2021

Off-season Summary

• The NHL conducts its first-ever expansion, adding two additional franchises.

• GM Mike B is awarded an expansion franchise, to be known as the Destroyers, entering the Keenan Division. 

• GM Bob is awarded an expansion franchise, to be known as 80% Mental, 40% Physical, 30% Luck, entering the Wayne Division.

• Hair43 is renamed to Hair43HOF, and then renamed again midseason to MagicMikeIII.

• Don't Stand So Close To Me is renamed to Bishop Sycamore Practice Squad.

• NoKe drops their sponsorship and goes back to being known as NoKe, before renaming midseason to NoKe brought to you by Braxton Berrios following his acquisition in free agency. 

• One Man Band is renamed to Mr. Rodgers Love Child.

• National Holley League (R) is renamed to L L L.

• The "Make The Grade" Award is created.

2021 Awards

Stat-Based Awards

Commissioner’s Championship Trophy For The Best Team This Year - given to the winner of the league title every season. Winner - NoKe, for the second year on the trot. Settin’ records.

The Bridesmaid Award - given to the league runner-up - hey, at least you get something shiny. Winner - Hair43HOF

The Duke Of Sealand Cup – originally gifted to the league founders in recognition of their services to the great country of Sealand by Duke Harold himself, two cups are given each year to the champions of the Wayne and Keenan Divisions. Winner, Keenan Division - LLL. Winner, Wayne Division - NoKe.

The “Dude, Come On” Award – so named to hopefully encourage the recipient to step up their game from the season’s last-place finish. Sad Winner - BlahBlahBlah.

The Troy State Run ‘n’ Gun Award – named in honor of the Troy State basketball team that once beat a team from DeVry University 252-147 (yes, that DeVry, and yes, that was the score), this is awarded to the team with the highest single game score all year. Winner - Destroyers, 192 (Week 17/Round 2). Honorable Mention/best regular season result - also Destroyers, 189 (Week 5).

The Little Sisters of the Blind “Wimpy, Wimpy, Wimpy” Award, presented by Hefty™ brand trash bags – Conversely, this award is presented to the owner whose team puts up the lowest single game score in the season. Sad Winner - God’s Country, 47 (Week 12). This is an all-time NHL record. 

The Belichek/Carroll Memorial “Run Up The Score” Award – Like the awards’ namesakes, this is given to the owner whose team wins by the largest margin of victory, to the point where it was probably unnecessary. Winner - Destroyers, 101 points (def. God’s Country 148-47 in Week 12). This is an all-time NHL record.

The “Soda Can” Award – Given to the owner who, like a soda can, was crushed the worst, suffering the largest margin of defeat. I think you can see where this is going. Sad Winner - God’s Country, from the above-listed game. I know it feels like we’re piling on here, but these two are usually linked, except for one year through some weird mathematical quirk where they weren’t the same game.

The “You Got Rocked” Award – Named in honor of the People’s Champ, this award is given to the owner who has a player with the highest individual score all year, or the owner with the best eyebrows - dealer’s choice. This is where I really miss the old icon system, the picture of The Rock really sold this award. Winner - Destroyers, WR Jamarr Chase, 55 points (Week 17/Round 2). Honorable Mention/best regular season result - Team 843, RB Jonathan Taylor, 52 points. 

drawA “nataS liaH” ehT – As if the whole “play the record backwards to hear a message from the devil” thing wasn’t confusing enough, we also renamed this award for the second year running to illustrate the point of the old Hail Satan Award. This is awarded to the team with the player that scored them the most negative points, making the score go backwards. Sad Winner - Knute Rockme, Lions D/ST, -2 points. Leave it to his beloved Lions to let down Mark.

The Mike Krzyzewski “Cupcake Schedule” Award – awarded to the owner with the fewest points scored against them this season. Winner - Knute Rockme, 1723 points.

