2019

Off-season Summary

• Anybody's Guess Who? is renamed to Kale Kings.

• Holley's Holdouts is renamed to XFL Hype Train.

• Stehlar Stars are named to BlahBlahBlah.

• NoKe NoKe is renamed to Bridesmaids No More!, and then renamed again midseason to 2XRU.

• Team T. Holden is technically renamed to God's Country T. Holden, but everyone collectively chooses to ignore that second part.

• Foot Jive Monster Mash is renamed to Watermelon In Easter Hay.

• After last year's draft issues, the draft is moved over to the Fleaflicker fantasy service. The season is still played via ESPN. 

• ESPN removes the awards feature as well as the League Manager's note feature, which was previously the only medium by which weekly recaps were published. ESPN claims they will restore those features "shortly," but never do. In response, the weekly recaps begin being distributed via an e-mail list.

• ESPN scrubs all league data and history dating back to 2014. 

2019 Awards

Stats-Based Awards

Commissioner’s Championship Award For The Best Team This Year - Self-explanatory.

Winner: Council of Steel (Jon)

Bridesmaid Award – Given to the unlucky recipient of 2nd place.

Winner: Fork Tender (Hoyt)

The Duke Of Sealand Cup – Named for one of the early financial benefactors of the League, these cups are given to the division champions every year.

Winners: Keenan Division, Fork Tender. Wayne Division, Council of Steel. No surprises there.

The Troy State Run ‘n’ Gun Award – Given to the team with the team with the highest single-game score of the year.

Winner: Bridesmaids No More! (Keith and Nolan). 204 points, Week 5.

The Little Sisters of the Blind “Wimpy, Wimpy, Wimpy” Award – Conversely, given to the team with the lowest single game score of the year, a feat that this year’s winner managed to do twice.

Sad Winner: Blah Blah Blah (Stephanie). 76 points, Weeks 12 and 14.

The Belichek/Carroll Memorial “Run Up The Score” Award – Given to the team who runs up the score and has the largest margin of victory that year.

Winner: Kale Kings (Polly). 74-point gap (168-94), Week 15. Runner-up: Fork Tender – 67 points, 191-124, in Week 6.

The “Soda Can” Award – Given to the team who is “crushed” the worst (loses by the widest margin).

Sad Winner: God’s Country (Todd). 74-point gap, Week 15. Runner-up: You Betcha, 67 points in week 6.

The Mike Krzyzewski “Cupcake Schedule” Award – Given to the team with the fewest points against during the regular season.

Winner: Blah Blah Blah, just 1604 points against.

The John Shaft Memorial “You Know What You Got” Award – Given to the team with the most points against during the regular season.

Sad Winner: God’s Country, with a whopping 1854 points hung on him. Really tough year for Todd, the Shaft award is fitting because he got really unlucky.

The America Online “You’ve Got Mail” Award – Given to the team that “mails it in” the worst (scores the fewest points during the regular season).

Sad Winner: Blah Blah Blah, who only netted 1539.

The Brady-Crosby-Curry “Oh, Of Course He Did” Award – Given to the team that scores the most points during the regular season.

Winner: Unsurprisingly, Council of Steel, with 1997. I don’t know what’s crazier, the fact that Jon came within 3 points of breaking 2000, or that we have a co-GM (Nolan) whose birth year is more recent than the top score.

The “Dude, Come On” Award – Last place.

Sad Winner: ESPN.com, because they broke the standings feature. They won’t show me the league-wide final standings from the regular season, just divisional, and the final standings are all jacked up because of their playoff system. Bunch of bastards. The site wants to tell me Stephanie finished last at 6-8, but Todd had the worst record at 5-9. I’m not comfortable handing this out to any owner, so here. Screw you, ESPN.

The Moneyball Award – Given to the owner with the most waiver wire acquisitions in the regular season.

Runaway Winner: Bridesmaids No More! with a whopping 62 player accusations, along with 4 trades and 105 activations (the only team in triple digits for activations). There’s no tracking, but I’m sure they also made the most trade proposals. Very cool to see this level of activity and dedication in the NHL. (Note: They didn’t actually make the most trades. That was Grant, who made 6.) (Other note: Champ Jon made the least moves, with 4. Interesting.)

The “Hail Satan” Award – Given to the team with the worst single-game performance by an individual player.

Sad Winner: Kale Kings (Polly). SF 49er’s D/ST, -4 points, Week 14.

The “You Got Rocked” Award – Given to the team with the best single-game performance by an individual player.

Winner: Watermelon In Easter Hay (Grant). Aaron Jones (GB RB), 48 points, Week 5.

Subjective Awards

The Grant Holden Memorial “Are You Sure About That?” Draft Award – Given to the owner with the sketchiest draft decision in this year’s draft.

Winner: XFL Hype Train (Will), for his poor utilization of the Fleaflicker fantasy site, screwing up the draft for literally everyone two different times on draft night. Sorry. I’ll do better next year.

The Metta World-Peace/Chad Ochocino Memorial Award – Given to the team with the best name, as voted on by a panel of NHL writers.

Winner: Bridesmaids No More! The name was to serve as a rallying cry for GM’s Keith and Nolan to not finish in 2nd yet again. They did not finish in 2nd yet again, so it technically worked. Runner-up: Kale Kings. Good name, better logo/mascot.

The Brandon Weeden Memorial Rookie of the Year Award – Given in recognition of the best performance by a first-time fantasy player.

