Fantasy Playoffs: At least I'm a participant

I can't remember when or where I promised updates on my forays into fantasy basketball and hockey—seeing how hot I did in fantasy football last year and all (READ: DEAD LAST, 12TH OF 12). But I guess that just goes to prove how right I was about lacking "the fire and the passion" so many others seem to have when it comes to this stuff.

Of course, as opposed to the NFL version where seemingly everybody and their entire family tree participates in fantasy football, I don't have any IRL friends who try either one of the NHL or NBA versions. And considering two of the three leagues I'm in aren't the head-to-head weekly style that makes the fantasy football better parallel the sport a little better, it's hard to focus on a certain night when in the end, it's all going to come down to points. Still, one of the two fantasy hockey leagues I'm in did involve regular week-long head-to-head contests that determined these brackets you see there (my team is the No. 3 seed, the name obviously using hockey terminology as a parable for my relationship status these days). And since I said I'd talk about this stuff, now seems the best time to write this stuff down.

So this is how our season ended up in the "Beyond the Blue Line 2" league, where we had four more teams than we had in the straight-up points league, cleverly titled just "Beyond the Blue Line." Now, we did not actually have 170 games each, but rather 17 weeks of contests that use 10 different categories to determine that win-loss-tie record there. I had started fast, but eventually that lady (!) in first won eight of her final nine and now enters the tournament as the top seed (she got Sidney Crosby, by the way) while one of the fellows who got me into this mess, BMC reader Steve-O, has the second seed (he's got ... one of those Sedin boys—like I can tell them apart).

After winning my very first week 8-0, you could say I was pretty confident. Of course, it came against the dude who finished in 10th (I'd guess only about half of our participants consistently updated their rosters). And while I go into the tournament as the No. 3, I had lost three weeks in a row before getting by the eventual cellar-dweller in the final week of the season. 

And while the brackets graphic indicates I got off to a 6-1 lead for the week's game, I'm in fact currently only holding a 3-1 lead at the moment with advantages in plus/minus, goals against average and save percentage while trailing in power play points. But tonight we've both got full rosters going (pairs of centers, goalies, right and left wings, and four defensemen). Who do I have on my team you ask?

This was one of my two leagues where I ended up with the first overall pick (I had no control over that, honestly—and I wasn't present for any of the three live online drafts, so I'm still waiting to participate in my first one day), so Ovie was fairly obvious. It gave me a reason to root for him—that shit with Campbell this past weekend aside, of course.

In addition to having the best player in the league, I'm kind of stunned I didn't take first in this league since I still think the rest of my roster is totally tits: I had no business ending up with Toews on the same team too, but both Tuuka Rask and Mike Knuble ended up being free agents I picked up to replace injured or under-performing players. Rask came in when Philadelphia's Ray Emery got shelved and Knuble was found when I dropped this version Milan Hejduk.

A month before that last transaction happened, I had dropped Hejduk from this other roster for the eight-team "Beyond the Blue Line" league. If I'm not as crazy about this roster, it's only because I've got one Blackhawk as opposed to the two on the other squad—oh, and I got a Sedin twin. 

Of course, the difference with this league—being a grand total of points that determines the whole thing at the end of the year—is that you have a maximum number of games you can play for each position (164 for the centers, wings and goalies, and 328 for the defensemen). And seeing as I've already used up 159 of those games for my centers, I may end up dropping one of those three pretty decent ones I have so I can make up where I'm lacking at the right wings, defensemen, and goalies.

It really won't be too strenuous of a decision though since this "Blue Line" league is the one I'm in first for at the moment—and have been pretty much throughout the season. With the exceptions of, say, Jay Bouwmeester and Andrei Markov, this has been a fairly decent team that I only had to tinker with a few times during the year.

But I'd have to say that despite my success in this points league for hockey, I actually prefer the setup for fantasy basketball. See, most NHL players are only designated for one position. And the spots you fill in fantasy hockey are fairly straight-forward without much strategy other than maybe which position you won't have a bench player for.

That in mind, fantasy basketball's roster requires a bit more method to the madness. Not only are more NBA players designated as available for multiple positions, but the spots you play each night allow for some creativity (a point guard, a shooting guard, a basic guard, a power forward, a small forward, a basic forward, a pair of centers, and a pair of utility players). And much like the points version of the "Blue Line" league, you have maximums for all of those spots, which have fluctuated wildly over the course of the year.

Now this "Ballas and Shot Callas" league was the other one where I landed the top pick, so Chris Paul was my boy—and a pretty satisfying one until he got banged up. Still, in comparison to the NHL points league, this one actually has a race going to the end. While I'm currently sitting in third and within shouting distance of the top spot, those top two dogs are only seven or so points apart at the moment.

So at the moment, it appears I'm in good shape to add three more trophies to my Yahoo case, which will make me ... um ... every bit as much of a loser as I was before I tried any of this.

Actually, if I'm remembering right, my reasoning for joining these leagues was to better familiarize myself with many players in both leagues. And yet I'm still having trouble recognizing most of these names (more so NHL than NBA, obviously), let alone keeping straight who's actually on my teams when, say, watching SportsCenter with friends. I think only having one fantasy hockey league might have helped instead of two. Or maybe it's just that I don't want to be a hypocrite and begin touting totals for a fantasy player of mine one evening when I complain about the meatheads I know that bore me silly by doing that exact same thing during football season.

Of course, the immediate question is "Would I do this again next year?" And the answer to that, I'm guessing, is a definite "probably."