Comments for Fantasy Hockey Site Review: CBS at http://hockey.dobbersports.com , comment 1 to 11 out of 11 comments http://hockey.dobbersports.com Wed, 22 May 2013 07:49:01 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://hockey.dobbersports.com/index.php/columnistsarticles-mainmenu-77/hoos/4757-fantasy-hockey-site-review-cbs#comment-22223 It seems clear that CBS are happy to maintain the same old engine for fantasy hockey as they have had for years. My biggest beef with CBS is that the live scoring. For some categories, plus/minus, GAA, PPP, SHP, SO off the top of my head, thhey do not update live. You have to wait until sometime usually 3-4am EST to get final results. So often you're left to wait or try to calculate GAA for the week's games on the last day of the period to see if you won. The lack of draft picks and lousy options for controlling roster rules leaves us having to track a lot of stuff ourselves. We'll likely be moving over to Fantrax soon. They only added our scoring system, head-to-head category-based scoring, in the middle of last season. Hopefully, it runs with no hiccups, but the customization I've seen in their hosting looks great. - ChicagoChief Mon, 20 Aug 2012 12:01:27 +0100 http://hockey.dobbersports.com/index.php/columnistsarticles-mainmenu-77/hoos/4757-fantasy-hockey-site-review-cbs#comment-21720 We gave up on them after a few years of them not splitting +/- stats of forwards from defense for our rotisserie, a category that was lost when they merged with TQstats a few years ago (TQ was better). They may have the feature now, we left over a year ago. These reviews are very handy Glen, thank you for your work ! Ted - tedduf Mon, 09 Jul 2012 04:41:53 +0100 http://hockey.dobbersports.com/index.php/columnistsarticles-mainmenu-77/hoos/4757-fantasy-hockey-site-review-cbs#comment-21713 as of last season, cbs still didnt support the option of minimum goaltender starts. yahoo has that minimum start rule or you forfeit all goalie categories for the week, and it forces you to pay attention. if they can figure out how to build this in, i would be open to moving my league there. no site is better for trash talking!! - coachsoup23 Sun, 08 Jul 2012 16:24:24 +0100 http://hockey.dobbersports.com/index.php/columnistsarticles-mainmenu-77/hoos/4757-fantasy-hockey-site-review-cbs#comment-21712 Mr Wedgy, I can see how that could happen. cbssports.com is not the type of small business that typically does better at personalized customer service, and failed communications can abound in such environments. We haven't (yet) had that kind of a problem, but it's probably coming. Maybe we could institute a sub-forum for commissioner kvetches... - Steffen Sun, 08 Jul 2012 15:40:15 +0100 http://hockey.dobbersports.com/index.php/columnistsarticles-mainmenu-77/hoos/4757-fantasy-hockey-site-review-cbs#comment-21711 CBS are always quick to respond to your support requests. Unfortunately for me, they were also quick to say there wasn't a problem. Something changed on the CBS website, I'm not sure what b/c they said nothing changed and it had always been like that... Anyways, I had been in the pool on the same website, making trades in the same way for 8 years and something definitely changed. Anyways, they said that if we wanted to keep the stats broken down into periods the way we did for 8 years, we would have to email them to rerun the stats every time we made a change. Either that or wait until the monthly period was over and it would fix itself then. I said to create a simple batch file on windows scheduler or create a SQL agent job to do the job automatically everyday instead of us emailing whenever our very active league made a change. I was told that they would not do any work for our league alone. To me, I thought it was quite clear that if I wanted this change, many, many others would like it as well. No deals. Anyways, I figured out a way to fix it on my own by changing the way I was making the trades. I shouldn't have to figure it out for them as I am the customer in this relationship. Responsive support, but not necessarily do they know what they are talking about. Now I was so pissed off that I actually looked around for another league host. In the end, CBS provided most of what we wanted, it was easy to use for the most part and better the devil you know. The cost of moving was outweighed by the hassle to do get 10 other guys used to another website. I thought I would add this to the above review as it is quite relevant info. - Atomic_Wedgy Sun, 08 Jul 2012 15:15:22 +0100 http://hockey.dobbersports.com/index.php/columnistsarticles-mainmenu-77/hoos/4757-fantasy-hockey-site-review-cbs#comment-21709 I would also say I feel like they list too many people as Center when a guy has C/W on yahoo? Are these things able to be changed? - buck0198 Sun, 08 Jul 2012 13:09:14 +0100 http://hockey.dobbersports.com/index.php/columnistsarticles-mainmenu-77/hoos/4757-fantasy-hockey-site-review-cbs#comment-21708 When completed, it would be very helpful to have a spreadsheet to compare the features of each of these providers. - bullwinkle Sun, 08 Jul 2012 09:58:49 +0100 http://hockey.dobbersports.com/index.php/columnistsarticles-mainmenu-77/hoos/4757-fantasy-hockey-site-review-cbs#comment-21707 