by Kevin Burton
I am …the KING…of fantasy hockey. This was confirmed Saturday, though I never had a doubt.
Genius? Well I’m not going there. Some will say yes, others no. But this is something many will want to emulate, for sure.
I’m not trying to make other players feel bad, or rubbing their faces in the dirt. I’m just saying, don’t embarrass yourself by trying to challenge me.
“Kevin’s Sensational Team,” an entry in Yahoo fantasy hockey league 110112, was victorious in the championship game by a score of 591 to 350.3. That sounds like a beatdown, but I don’t really know.
Not sure how much I have mentioned hockey in my first 1,300 or so posts on Page 7. I don’t recall any specific instances. But the glory of my recent championship must be trumpeted.
I was gifted this fantasy hockey franchise while minding my own business, pursuing information about fantasy football. I was doing so on my smartphone, a (then) newly-acquired device that immediately upon activation increased exponentially my ability to venture into the post-cerebral world of the millennial XYZ-ABC generation(s).
The smartphone brings frustrations and amusements in roughly-equal number on a daily basis.
So my fingers are not nearly so fat as my midriff, but it appears they were fat enough one day to click something that gave Yahoo the ridiculous notion that I wanted to play fantasy hockey.
So I got a message on my phone that said both “stay in this draft” and “leave this draft.”
Just as quickly as I could manage, I clicked “leave this draft,” obviously to no avail.
Within minutes I was advised that my draft was beginning. As each round neared, the phone told me my turn was coming. I did not respond to any of these messages.
The Yahoo Fantasy Hockey Industrial Complex entered me, against my will, into this league, and forced me to trip over multiple hockey notifications as I looked for fantasy football info.
I got notices saying, you lost to this team, you beat this team, whatever. I also got notices that said such and such a player is injured but is in your starting lineup. I did not respond to any of these messages either, not once.
How much do I know about hockey? Well, I know it’s tough to win in the other guy’s building.
OK, that’s understating things a bit. In 1997, the first year of the expansion Columbus Blue Jackets, I went to six home games.
And before that, I loved the St. Louis Blues teams that featured Brian Sutter, Bernie Federko and Wayne Babych – the Production Line I believe they were called.
They had Mike Liut as their hot goaltender and Larry Patey scoring an unbelievable number of shorthanded goals. You could almost count on Patey scoring shorthanded.
Perry Turnbull, Joe Mullen, Mike Zuke, Jack Brownschidle, Rick Lapointe and Blair Chapman were other favorites.
All those nights listening to the late Dan Kelly broadcasting the games from the Checkerdome, the name of the arena when the pet food company Purina owned the Blues. All night Kelly said, “shoots one…Liut the save!” That was on KMOX, Sl. Louis.
Mike Crombeen scored a big, big overtime goal for us in the playoffs to eliminate Pittsburgh. “The Checkerdome has exploded!” Kelly said.
Ron Tugnutt was the goaltender for the first Blue Jackets teams. I don’t remember the other players. And as for today’s hockey, I couldn’t name ten players to save my life.
The Yahoo computer picked the players for my sensational team, and obviously did a good job.
The computer selected Connor McDavid of Edmonton and Sidney Crosby of Pittsburgh for my team. Those two are so famous everybody has heard of them. A guy named Forsberg from Nashville was on my team. I know that name from a player who used to play for Colorado (I think).
A had a Blue Jackets player on the squad, defenseman Zach Werenski. I am glad at least one Columbus player helped me raise the banner!
I was sitting in a Buffalo Wild Wings in Wichita with my wife Jeannette Saturday, looking for the names of my fantasy football teams from last year, when I noticed fantasy hockey was over and I had won, WON the whole thing!
What I need now is a version of “Celebration,” my go-to championship-winning happy-dance song, by Kool and the Gang, in French.
I was laughing out loud at the restaurant in a way that couldn’t be ignored, so told Jeannette what had happened.
“That’s a blog!” she said, and so, now it is.
All this has implications for my immediate fantasy football future too. You betcha!
How much time and anxiety could I save if I would just autodraft a fantasy football team, ignore it all year, and reap the benefits! This has real possibilities.
Wish I had thought of this much sooner.
Also, it could be that I am not the only accidental, fat-fingered “manager” in the world of fantasy hockey. The second-place team I defeated so soundly in the championship final was called, “not playing.”
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