The John Shaft Memorial “You Know What You Got” Award – the opposite, this award is given to the owner who had the hardest schedule, measured by the most points scored against them this season. This is another one that benefitted from having an image - I think you can guess which movie poster I used. Sad Winner - Council of Steel, 1945 points. The Council got totally boned this year, the only team to have more than 1900 points scored against them, 57 clear of the next hardest schedule.

The Brady-Crosby-Curry “Oh, Of Course He Did” Award – given to the owner that led the league in scoring for the season. The award is so named since they probably also won a lot, like the namesakes. Winner - LLL, 2080 points. One of only two teams to eclipse 2000 points this year, no surprise there that they were our two division champs.

The America Online “You’ve Got Mail” Award – given to the owner that mailed it in the most this year, scoring the fewest points for the season. Sad Winner - BlahBlahBlah, 1558. Conversely, this was our only team under 1600. In fact, we also only had one other team under 1700, from the same household no less. Hmm......

The Moneyball Award - given to the owner that makes the most transactions throughout the year. On the ESPN site there used to be a counter, but Fleaflicker doesn’t have that and I’m too lazy to actually count. Therefore, I just base it on how long your transaction log is, going back to the draft. Winner - Hair43HOF, with 10.5 pages of transactions. Honorable Mention goes to Knute Rockme and NoKe both, who managed to broker a 5-player trade back in September. Very cool.

New experimental award for this year - The “Make The Grade” Award, powered by Scamazon Core Advanced Metrics. Given to the owner with the most efficient lineup, as decided by some sort of terrifying A.I. program that will surely rule us all in a few years’ time. Winner - LLL. If you’ve recently watched baseball, football, F1 and I’m sure some other stuff, you’ve probably seen a bunch of dubious prediction and statistical data spit out on-screen with an Amazon Web Services logo on it. Not to be outdone, our website started giving starting lineups an efficiency grade. I kept tabs on the results all year, thinking I’d hand this out to someone who scored in the high 90’s, but people just kept getting 100% ratings over and over again, furthering my belief that it’s just a bunch of made up shit, just like the real AWS counterpart. Here’s the results, in case you were interested, maybe you can gain some insights.

100% Coach Efficiency Ratings 

• LLL - 4 (Weeks 7, 9, 10, 14)

• Destroyers - 2 (Weeks 8, 10)

• Hair43HOF - 2 (Weeks 7, 16)

• Council Of Steel - 2 (Weeks 12, 17)

• NoKe - 1 (Week 9)

• Bishop Sycamore Practice Squad - 1 (Week 11)

• Knute Rockme - 1 (Week 12)

• God’s Country - 1 (Week 7) (also had the lowest score, a 51% in that rough week 12 loss). 

Subjective Awards

The Grant Holden Memorial “Are You Sure About That?” Draft Award  - named in honor of our very own Grant, in memory of his 2014 draft decision to pick K Chandler Katanzaro with the 3rd overall pick in the draft, this award is given in Week 1 to the owner who makes the most questionable draft day decision. Sad Winner - BlahBlahBlah, for drafting K Justin Tucker in the 5th round. We already handed this out way back at the beginning, but hindsight being 20/20, honorable mention definitely goes to Hair43HOF for drafting the Steelers D/ST also in the 5th round. Most metrics had them finish in the bottom half of all defenses for the year. At least they didn’t reach up and draft a kicker early (oh wait, who picked Younghoe Koo in the 8th round? Shit.)

The Metta World Peace/Chad Ochocinco Memorial Award – given to the owner with the best team name, as decided on by a panel of experts (me and Kirk). Winner - 80% Mental, 40% Physical, 30% Luck. This team name just nails the fantasy concept. Especially appropriate given the owner’s prior history with statistical analysis of NFL draft candidates. Also thanks for giving me a monstrosity to type out all the time, small wonder I invented “Team 843” as shorthand.

