Hockey has finally returned and I thought I’d wait a while before I gave my comments on any post-lockout hockey stuff. The lockout was a terrible situation for everybody involved but did wasting a year’s worth of hockey really help the game in any way? Well to answer this question, you’d have to take a look at the so-called “New NHL” and figure out if taking off 1 full year’s worth of hockey really helped the state of hockey in North America. I am but only 1 of millions with their own opinions on the matter, but in my opinion it ‘HAS’ helped hockey.Let’s take a look at the first week in the ‘New NHL: Scoring is up, Penalties are up, fighting is down. I would say that that the biggest change to happen so far is the deletion of the red line in hockey. I’m seeing a lot more counter-attacks and 2-on-1 and 3-on-2 breakouts as well as an increase in break aways to start off the season. Some would say that this “New NHL” is a more woosy/European version of hockey due to the fact that fighting is down and also for the fact that defensemen are hitting less because of their fear of getting a penalty.

While to some degree defensemen may be hesitating a bit more before going up against forwards; I would also add that I’ve seen an increase in body checks and open ice hits. The reason for this simply being that defensemen are learning quickly that they can’t use their sticks to hook or grab players anymore and must rely more on their physical strength and use their bodies more to their advantage.

If you watched a nightly broadcast of Sportscenter, you’d find a few nice highlights every night of a defenseman laying out a forward with a body check. In regards to fighting, it has gone down but mostly for the fact that 4th line players are seeing less ice time because of the increase in penalties and also because of their lack of speed in the “New NHL”. Speed is definitely an issue so far and you can see it by watching teams like the Montreal Canadians and Minnesota Wild in games in the opening week.The red line being taken out and the increase in penalties has allowed the faster teams to excel whereas the slower teams are having a harder time reacting to the change in style. Goal scoring has also gone up and it’s nice to see games ending with scores of 6-5 or 5-4. Does this mean that we’ll be seeing this every night? No, of course we won’t as goaltenders are still getting shutouts and I don’t think the reduction in the size of their equipment has made such a drastic change to their playing habits either. What has changed is the angles of their nets related to the movement of the blue lines which is causing problems for goalies trying to cover their angles.

The biggest this season was the addition of shootouts to end ties. While purists hate the idea still, the fans seem to be enjoying it very much. The only problem I have with the shootout is that it’s over way too fast with only 3 players going head to head with the goalie. They should increase it to 5 players which is the same amount of players that normally play on the ice anyways. The “New NHL” is here to stay. The only question remains is whether the fans in The United States (Not Canada) come back to the game and help to make it more successful than it was before. While some are calling hockey ‘Olympic Hockey’ ; I don’t think we need to get to that point just yet as I think there will always be a difference between the NHL and Olympic Hockey for a variety of reasons that will separate each game from one another. But one thing is for certain, The NHL is faster,more skilled and will hopefully regain the casual sports fan back to watch the game in the not too distant future.

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There have been many hobbies that have been created in part due to the popularity of the internet. Downloading porn and getting in message board debates about the latest star wars films comes to mind first but another hobby that has helped the sports fan on the internet is the boom in popularity of Fantasy Sports Teams. This article will help to give the dummy with no knowledge of Fantasy Sports a bit of information to help him understand what fantasy sports is all about and hopefully decide to join in on the phenomenon sooner or later.Let’s start off with the basic definition of fantasy sports as defined by our favorite free encyclopedia, http://www.wikipedia.org.

Fantasy Sports:A Fantasy sport is a game where fantasy owners build a team that competes against other fantasy owners based on the statistics generated by individual players or teams of a professional sport. Probably the most common variant converts statistical performance into points generated by a fantasy team, and are typically simple enough to be manually calculated by a “league commissioner.” More complex variants use computer modeling of actual games based on statistical input generated by professional sports.

Boobnewb’s Definition of Fantasy Sports: A fantasy sport lets the average fan become the imaginary general manager of a sports team. You can decide which players you want on your teams based 75% on the knowledge you have of the sport and 25% based on the luck you have in picking those players in a fantasy draft. You can show off to your friends how good you would be compared to them by choosing just the right players on your team that will make your team a successful club compared to theirs through a process of mathematical statistics like goals,touchdowns, baskets etc.

