Awesome stuff, guys. Last week! Get 'em in.

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Follow me on Twitter: AngusCertified
Check my blog out: Angus Certified

Pick up the 2013-14 DobberHockey Keeper League Fantasy Pack today!

Easy answer? Draft Day.
Might just be the best day of the year. Guys get together to talk everything hockey for hours while drafting is great!
Checking the scores first thing every morning to see what happened the night before.
And trash talking. Can't go without it after a win... or before a before a match... or both!

(Draft day this year)

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12 teams limited keeper (keep 6 + 1 Rookie)
Weekly H2H points only
13 round draft - Unlimited Trades - No Waivers
4 Team Playoffs (last 2 reg. season weeks)
Year 6 (2012-13)

Start : C RW LW Utility D D G
Points are : A - G = 1 pt W = 2 pts SO = 1pt

C - S.Stamkos, L.Couture, M.Granlund, D.Stepan, T.Ennis
LW - L.Eriksson, J.Frazen
RW - T.Purcell, B.Wheeler, K.Versteeg, J.Silfverberg
D- E.Karlsson, J.Johnson, A.Markov, S.Elliot, J.Spurgeon, JM.Liles, N.Leddy
G - A.Niemi, C.Anderson, J.Harding, S.Varlamov

Year 5 Playoff Champ
Year 6 Playoff Champ

I love fantasy hockey because of the thrill of the trade chase. The feeling out process for a manager that you haven't dealt with can be a little awkward and they may even get offended once or twice. However, once the awkward clicking and typing is over and you find a manager with a complimentary line-up hole, it just comes down to how the deed is done. Which complimentary player will seal the deal, or maybe they're not into multi-player deals? How to tease out the unknown player desires from complete strangers without letting them know I'm really into their team? Finally, when there has been enough back and forth action, they take the bait and accept my trade submission, I lean back from the computer completely satisfied (likely far more satisfied than them). And the best part is that the chase never ends! There is always a new and exciting team to pursue!

Dunno if I qualify or not, being a Dobber contributer and all, but this seemed like a fun idea and I wanted to throw my thoughts at it...

My submittion below is exactly 250 words (I had to trim 1) and I'm sure it needs editing somewhere by Brennan Ross or Rich Dillon... lol

If its good enough for a 2nd or 3rd place prize, please donate the prize to a 4th place submittion... (being a contributer I don't feel I need an audit used on myself, I'd rather a site member win as one of the perks of the site is gathering information on their own roster... That and I won my league last year and I have the consensus team to beat when the NHL resumes, I've purposely made my team less dominant, but more sustainable for the long haul, lately lol)...


My love for fantasy hockey started as ego battle with my school yard friends over, who had the most hockey knowledge, it was an opportunity and a regulated forum to prove my superiority (Or at least I hoped). But after a couple years, it didn’t become good enough to just win, it grew to the higher challenge of winning with a younger team, or players that people didn’t know.

Today this interest has grown beyond my ideals of competition, not only do I manage and commissioner an advanced league of my own, but I seek and attempt to add something the culture of those that manage a fantasy hockey team, or those that want get involved in the game. The past several years, outside of playing the game, I’ve worked to increase the knowledge of the managers in the game, not only about the current NHL players who play the game, but about the ones coming and the leagues outside the NHL, to help (in my own little way) grow the game of hockey itself.

At this point, winning is just bragging rights over not only those that you compete against, but others that haven’t won their pools. The game itself brings fans together from so many different cultures, regions to one place to compete, discuss and share opinions within the sport.

I also have to admit , it’s also fun to meet NHL players at events, and tell them how much they are helping or hindering my fantasy roster!


Jason Banks

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Current Roster:

F: H Sedin, Plekanec, Kovalchuck, Perry, Cammalleri, Oshie, Stepan, Anisimov, Kunitz, Justin Williams, Little, Baertchi, Huberdeau, Olli Jokinen, Eberle, Rattie, Alfredsson

D: Boumeester, Green, Carlson, Vlasic, Del Zotto, Myers, Scandella

G: Niemi, Varlamov, Neuvirth, Harding, Ramo, Vasilevski

(Edit note: I swear I didn't see Jason's post before I wrote mine. It's just a coincidence that we went with the same topic: ego)

I love fantasy hockey because it speaks to egoist in all of us.

We all grow up dreaming of watching our team win the Stanley Cup. But for most of us, it doesn’t happen often enough (or at all, depending on whom you cheer for).

Fantasy hockey changes that. We’re in control. We believe we can build a winner much better than our real-life counterparts.

