Following on from the Alpha League results here, I'm posting the results of yesterday's auction draft for the Gamma league.

Same set up as the Alpha league, 12 teams, $250 budget and 8 skater categories, 4 goalie categories.

Now, unfortunately only about 6 people turned up for the draft so some of the huge overpayments you see below will be because the computer auto bid... One guy got stuck at work, one guy couldn't get into the draft. By the end it turned into a normal draft, everyone was bidding $1 and getting who they wanted. Two of the more interesting values were how much Ovie and Crosby went for. Two guys got in a bidding war for Ovie on the first bid of the day and he ended up going for $60 to NorthernBogLemmings. Meanwhile, Crosby went for $27, which could be a steal if he comes back soon. I (The Keslurkers) spent more early that I expected (Perry and Luongo), which meant I had to pass up on some of the next tier I wanted but I'm pretty happy with my team. But you be the judge

Full results coming up. You can visit the league here. Who's the favourite to take home the trophy?

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Well it's the exciting time of the year again! Playoffs coming up and I'm keen to watch all the Canucks and Penguins games, however far they go.

Unforunately I will be working most days, except Friday and Saturday games (Sat and Sun here) and I don't think many of the games will be televised here. That is why I'm wondering if anyone knows some websites where I can watch the full games later the same day without knowing the scores. The only one I can find is www.hockeystreams.com, which will cost $33 US for the playoffs.

If anyone knows any other sites where I can do this (free or otherwise) please enlighten me :) Thanks

I was reading an article over at Rotoworld and it was talking about draft techniques for fantasy playoff pools. Does anyone know which sites actually do playoff pools for free, because Yahoo doesn't? I'm keen to do one this season

Also, since all of us here are obviously quite into our fantasy hockey, I was wondering if there was interest in setting up a franchise league from next season. Someone else could run it because I've never done one but am very keen to do one!

Well, two days out from the draft someone pulled out... so we have one more spot in there

On Yahoo:
League ID 28509
Password luongod

If you join please post in here so others don't get excited. But we need one more so we have a full league and can draft

PS you'll be in the division of death with me and some zanstorm guy...

Damn this 75 word minimum.... blah blah blah blah

Mgt Note: Reposting this back for the final weekend. Holland & Spain eh? Two newbies. Who ya got?

******************************

I kept meaning to make this fanpost but was always forgetting. Those hockey peoples don't like us infecting their topics with a true global sport (I kid!) so the conversation can take place here.

Four games for the round of 16 confirmed so far, with the biggest game of all tonight, New Zealand v Paraguay 2am NZST (I'm sure you know how to convert that to your local time zone!)

Rec it to keep it top til the final

GO THE ALL WHITES

Wow. I think we all know how awesome that game was so I won't go into it.

Final results:

Congrats to Canukk on your win! Marian Hossa, Getzlaf and Parise were great picks and picked up most of the points. Cyxj you led early but unfortunately your Swedish players let you down and that shows from the quaterfinal points onwards

A big thank you to everyone who took part, hope you enjoyed it. Very happy with the amount of people we got and glad the top places didn't end up on equal points!

Perhaps we can do something similar for the playoffs....

A bit late updating from the semis but here it is. Will post the points from the bronze medal game in here tonight then make a new fanpost for the final standings tomorrow

Well we have our first zeros, and unfortunately I'm one of them. Canukk has taken over the lead and looks like a good bet to take it from here with only him and cyxj having a chance of winning it really. I'll be happy just to finish anywhere except last :)

cyxj manages to hold onto the lead while Canuckk has an awesome day picking up 3 points each from Getzlaf and Hossa. Meanwhile some of the teams (including mine) won't be scoring many more points now that Sweden, Czech Rep and Russia are gone. Well done to anyone who chose Finish or Slovakian (only Hossa) players, that could be the deciding factor in the end!