Have you ever seen a sports team’s general manager make a horrible trade or make a horrible draft pick? Are you sitting on your couch and thinking to yourself that you could do a way better job than that idiot if you were given the job of being the team’s general manager? Well, now thanks to the internet you can put your money where your mouth is and create your very own fantasy sports team. Before the internet; fantasy sports still existed but it was more difficult to keep track of statistics with simply a paper, a calculator and a pen or pencil. When computers and printers were invented it made things a bit easier thanks to the help of spreadsheets with programs like excel that would help to do a bit of the work for you. Now with the help of the internet it has made viewing results for fantasy sports much easier thanks to up to the minute results and websites that automatically do the all of the work in keeping track of statistics for you.

Generally, Fantasy Sports start off with a commissioner. This is the owner of the league and can also be a player in the game as well or simply be there to enforce the rules and be impartial to any players who are in the league. The commissioner can set the rules for the league such as how many players will be allowed to join the league as well as set the point totals for each statistic. The next priority for the league is to set up a draft date. These can either be live on the internet or done offline in some fashion between all the members of the league.The commish can either decide in which draft or order the players are selected or he can let the internet randomly pick who gets which pick in the draft. Also, unlike most of the normal drafts in professional sports, in fantasy sports every single player in the league including rookies for the upcoming season can be chosen to be on your particular team. Once the draft is finished, all the members of the league now have their teams all set up and ready to go for the upcoming sports year. Usually, depending on the sport, you need to make sure you draft well for each particular position of a roster.
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The second in a series of articles about fantasy sports will cover some of the tips that you should be aware of to possibly win your fantasy sports league.The first tip is to get to know the sport that you’ll be playing in a bit better. Look at the positions to be filled and look at the main stats. categories that are available to you. In a sport like baseball, hitting and pitching are key elements to help you win so you might want to focus on those positions before anything else. If it’s a sport like hockey, goals and assists are your main categories usually, so you may want to look at adding some snipers to your line up to help you gain more points. Also,be on the lookout at certain times for trades or free agents. Every league has their own deadlines set and you should be aware of this fact midway through the season.

Secondly, you should be aware of all of the stats. categories that are given to you in your league. If it’s a basic league, then you should focus on things like touchdowns, goals,baskets, etc. and look for scoring help. Otherwise, you should be aware of other categories that may seem hopeless to you, but may very well help your chances at winning your league. For instance, in hockey the ‘goon’ may seem like an undervalued commodity to you . Instead, a goon can definitely help you gain penalty minutes that can earn you valuable points if penalty minutes are a stats. in your league.

In baseball, scoring may seem like a high stats. to you but be aware that even in real life hitting is nothing without good pitching. A good starting rotation of pitching can take you to the promised land or break you even with a decent offensive ball club. In football, defense helps but receivers,running backs and quarterbacks lead the way for fantasy football so pick these guys often and early.

Another tip to follow is to keep track of your sport before your fantasy draft even begins. In football, is there going to be a quarterback controversy? Is the quarterback that you plan on picking even going to be the starting quarterback after training camp? Is that star receiver you plan on picking going to consider ending his lockout and returning to the team in time for the season to start or will he continue his holdout for more money? Will that star point guard in basketball decide to hang up the sneakers officially or will he return and decide to play for one final season?

These are all things that you should consider before drafting a player to your fantasy team. Another thing to look at are injuries. Is there a player that you want to pick that often gets injured? Is he worth the risk or should you choose someone potentially not as valuable to your team but that you know won’t get as injured often. Injuries play an important role in Fantasy Sports and unfortunately rely more on luck than on skills. So while you may wish your friends teammates good luck, secretly you’re hoping that they break a leg or get a concussion. It may sound mean but if money is involved the better the reason to think like that. So there’s just a few tips that I hope Fantasy Sports fans pick up on and hopefully will help them in the next fantasy sport to come around.

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