The Brandon Weeden Memorial Rookie Of The Year Award – given to the best performing first-time fantasy owner. Winner - 80% Mental, 40% Physical, 30% Luck. Honestly, this one was really close between our two rookies. Both Bob and Mike did great this year and we were thoroughly impressed. Team 843 takes this one home on virtue of finishing higher in the standings, but at least the Destroyers aren’t going back empty-handed since they got that sweet cash prize.

The Avery-Suh Memorial Sportsmanship Award – usually given to the owner that does the shiesty-est thing during the season. Sad Winner - Kale Kings. We totally are definitely aren’t in the shaming business, but are disappointed and discouraged when owners abandon their teams for long stretches of the season. (What’s worse is when you get beat one week by an abandoned team, but that’s a separate issue). Kale Kings played multiple (13) weeks with inactive player line-up slots (total of 19 positions). Remarkably they won one week with 3 non-playing slots, but the league office strongly prefers a more hands-on personnel management practice. Much like Mr. Suh stomping on fallen players, we don’t consider this ‘sporting’ play for the NHL.

The Ernest Shackleton Memorial “Spirit of the NHL” Award – given to the owner that truly embodies the spirit of the league, as the commissioners envisioned it. Winner - Tie, BlahBlahBlah and Council of Steel (just the whole Stehle household). Year in and out, the 4 Shehle owners (mother/daughter team and father/son team) actively participate on a weekly basis. In the spirit of the league they often comment on Atom Shuffler’s ruminations, and they continue to draft and cheer on various Steelers players (as witnessed by Jon single-handedly willing Pittsburgh into the NFL playoffs). Just 2 years ago, Council of Steel won the NHL Championship, showing that fortitude and smiles do pay off in the NHL.

Weekly Articles

Wrap-Up / Year In Review

Good afternoon NHL GM’s - 

Yup, it’s time for one of my twice-a-year way-too-long emails. Strap in for some light reading (no really, please read the whole thing, there’s lots of important stuff in here).

First off, I just want to say thanks for another great year of fantasy with y’all. I know it hasn’t been easy, especially with what feels like round 8 of Covid running around, but this has been a great time as always. Kirk and I were both very excited to add two teams this year to make it a 12-teamer for some variation in strategy - I can’t speak to anyone else’s experience (except Kirk and maybe Grant), but I have been playing fantasy football for 12 years now, I’ve run 16 teams by my count and this is only the second team I’ve had in a 12-team league (and I think Kirk and Grant’s first), so this was a cool change that I hope we can keep next year. I would also like to personally thank all 11 ownership groups (that’s 14 people, if I’m not mistaken - BBB, CoS and NoKe are all two person outfits) for your patience in dealing with me this year, as my day job really did make some of the weekly stuff and things like the draft schedule a bit of a time challenge. Regardless of your personal opinions on the matter, ask your local representative to fund local law enforcement - if only so they can hire more people and I won’t have to work as much, so I can dedicate more time to running the league. My thanks once again to Kirk for his assistance as well - this is actually a joint operation we both undertook several years ago, and he really is the head honcho...I signed up to basically be the email monkey and tech support, and while I recognize that I’ve taken on a bit more of an active role than that over the years this is still honestly his baby. We look forward to next season and hope you all return, despite the fact that we frequently mock you all week in and week out and will continue to do so. (But seriously, we like you. Please come back.)

Here Comes The Money - The first order of business is the financials. With the addition of two teams, that means expansion of the prize pool. The adjusted payouts are as follows - 

1st Prize - NoKe, $250 (aka a “quarter stack”) - our congratulations!

2nd Prize - MagicMikeIII aka Hair43HOF, $125 (aka “Benji and a bit”) - runner up doesn’t pay too bad.

3rd Prize - Mr. Rodgers’ Love Child, $95 (aka “five spot short”) - of course, the league treasurer wins money again.

4th Prize - LLL, $80 (aka “four twenties, in French”) - this will buy many peanuts (that’s a bad Simpsons joke).

Door Prize - Destroyers, $50 - for winning the scoring challenge/Dash For Cash, you get your buy-in back. Nice!