Oh and what a waste that Ovechkin guy was for most of you :p

So it's still very close att the top, perhaps tomorrow with all the players picked playing it will start to seperate a little. And once Canada or Russia are out of it some teams will only be relying on one team to get them all their points as I guess that was meant to be the final

Can you tell I'm waffling so I can reach the 75 word limit? I'm gonna video the Canada Russia game and watch it when I get home from work, very much looking forward to that one. Should be able to catch some of the other games (excl USA v Switzerland) too

With the six 'lesser' teams playing today we didn't have many points in the pool but I thought I'd post the table anyway.

We'll be expecting lots of points tomorrow when everyone plays. I'm gutted I'm working (it being a Monday) so can only see the Sweden v Finland game

Gotta reach 75 words again (why is there a limit... I don't want to post a fanshot thanks...) One more word

Thought I better make a new fanpost otherwise it'll get lost quickly below the daily olympic ones etc... Will make one for each round. Not so many goals today so the table has changed very little

After day 3:

Now I'm confused about shootouts, the boxscore on ESPN gives Crosby a goal for winning the shootout and that has been reflected in the points above, is this convention? I would have thought it wouldn't have counted...

I'll edit in the table or post it in the comments after each day if I can

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Alright, we better get onto this as the first games are Tuesday your time

So... I reckon we go with 10 players (min of 2 defensemen) - all must be from NHL
Only one per NHL team
Maximum of 500 NHL points this season total (I know games are going on but 500 at the time you post your team)

If you're keen please post a comment with:

Your team with their NHL club and how many points they have scored so far this season. If it's mid game just go with the points at the start of the game

eg.
1. H Sedin (Canucks) - 79
.....
10. E Malkin (Penguins) - 63

Total: ___

Your players will earn one point for a goal and one for an assist. There will be no changes during the games and all games count, so you may want to think about what players will make it to the final etc

Cheers

Now I'm guessing because it's so short websites aren't running fantasy pools for the Olympics so if people are keen we could run our own. I found some ideas of how it could be run and wouldn't mind running it myself. The easiest way is probably to score 1 point for a goal and one for an assist (could chanage to 2 for a goal, but I think 1's fair).

Then there's the choice of system (copied from Yahoo fantasy page):

1. Pick any 10 skaters

2. Take five from each of the three Olympic groups

3. Pick any 15 skaters, but you can’t take more than one from any NHL team

4. Pick one skater from each of the 12 teams in the Olympic tournament

5. Pick any 10 skaters, with their total NHL points from this season capped at 500

6. Pick 15 skaters: 10 from the NHL and five from Europe

I quite like the 5th one, while the 6th one isn't great for people like me that don't follow hockey in Europe.

I'll add a poll but if you're keen we could get this going :)

I thought I might post one of these. As I have mentioned previously this is my first season of following NHL properly. I have always taken a passing interest in it, and watched the Stanley Cup finals last year. For the record I was a Penguins fan before that. I wanted to choose a Western conference team too to make it more interesting so here I am.

Now, as someone growing up in New Zealand I have had to access to ice hockey (we have field hockey) apart from video games. Therefore I probably have a bit of a different outlook on it and know a lot less. I've grown up watching cricket and soccer.

1. Fights.... I still don't really get it. To me a fight is between two people that don't like each other. But in hockey they fight and when the refs step in they just skate off to the penalty box... so they're just doing it for the team right? Or is it just because they're tired and want a 5 minute rest?

2. Shifts... Is hockey really that tiring that they can only play for a minute before needing a break? In soccer they play the whole game.  Or is it more they play so many games in close succession? And what's the rule with when the players can come off the bench, I've seen them come over before the players even reach the bench?

3. What's it like being at a live game? I've heard it's really easy to follow the puck compared to watching on TV. Few of my mates have made the comment hockey is so hard to watch due to not seeing the puck. It took me a while to get used to it and I still need a few replays sometimes

Well that's all for now, looking forward to seeing some Canucks v Pens action tomorrow, hopefully we'll see them meet again in the Stanley Cup :p

I'm sure I'll have more questions at a later date, and sorry if I sound like a noob, just trying to learn because it's an amazing game and I love watching the highlights and can't wait for the Olympics because hopefully they'll broadcast some hockey on TV here.

Go Canucks! (except maybe tomorrow)