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2018

Off-season Summary

GM Rich has sold his franchise and left the league. We wish him well in his future endeavors.
GM Spencer has sold his franchise and left the league. We wish him well in his future endeavors.
Al Davis Genius is renamed to Fork Tender.
The Full Monty is renamed to Clinton-Dix Feet Under, before being renamed mid-season to Holley's Holdouts.
Team Stehle is renamed to Council Of Steel.
Polly buys the Team R. Holden franchise, becoming the new GM. That team is renamed to Anybody's Guess Who?
Steph buys the It Ertz Wentz Eifert franchise, becoming the new GM. That team is renamed to Stehlar Stars.
The league's playoff standing/draft rules cause issues with the planning and execution of the 2018 Draft. The league office is forced to develop a contingency plan for 2019.

2018 Awards

Objective/Stats-based Awards

-Commissioner's Championship Award for the Best Team This Year - Kirk (You Betcha) - league champ 2018

-The Bridesmaid Award - Nolan and Keith (NoKe NoKe) - runner-up

-The Duke of Sealand Cup - division champions. Wayne Division, Kirk. Keenan Division, Grant (Foot Jive Monster Mash).

-The "Dude, Come On" Award - worst record - Todd (Team T. Holden) - 4-10. Better luck next year! (Worth noting: Todd's record was significantly better than last year's award winner, and he had several close games where he could have improved further with just a little luck. This one isn't as bad as it seems.)

-The Troy State "Run 'n' Gun" Award - highest team score - Grant, with an NHL-record 220 freaking points. Dear God.

-The Little Sisters of the Blind "Wimpy, Wimpy, Wimpy" Award - lowest team score - Todd - Week 2, 66 points

-The Belichek/Caroll Memorial "Run Up The Score" Award - largest margin of victory - unsurprisingly, Grant - Week 11, w. 215-110 (105 points)

-The "Soda Can" Award - largest margin of defeat - Stephanie (Stehlar Stars) - Week 11, def. 215-110 (105 points)

-The Mike Krzyzewski "Cupcake Schedule" Award - fewest points against in the regular season - Mark (Team Rockme) with 1727.

-The John Shaft Memorial "You Know What You Got" Award - most points against in the regular season - Todd with 1909 put up on him. Rough.

-The Brady-Crosby-Curry "Oh, Of Course He Did" Award - most points for in the regular season - Grant, with a whopping 2282.

-The America Online "You've Got Mail!" Award - least points for in the regular season - Todd, with just 1550 (again, better than last year's mark).

-The Moneyball Award - most waiver wire pickups - Nolan and Keith with 44.

-The "You Got Rocked" Award - best single-game score by an individual player - Jon (Council of Steel) - Amari Cooper, Week 14, 49 points.

-The "Hail Satan" Award - WORST single-game score by an individual player - Polly (Anybody's Guess Who?) - Quincy Enunwa, Week 6, -1 point.

Subjective Awards

-The Grant Holden Memorial "Are You Sure About That" Draft Award - most questionable draft pick, as voted by the owners by Week 2 - Kirk, for panicking and drafting Aaron Rodgers 20th overall.

-The Metta World-Peace/Chad Ochocinco Memorial Award - best team name - Will (Holley's Holdouts). The committee liked the topical midseason renaming in the light of Bell contract situation. Honorable mentions - Hoyt (Fork Tender, helped by the team logo) and Grant (Foot Jive Monster Mash - we applaud the consistency of sticking to such a bizarre moniker). Overall, I have been very impressed with the names across the board this year.

-The Brandon Weeden Memorial Rookie of the Year - Kirk and I could not come to terms with promoting one of our two rookies over the other. We thought that both Polly and Stephanie played very well in their first seasons ever! We have awarded them both with Rookie of the Year. Polly (Anybody's Guess Who?) and Stephanie (Stehlar Stars)

-The Avery-Suh Memorial Sportsmanship Award - least sportsmanlike action by an owner - Nolan and Keith, for trying to trade the fake David Johnson to everyone. I actually thought this was pretty funny, but the awards committee determined that it was "shady and/or kinda sketchy", qualifying them for the award for the second year in a row.

-The Ernest Shackleton Memorial "Spirit of the NHL" Award - Hoyt (Fork Tender). We applaud Hoyt for continuing to fight way after it stopped making sense to, truly embodying the spirit and vision we had for the league when we created it.