No winner for 2019, because we didn’t have any rookies. This one is on standby until 2020.

The Avery-Suh Memorial Sportsmanship Award – Given to the team with the worst display of sportsmanship that year.

Again, no winner for 2019. We really didn’t have any shady stuff going down this year. Do more shady stuff next year because I like publicly shaming people with this one.

The Ernest Shackleton Memorial “Spirit of the NHL” Award – Given to the owner who continues to battle deep into the season, long after a rational person would have just said “Screw this” and quit playing.

Winner: God’s Country. Unfortunately for Todd, it was clear pretty early in the season that he was eliminated from postseason contention. He really got the short end of the stick as previously mentioned, but despite this, he continued to run his team and try to improve. He also improved on his record from last year, so great job Todd, hold your head up high and come back fighting next season. Runner-up: You Betcha for their amazing dash from the bottom of the league just a few weeks ago to playoff glory.

Since we skipped a few trophies this year, I put together a few 2019-specific awards to hand out.

2019 One-Offs

The Alternative Draft Site Ghost Team Award – Given to the team with the best record…on Fleaflicker. Everyone basically abandoned those teams after the draft, and they’ve been floating, lonely and rudderless, through the fantasy football oceans since week 1.

Winner: Council of Steel. It’s crazy to look at the standings and see how similar the abandoned teams are in the standings to our ESPN teams. Unsurprisingly, as one could guess based on his good record and lack of transactions, the lineup that Jon drafted was title-worthy, and they win the Fleaflicker league this year too. No prize. Sorry.

The Biggest Movers Award, foolishly brought to you by TD Ameritrade – There was a graphic on the league front page that purported itself to use TD Ameritrade algorithms to look at the lineups of the teams in Week 1 and predict how they would finish, and then compare that to where teams were (or ended up at the end of the year). It was woefully inaccurate.

Biggest Improvement: Council of Steel (proj. #8, finished as regular season #2). Runner up, Fork Tender, #4 to #1.

Biggest Disappointment: tie, XFL Hype Train (proj. #1, finished as #7) and God’s Country (proj. #3, finished #10).

Weekly Articles

Wrap-Up / Year In Review

Happy Holidays, NHL GM’s. I hope everyone is in good health and spirits and surrounded by family and loved ones this time of year. With the end of the NHL season, it is time for our one annual, freakishly long, wrap-up email. There are two main orders of business to discuss – first, prizes and prize money, and second, the NHL Awards.

Okay, the money stuff.

First and foremost, I would like to be the first league admin to officially congratulate Jon for his season victory. A truly awesome performance to win the title – Jon is the first non-Holley to with the big prize, only the second non-Holley on the podium, and by preventing Kirk from winning the championship, he has spared us all from another year of owner elitism. Jon is the proud owner of 200 dollars.

With a valiant effort, and being the only team to take the flag of the Keenan division into the playoffs, Hoyt make a massive improvement on last year’s result and takes home second place and 100 dollars.

Conversely, Kirk somehow scrapes his way into the playoffs and manages an impressive third place, meaning he takes home 80 dollars for bronze.

Keith and Nolan must now figure out how to divide up their fourth place prize of 70 dollars.

Also, with a truly impressive total of 348 points, Polly defends her title of best of the rest and reclaims her 50 dollar buy-in. This keeps the Holley household financially solvent for 2020.

Teams that won money, Kirk will keep 50 bucks out of your prize winnings and apply it towards next year’s league fees, and cut you a check or mail you the difference in cash. If you do not wish to participate next season, we’re sorry to see you go, but please let us know ASAP and we will send you your full amount. Teams that didn’t win money…git gud for 2020.

Second order of business is the awards and trophies. As you may know, I like the superlative awards/trophy system that ESPN used to feature and I made good use of it in years past. This is one of the features that ESPN has ruined this year with the site redesign, so I have had to painstakingly run this clearly very important portion of our league by hand all year. The awards are broken up into 2 major categories – awards based on the statistical performances of the teams, players and owners, and subjective awards, which is shit that I hand out because I feel like it.

Many thanks to all of our NHL Owners/GM’s who played with us in 2019. Kirk and I were thrilled that we had a 100% retention rate and we hope to continue that in 2020 – I know it might seem silly or cheesy to some, but it means a lot to me (and I’m guessing to Kirk too) that each and every one of you come play with us, in a league where we all know each other on some level. That really adds to the experience and makes it more enjoyable for everyone and we hope we can keep that going in the future.

Atom Shuffler’s week 16 and season wrap up is attached to this email, to keep it from being just an unholy length.

Once again, our congratulations to all the owners for a great 2019 season, and a special congrats to the 2019 league champ, Jon. Happy Holidays to all and best wishes for a prosperous 2020.

Will

Summarize the year as an independant observer 

Final Standings

1. Council Of Steel (Jon)

2. Fork Tender (Hoyt)

3. You Betcha (Kirk)

4. Bridesmaids No More!/2XRU (Keith/Nolan)

5. Watermelon In Easter Hay (Laine)

6. XFL Hype Train (Will)

7. Team Rockme (Mark)

8. BlahBlahBlah (Steph)

9. Kale Kings (Polly)

10. God's Country (Todd)

Editor's Note: ESPN Fantasy borked the standings. The above recreation is based on overall final record with compromise given for tiebreakers as they could best be preserved.