 feet tall, 2 feet wide he'll take up 12 square feet. All in you still have 204 square feet to hit.
Either way, the guy missed and it set up for an exciting shoot out where the Uruguayan goalie made two fantastic saves to lead them to the victory.
So we only have 4 games to go. Tuesday 12:00 sees the first semi final with Uruguay v. Netherlands, Wednesday has the second semi with Germany facing Spain. The losers of those matches will play on Saturday while the winners close out the tournament on Sunday.
Get your picks in by lunch to ensure they count.
I didn't even watch much of the action. I caught the score early in the Brazil/Netherlands game and Brazil was up 1-0. I figured that was it. Brazil has never lost a World Cup match when leading after half. It wasn't until the next day that I found out that the Dutch had come all the way back to win the game.
I did see the second half of the Ghana/Uruguay match and the extra time and the shootout. A shootout that never should have happened. For those of you who saw it you will agree. For those of you who didn't this is what happened.
To give us a little perspective on why it was so wrong for buddy to miss that penalty let us turn to mathematics. A soccer goal is approximately 8 feet tall by 27 feet wide. Lets say on average a soccer ball is 8.65 in diameter but to make the math a little easier lets say 1 foot. Lets go a little further and say that a soccer ball is approximately 1 square foot while the goal is 216 square feet. so you would think that it would be ease to put a little ball in a big net....but wait what about the goalie? Fair enough. Let's add them into the equation. At 6 feet tall, 2 feet wide he'll take up 12 square feet. All in you still have 204 square feet to hit.
Either way, the guy missed and it set up for an exciting shoot out where the Uruguayan goalie made two fantastic saves to lead them to the victory.
So we only have 4 games to go. Tuesday 12:00 sees the first semi final with Uruguay v. Netherlands, Wednesday has the second semi with Germany facing Spain. The losers of those matches will play on Saturday while the winners close out the tournament on Sunday.
Get your picks in by lunch to ensure they count.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
0
Down to 8
The first elimination round ended yesterday afternoon with a disappointing loss by Portugal to Spain, 1-0. Yesterday also saw the first shoot-out of the tournament. After two hours of scoreless soccer the match went to penalties where Paraguay bested Japan 5-3.
There were three teams that stood out in the second round, Holland looked very much in control in their win over Slovakia, Brazil proved that they are the #1 team in the world and Germany, even after all the hype (and controversy) lay a thumping on England.
A couple of thoughts on the England Germany. I was only able to watch the first bit of the game...enough to see Germany go up 2-0. England's defense did not look good, at all. The real hot topic is the disallowed goal that wasn't really a disallowed goal. Wouldn't a goal need to be allowed in order to be disallowed? Either way, the shot that should have been a goal and tied the match going into half time, has caused an uproar in the international soccer community, and rightfully so. But there is nothing we can do about it. They aren't going to institute it for the rest of the tourney. FIFA knows that a mistake was made and that there is technology out there that could have solved the problem but they have their feet planted so deeply in the 1800's that they think that if they institute replay it would soil their squeaky clean game when in fact it would only make it better.
As for the update of our standings, we have had a split in the group. It's either a split or half of you are really good at picking who is going to lose.
Andrew continues to lead the way at 32 points, Jamie is at 31 and is on win away from claiming victory in the first Father/Son battle over Lumpy (23), Steve is 3 points behind at 28. In the second father son battle my dad is edging me 27-26 (but his luck can't hold out!). Jeff remains tied with Al at 25 points even though he hasn't picked a winner in the elimination round. Jim who mocks, is at 24 points.
The remnant of the roster rounds out as follows:
Ryan(22), Dan(21), Kent(21), Pete(21), Brock(20), Mark(19), Elaina(18).
The next matches are coming up on Friday so put your picks in.
There were three teams that stood out in the second round, Holland looked very much in control in their win over Slovakia, Brazil proved that they are the #1 team in the world and Germany, even after all the hype (and controversy) lay a thumping on England.
A couple of thoughts on the England Germany. I was only able to watch the first bit of the game...enough to see Germany go up 2-0. England's defense did not look good, at all. The real hot topic is the disallowed goal that wasn't really a disallowed goal. Wouldn't a goal need to be allowed in order to be disallowed? Either way, the shot that should have been a goal and tied the match going into half time, has caused an uproar in the international soccer community, and rightfully so. But there is nothing we can do about it. They aren't going to institute it for the rest of the tourney. FIFA knows that a mistake was made and that there is technology out there that could have solved the problem but they have their feet planted so deeply in the 1800's that they think that if they institute replay it would soil their squeaky clean game when in fact it would only make it better.
As for the update of our standings, we have had a split in the group. It's either a split or half of you are really good at picking who is going to lose.
Andrew continues to lead the way at 32 points, Jamie is at 31 and is on win away from claiming victory in the first Father/Son battle over Lumpy (23), Steve is 3 points behind at 28. In the second father son battle my dad is edging me 27-26 (but his luck can't hold out!). Jeff remains tied with Al at 25 points even though he hasn't picked a winner in the elimination round. Jim who mocks, is at 24 points.
The remnant of the roster rounds out as follows:
Ryan(22), Dan(21), Kent(21), Pete(21), Brock(20), Mark(19), Elaina(18).
The next matches are coming up on Friday so put your picks in.
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