Weekly Articles

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

Week 7

Week 8

Week 9

Week 10

Week 11

Week 12

Week 13

Week 14

Week 15 / Playoff Week 1

Week 16 / Playoff Week 2

Championship Week – The Crème de Menthe Rises To The Top

When I last left you, my eggnog was fermenting and my reindeer-dung logs (with added multi-color hyper crystals for that holiday touch) were burning low. But I revived my holiday spirit and put out 2 Labatts for the Canadian Claus and the Mrs. (because in Canada no good man drinks alone), and lo and behold, Santa came down the propane stove pipe and delivered an Amazon box covered with 3 kinds of tape. What did I ask Canada Claus for this year, you might ask? Well, I’m happy to share with you the following:

Dear Santa, please:

Re-book my flight to my snowbird residence in Sun City to be direct, instead of having a 17-hour layover in Maniwauki, ON, where I have to sit next to the fat lady eating 2 whole boxes of Tim Horton’s Timbits.
Give me a front tooth cap, and some Crazy Glue to attach it to my chipped front tooth I got from biting into my neighbor Mrs. La Betioc’s ’s well-intentioned gift – her special bogberry fruit cake.
And finally, please deliver to me a handyman that would come and paint the roof of my beloved tinsel-covered mobile Walleye-tin home with 5 gallons of that shiny silver reflective paint that you can see from the NASA machine in the sky. My roof paint, like much of my life, is peeling and the last handyman (me, allegedly, but I have no memory of it) fell off the roof due to sipping Alberta Premuim after every crooked roller stroke.

So what did Santa put under my birch tree? A notice that the new Enbridge pipe line is coming though my lovely home park after the permafrost melts, and three cinnamon-scented pine cones to keep in the bathroom (very nice, actually). Ah well, there is always next year. Speaking of next year I have almost forgotten to recap the NHL Championship weekend. (Un)Fortunately (for you), I get paid by the line so this long boring narrative will help compensate for the drop in the currency exchange rates. And so without further ado…

Round two of the ‘get-a-little respect-and-at-least-win-back-my-league-fee’ was interesting. Going into the weekend this was the score ranking from week one of the playoffs: Team T. Holden – 117, Holley’s Holdouts – 111, Anybody’s Guess Who – 110, Fork Tender – 106, Council of Steel – 100, Stehlar Stars – 82. With 5 teams within 7 points it was anybody’s trophy to secure in Week 2 of the playoffs. That was just the incentive the aptly-named Anybody’s Guess Who? needed to bring home the goods. The Who, led by NHL MVP Christian ‘pay-me-your-offshore-gambling-site-winnings’ McCaffrey, accounted for 29 of the team’s total 156 points, and gave the Who a two-week total of 266 to push the rookie owner to a respectable, consolation-trophy-winning year. Congrats to her.

Among the other highlights in this round, the resurgent Team T. Holden posted a totally respectable 136 for a 2nd runner-up total of 253. After playing patsy the first half of the season, Mr. T crushed in the second half and will be a formidable opponent as an all-year engaged owner next year. Third on the final tally was Holley’s Holdout. They put up 118 combined with week one of 111 for a total of 229. Fork Tender, who’s second-half surge with a 5-game win streak could not salvage a disappointing season, finished with 116 for a total of 222. And finally, in the battle of the house of Stehl, the Stars 132 for a total of 214 bettered the Council’s 82 with a total of 182 giving the girls, as usual, an upper hand over the boys.

In the playoff bracket, the battle for third pitted the strongest team of 2018, Foot Jive Monster Mash, against Team Rockme. The Mash had squashed opponents all year on the way to convincingly winning the scoring title. But a little weakness showed late in the season, and Rockme could smell blood in the water when Mash only mustered 100 points in the prior week. Russel Wilson’s connections to Antonio Brown were good for 27 and 44 respectively, and Doug Baldwin added 25 as Rockme never looked back for the week’s top score of 172. The Mash suffered from non-participants, like former stud secret agent James ‘Bond’ Conner, and underperformers like Ingram, Jones, Hill, and Cook – none of whom broke the 12 point barrier. It was a tough way to end a promising year for the Jive-man but he’ll have to settle for 4th-place prizes for this year as Team Rockme takes a step (albeit a short one) onto the podium.