It’s even better than being the armchair GM. We’re the actual GM. We draft players, we drop players, and we trade them. We cultivate rookies, we let them sit in our farm system and watch them grow into complete hockey players until they are ready to join the big club. When they struggle, we struggle. When they do great, we’re ready to say “I told you so.”

We laugh at real general managers when they make horrible deals, but somehow think that Steve Mason for Duncan Keith made sense at the time in our fantasy league and can still be justified today.

We hold onto guys who are past their prime. We hope guys who had career years five seasons ago can somehow recapture that magic.

Best of all, there’s no wrong way to build a team. Unless you are one of the 11 other guys in my pool. In that case, you’re doing it all wrong.

There’s almost no better bragging rights than putting together a fantasy team that wins it all. It’s great for the ego. And that’s why I love fantasy hockey.

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12-team Keeper pool, straight points for forwards & dmen. Goalies get: 2 points per win, 3 per shutout, 1 point per assist & 1 point per shootout loss.

Top 8 forwards, 5 dmen and 2 goalies count.

We keep 8 forwards, 5 dmen, 2 goalies & 1 rookie.

Forwards: Malkin, Stamkos, Getzlaf, Hall, Kunitz, St. Louis, Pavelski, Kadri, Purcell, Hartnell, Brunner, Weiss, Bouchard, McDonald
Defence: Letang, Enstrom, Schultz, Markov, Keith
Goalies: Price, Niemi, Brodeur

My personal blog: http://theryancokeexperience.wordpress.com

Dear Fantasy Hockey,

I love you because you give me a sanctuary where I can freely eviscerate my own credibility with statements like “Shane Doan is a ****ing stud. He’s a 70 pt guy with solid PIM upside. I can’t trade him for anything less than Hall or maybe Kreider plus your first rounder.”

I love how, once I have caught my fellow owner in a spell of delirium, and he’s hit that beautiful and seductive little “accept” button on the trade screen, I can continue to bore to the center of hypocrisy by telling other members in league chat things like, “I can’t believe I got the Kreider package. Doan’s got 50 pts in him this year at best, and I’m concerned about his health.”

Finally, I love reaching the apex of ridiculous self-contradiction when the trade commission is convened, and I argue to league members that the trade is fair because Doan is “a multi-cat monster.”

Will have the column posted tomorrow! Great submissions.

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Follow me on Twitter: AngusCertified
Check my blog out: Angus Certified

Pick up the 2013-14 DobberHockey Keeper League Fantasy Pack today!

I'm pretty anxious to read your post, Jeff. And to see the results :-)

I think I might have a shot for 2nd or 3rd - Axeman is a shoe-in for top spot IMO.

Cheers, and best of luck to all the submissions.

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mounD: 2011-12 Champs // 2012-13 Champs
12 Team H2H Keeper (Keep 18)
3C, 3LW, 3RW, 3F, 6D, 2G, 5BN (IR)
G, A, +/-, PIM, PPP, SHP, SOG, FoW // W, Sv%, GAA, SHO

C: Getzlaf, Backes(RW),B. Richards,
LW: Parise, Hall, Kunitz, Ladd, Marchand(C,LW)
RW: Kessel, Neal(LW) Hossa, Burrows(Lw)
D: Karlsson, Chara, Burns, Boyle
G: Rinne, M. Smith
Bn: Jussi Jokinen(C,LW), Cammalleri(C,LW), Weiss(C), Timonen, Visnosky

Farm: Kadri, Coyle, Gallagher, Järnkrok - Barrie, Trouba, Vatanen - Khudobin

Good job finalists, tough to argue with those choices Angus. I guess "crushing self esteem" isn't the type of sportsmanship we're looking to promote like I did in my submission! lol All in good fun.

Good luck guys, and thanks Angus it was a fun contest.

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NHL 12 Team Full Keeper, Roto
G, A, +/-, PIM, PPP, GWG, SOG, W, GAA, SV%, SHO

C - Crosby,Getzlaf,Granlund
LW - Pacioretty,E.Kane,Hartnell
RW - Backes,Simmonds,SamGagne
D - Letang,Byfuglien,Subban,Hamilton
G - Lundqvist,Fleury,Schneider,Bryz
IR - Kovy

MLB 9 Team Full Keeper, Roto
R, H, HR, RBI, SB, BB, K, AVG, W, L, SV, BB, K, ERA

C - Lucroy
1B - Butler
2B - Kinsler
3B - Middlebrooks
SS - Andrus
OF - Trout,McCutchen,Kemp
Util - Altuve,McLouth
BN - Berkman,Profar,Gomes
SP - Price,Gio,Moore,Harvey,Miller,Bailey
RP - Chapman,Frieri,K.Jansen,Bell
DL - Beachy,Pineda