As always, please get in touch with Kirk on how you want your winnings paid. Our assumption is that you’re all returning next year, so for those teams we will automatically roll $50 of it into the league coffers to cover your buy-in for next year and just send you the difference. If something changes, just let him know and we’ll get it worked out.

Bragging Rights - With the championship decided, that means we also have our final standings for the season. I’ll list them from bottom to top, as this will also be next year’s draft order - 

#12 - BlahBlahBlah

#11 - Council of Steel

#10 - God’s Country

#9 - Destroyers

#8 - Knute Rockme

#7 - Kale Kings

#6 - 80% Mental, 40% Physical, 30% Luck

#5 - Bishop Sycamore Practice Squad

#4 - LLL

#3 - Mr. Rodgers’ Love Child

#2 - Hair43HOF

#1 - NoKe

Awards Gala - Next big thing is my pet project part of the league, the awards we hand out at the end of the year. Many of them date back to the dark ages of the ESPN version of the league, when that site featured an actual dedicated awards system that they foolishly eliminated the year before we migrated. They used to have nice icons that I made and pithy descriptions that have long since been lost to the bowels of the internet, but I’ve tried to keep most of them and I have once again included them below. There’s also a little bit of commentary where I think it’s appropriate. The awards are broken into two categories - stat based awards which have hard numbers associated with them, and subjective awards which I just hand out because it makes me feel good.

A few things Kirk and I would like to acknowledge before we hand out the awards proper (think of these as “awards lite”) - some keepers this year were really good picks. The Destroyers had the option between Saquon Barkley and Davonte Adams in the dispersal draft pool and correctly chose Adams, and from the same group, 80% Mental, 40% Physical, 30% Luck made a great choice and cherry-picked Johnathan Taylor. God’s Country’s DK Metcalf also turned out to be the best true keeper, in my opinion - another great choice. Some teams also had excellent images/mascots once again - best one for us was LLL with the boardwalk to nowhere (where does it go?). Honorable Mentions - Hair/Magic Mike for their late change, MRLC for sticking with the crying baby theme and modifying it once again, and 843 - can’t go wrong with a cold one. Also, despite the finishing position, LLL’s 14-1 record is the best ever in league history. Yes, they benefited from an extra week, but only one other one-loss season (Kirk’s 2011 13-1) is on the books, and it technically comes from the days of Nerve Center, the NHL’s predecessor.

Folks, that’s all the news that’s fit to print.  The only thing I have left to offer you is this season’s final loony bin rant from our tame journalist, Atom Shuffler. As if this year wasn’t enough of a struggle, all the way back in Week 2, my copy of Microsoft Word that I “borrowed” from my college finally expired after they shut down my student email account, a mere 4 years after I graduated. This is a problem because they don’t sell new copies of Word that work with my 8-year-old Windows 7 computer any more, and Atom sends me the weekly column via Western Union telegram so that I can transcribe it for you all. Given that I had to suffer through using Google Docs on a weekly basis all season, I think I’m going to buy him a cheap laptop for next year and make him send it to me off the Tim Horton’s WiFi. That’s assuming he doesn’t get committed to an asylum or arrested between now and then, with that guy you never know.

Once again, thanks for making this a great year of NHL Fantasy Football. I have greatly enjoyed it and I know both Kirk and myself are looking forward to next year with everyone. 

Best wishes for the new year.

Stay safe,

Will

Summarize the year as an independant observer 

Final Standings

1. NoKe brought to you by Braxton Berrios (Keith/Nolan)

2. Hair43HOF/MagicMikeIII (David)

3. Mr. Rodgers Love Child (Kirk)

4. L L L (Laine)

5. Bishop Sycamore Practice Squad (Will)

6. 80% Mental, 40% Physical, 30% Luck (Bob)

7. Kale Kings (Daniel)

8. Knute Rockme (Mark)

9. Destroyers (Mike B)

10. God's Country (Todd)

11. Council of Steel (Jon/Cooper)

12. BlahBlahBlah (Steph/Zoe)