The marquee match was a flashback to 2017 – You Betcha vs. NoKe NoKe in the championship game. NoKe was trying to prove that playing .500 didn’t matter if you got to the playoffs, while Betcha was trying to prove that fantasy success is all in the bloodline (whatever that means). This writer can reveal that there was a little bit of Muhammed Ali-like banter in the lead up week juicing up this rematch, as rival GMs took jabs at each other on popular social media platform Twaddle. Both clubs furiously worked the waiver wire, in effect stealing each other’s handcuffs. Both teams were carefully monitoring the injury sheets, as several stars were out, while simultaneously grabbing for late-season lightning in a bottle like Betcha’s acquisition RB Derrick Henry. NoKe, in a Redskins-esque move, inexplicably waived Jaylen Samuels who then became Betcha’s #1 RB when James Conner didn’t play and Todd Gurley couldn’t go. But when Betcha went to get the Gurley handcuff, NoKe had snatched CJ Anderson, who he parked on the bench just to taunt Betcha. However, revenge is a cold dish (or a warm lite lager) and when Cam Newton’s bum shoulder took the Pro Bowler off the field, NoKe turned in desperation to Josh ‘I–wish-he-was-Marcus’ Allen, and the team chemistry collapsed. In all, the two teams made 15 waiver moves during the week, burning out the ticker tape machine in the league office. Even though Betcha left A-Rods’ 45 points on the bench, Betcha still made more of the right moves and scored 152 to NoKe’s 114, bringing home the Commissioner's Championship Award for the Best Team This Year, and leaving NoKe a bridesmaid again. Can we say dynasty?

So where does that leave a lonely Canadian sports writer? Longing for sunshine? Pondering how the second-best team at our national sport is based in the desert in Las Vegas? No, I’ll stick around for a week or so, congratulating this year’s rookie owners, and the NHL champion, and encouraging all to return when I swap places with the geese next fall.

Happy Holidays and best wishes in 2019 from,

Atom Shuffler

BSPN NHL insider.

Wrap-Up / Year In Review

Hello NHL Owners!

First of all I would like to extend my congratulations and thanks to the owners of the NHL for a fantastic season in 2018. I know I speak for both myself and Kirk when I say that I had a great time with you all this year both as a GM and as a commish, and I hope we can keep this train rolling for 2019.

Just as a reminder, right before the 1PM games kick off - we are not playing in week 17. Enjoy the week off, and go back to watching football how you used to!

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Being that this is the end of the year, there are a few administrative things we need to wrap up. First and foremost, the prizes. Prizes are as follows:

-1st, in what was probably a bout of collusion, goes to Kirk, with 200 dollars.

-2nd, again, is Keith and Nolan, with 100 dollars.

-3rd, rounding out the podium, and the first non-Holley to do so, is Mark, with 80 dollars.

-4th, bettering his prize money from last year, is Grant, with 70 dollars.

-The desperation, I mean, consolation, prize goes to Polly, with a 2-week total of 266 points. She reclaims her buy-in of 50 dollars.

Congrats to our prize winners!

(Please note: if we don't hear otherwise from you, we will roll your prize money forward and apply it to your buy-in for next season. Kirk will cut a check for the difference. If you want to receive a check for the full value of your prize, please reach out to myself or Kirk.)

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The other big bit of business is my pet project, the trophies and season awards. You can find your team's trophies on the "My Team" page where you usually set your lineup - there is a small heading on the top that says trophies. Each one has a small blurb giving some backstory and explanation on the purpose of each one, and some also include blurbs for why they were awarded, which I will also summarize here in case you can't be bothered to check.

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Additionally, Kirk and I would like to remind everyone of the keeper rules for 2019, and that IR-designated players as well as SSPD-designated players are ineligible for keepers. This would also include players on the NFL Commissioner's Exempt List (read: Josh Gordon). Please refer to our earlier email on the topic for clarification.

Finally, as is the weekly tradition, our very own Atom Shuffler has written a very-prose filled article summarizing both Week 16 and the entire season. This, as usual, can be found on the front page of the league site or under "League Info" on the mobile app. We have also included it as an attachment to this email, so you can get a taste on what you've been missing out on if you haven't been reading them this year.

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Once again, Kirk and I would like to thank you all for a fantastic 2018 fantasy season. We hope you all return for 2019!

Best wishes for a Happy New Year.

Will

Summarize the year as an independant observer

Final Standings

You Betcha (Kirk)
NoKe NoKe (Keith/Nolan)
Team Rockme (Mark)
Foot Jive Monster Mash (Laine)
Holley's Holdouts (Will)
Council Of Steel (Jon)
Fork Tender (Hoyt)
Stehlar Stars (Steph)
Anybody's Guess Who? (Polly)
Team T. Holden (Todd)

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