Thanks guys. This is a great series, and undoubtedly helpful to commissioners (particularly those starting up a new league). I've been commissioner for a keeper league using this site for three years now, and I love its functionality, but dobberhockey.com is where I've always come first for info. I'd like to add a few comments to your review. User-Friendliness: Agreed. Easy for users (even first-timers), but some of the extensive functionality available to commissioners can be a little hard to find. Their online help staff always responded within 24 hours, but if you can explain your problem in IT terms rather than hockey terms, you'll be ahead of the game. Scoring and Stats: The main reason we initially chose this site is that two of our roto-categories are D-goals and D-assists (i.e. separated D and F scoring stats). This was the only site I could find at the time that allowed this. The Draft: We allow 0 to 15 keepers, then we hold a salary-capped auction to get to 20 players, then we draft 10 more to get to 30 players. Show me another site that accommodates this! Their pre-draft rankings pretty much suck though. Keeper League Compatibility: Easy roster management year-to-year, and owners use checkboxes in September to identify their own keepers. We allow trading of upcoming draft picks, which we have to fake as ten extra "injured Avalanche goalies" named "Steve's 2012 1st pick", etc. Sounds weird, but owners got used to this workaround pretty quickly. Farm Teams: Ditto. We have "prospect keepers" that we manage like draft picks. Another clunky workaround, but implementable. Salary Cap Leagues: I don't understand the reviewer's comments here at all. The site attaches Salaries (a user-field I specified once at initial setup) to each player automatically when they're purchased at auction. I have to manually enter the Salaries for draft picks, but that takes only an evening each fall. After that we have a weekly cap on the total Salaries of each team's Active players, and the site automatically checks that rosters are legal. Salary cap rules we specify are religiously enforced by the site. Playoff Pools: I sure wish the site offered these, but they don't. Customization: Superb (and yes, even for Salary Cap leagues). We only use F, D and G for positions, but guys like Gragani, Byfuglien and Staubitz force us to pick just one position. I can't comment on how quickly they recognize new positions (LW, RW, C) but those can always be overridden by the commissioner if required. Fun Features: Lots of opportunities for owners to communicate with each other via a message board, a news/article area, polls... And commissioner controls over individual owners' abilities to do same (in case you have an abuser). Resources: Their newsfeed info is Rotowire's, verbatim (or was last time I checked). I don't even read their columnists. Their draft lists are unreliable (and if you have to miss the online auction or draft, the site's helpful robot might land you Lidstrom this fall). They still don't know who Justin Schultz is. Responsiveness: I've dealt with the site's support staff a few times (once to figure out how to hold our unique staged auction + draft). Prompt responses within 24 hours, but sometimes several iterations before resolution - clear explanation of the problem, ideally in IT-speak, is helpful. Cost: Is there a more expensive site? We spread the annual $99 US renewal charge across our 19 owners, so it's negligible. They usually offer a $100 credit for referring a new league ($149 for a new league), so there's an angle there... Summary: For a league that needs customization, this is the way to go. Two thumbs up from me. And I run a Salary-cap keeper. Thanks to Steve and Glen for this series. - Steffen Sun, 08 Jul 2012 09:49:33 +0100 http://hockey.dobbersports.com/index.php/columnistsarticles-mainmenu-77/hoos/4757-fantasy-hockey-site-review-cbs#comment-21706 Having experienced CBS this year, I will not allow myself to ever spend another dime on their services. I really did not enjoy my stay with this provider. - GMGates Sun, 08 Jul 2012 09:44:29 +0100 http://hockey.dobbersports.com/index.php/columnistsarticles-mainmenu-77/hoos/4757-fantasy-hockey-site-review-cbs#comment-21703 Hi, There is a feature that I would like you to include in you evaluation. It is the complementarity with third party tool like Pickemfirst. While this tool works fine with Yahoo and CBS, you can't access your Fantrax teams. It might be the case with other Fantasy sites. Pickemfirst is a tool I really enjoy. Especilly when I read Dobberhockey and Rotoworld. - JollyRoger Sun, 08 Jul 2012 05:44:28 +0100 http://hockey.dobbersports.com/index.php/columnistsarticles-mainmenu-77/hoos/4757-fantasy-hockey-site-review-cbs#comment-21702 The biggest problem CBS has is a lack of knowledge. When I sent an email to them requesting why a reasoning behind a player positioning, their defence was to send me a roster from 5 years ago. They said they need to research the roster for validity. Anyone with knowledge of hockey would have identified the glaring errors of 2 retired players, 2 traded players, one major player missing by injury and 4 major free agent signings off of the roster they sent me - Millhouse Sun, 08 Jul 2012 05:22:21 +0100