Like every other fantasy game, fantasy hockey had humble beginnings. In the 1980s and early 90s, drafts happened in bars, rec rooms and garages.
Yes, friends actually came together, chirped each other and enjoyed a beverage (or two). And they kept track of their league (and teams) in a spreadsheet. And it might have actually been on paper!
Heaven forbid, right?
Paper, pens and spreadsheets were the staples of early fantasy hockey leagues. Back then, people referred to their leagues as "pools", which simply referred to the pool of people participating in the league.
In Canada, the term hockey pool lives on, especially in workplaces where fantasy leagues often allow poolies to select the same players for their teams. It's an easy way to allow many people to participate and keeps the league low-maintenance.
Early pools were often built on limited scoring categories since the many commissioners calculated statistics manually.
Talk about work.
Fantasy Hockey Moves Online
Fantasy hockey moved online in 1995 courtesy of a Canadian beer company. Molson Breweries unveiled the Molson Fantasy Hockey Pool, an online "pool" that pitted 10 owners against each other. They played for weekly prizes over the course of the NHL season.
At the same time, sites like Office Pools sprung up to allow league commissioners to customize scoring categories and set pool configurations. Suddenly, commissioners had access to software that updated scoring overnight, which did away with manual calculations and allowed poolies to check their scores and standings daily.
New online options
Like every other fantasy game, fantasy hockey had humble beginnings. In the 1980s and early 90s, drafts happened in bars, rec rooms and garages.
Yes, friends actually came together, chirped each other and enjoyed a beverage (or two). And they kept track of their league (and teams) in a spreadsheet. And it might have actually been on paper!
Heaven forbid, right?
Paper, pens and spreadsheets were the staples of early fantasy hockey leagues. Back then, people referred to their leagues as "pools", which simply referred to the pool of people participating in the league.
In Canada, the term hockey pool lives on, especially in workplaces where fantasy leagues often allow poolies to select the same players for their teams. It's an easy way to allow many people to participate and keeps the league low-maintenance.
Early pools were often built on limited scoring categories since the many commissioners calculated statistics manually.
Talk about work.
Fantasy Hockey Moves Online
Fantasy hockey moved online in 1995 courtesy of a Canadian beer company. Molson Breweries unveiled the Molson Fantasy Hockey Pool, an online "pool" that pitted 10 owners against each other. They played for weekly prizes over the course of the NHL season.
At the same time, sites like Office Pools sprung up to allow league commissioners to customize scoring categories and set pool configurations. Suddenly, commissioners had access to software that updated scoring overnight, which did away with manual calculations and allowed poolies to check their scores and standings daily.
New online options also allowed head-to-head formats, where owners are pitted directly against one another — often in weekly matchups. This created a new, exciting dynamic and allowed for deeper customization of leagues depending on the preference of those in the pool.
The Game Explodes
From there, fantasy hockey leagues exploded. They emerged from basements and bars to the internet, which allowed strangers to line up against each other from anywhere in the world.
League scoring complexity greatly expanded, too. Pre-Internet days and manual calculations kept most scoring categories to a minimum, with most commissioners spending hours transcribing scoring notes to their spreadsheet every week, so the fewer categories there were, the better.
Thanks to online sites, simple leagues that weighed categories like goals, assists, plus-minus, goalie wins and shutouts equally disappeared. They were replaced with weighted scoring, separate categories for forwards vs. defensemen, and anything imaginable based on available stats within the software.
On-Ice Changes Impact Fantasy
As the game on the ice has changed with statistics, so has fantasy hockey. Offense exploded in the 1980s, thanks in large part to the Great One, Wayne Gretzky, and Super Mario Lemieux. Goalies were pelted with pucks and their stats showed the harm.
The emphasis on offense continued in the early 1990s, but that decade soon became the era of expansion. In 1991, five expansion teams were awarded to cities in largely non-hockey markets (Ottawa, Tampa Bay, Anaheim, Florida and San Jose). And by 2000, the league had awarded teams to Nashville, Atlanta, Minnesota and Columbus.
This period is known as the "Dead Puck Era." Expansion meant there were more players available to draft, but talent was diluted, causing offense to drop. More scouting and knowledge was needed by fantasy owners, especially with the advent of super-defensive approaches to hockey. Non-offensive fantasy stats like penalty minutes and blocked shots gained momentum because of the suffocating style of this era. Also, leagues were often won or lost on the backs of goaltenders, who dominated thanks to the lack of scoring.
The 2004 NHL Lockout
The 2004 lockout lasted 310 days. A season was lost, and so was a lot of interest from fantasy players — particularly those in expansion markets. Out of sight, out of mind.
But the lockout changed the on-ice product for the better. Rule changes allowed offense to creep back into the game, and the next era of studs arrived.
The game was still dominated by players between 27 and 32. But that soon started to change. Alexander Ovechkin was the top pick in 2004 and Sidney Crosby followed in 2005. They began their careers in 2005-06 and in their first three seasons, each one captured both the Art Ross and Rocket Richard trophies. Scoring was back, and fantasy owners rejoiced.
Clutch-and-Grab Hockey
Obstruction started to dominate the game on the ice, and offense again started to drop. Through the late 2000s, marginal talents simply held onto the jerseys and pants of the NHL's best and acted like the parachute on the back of a drag racer. They hooked, held, and hooked some more. As such, enforcers would often step in as a counter measure.
Sin bin points (PIM) remained important for fantasy and 50/100 (points/PIM) players were considered fantasy gold. Just imagine — Zdeno Chara was often the first defender off the board at draft day. Today, his style of game just doesn't fit.
Salary-Cap Era
The next lockout happened in 2012. Major rule changes were introduced to open the game back up, which had significant implications for fantasy owners.
Prior to this lockout, the best fantasy players were usually mature ones in the 27–32-year age range. But the salary cap era forced NHL general managers to look long and hard at how to optimize their lineups. They hired capologists and advanced statistics geeks, and suddenly old was out. Keeper-league owners suddenly had to re-think their retention strategies. And fast.
Today's Fantasy Environment
Today, the best fantasy players are young. The best offense is often produced before the age of 24. Average offensive production from a player between 27 and 32 can now mean NHL unemployment — 20 to 24-year-olds are cheaper and, more importantly, faster.
The speed of today's game and lack of clutching and grabbing has brought offense back. However, injuries are up, too, and fantasy owners need to be able to analyze statistics like Corsi For and Offensive Zone Starts (both measured as a percentage) and find reliable medical insights to make their best decisions.
Online fantasy leagues now offer dozens of complex scoring categories and roster sizes have crept up. Gone are the days of two of each of the forward positions, four defenders and two goalies. The same goes for PIM, as enforcers just aren't a part of the game anymore due to the decrease in fighting and advancement in concussion knowledge. Now, fantasy owners may play in leagues where they roll 13 forwards, seven defenders and three goalies at any given time, especially in head-to-head formats.
Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) also exploded in the early 2010s and has become the hottest ticket in all fantasy sports. DFS is an intense fantasy experience that starts fresh every night. You pick a roster based on a salary cap and lay down a small wager against a single competitor or a pool of thousands, only to start again the next day. It's all about instant gratification, which is important in today's mobile, data-driven world. FanDuel and DraftKings dominate this market.
Where Do You Get Information?
The answer is simple: everywhere and anywhere. But that comes at a cost. We are inundated with information from every side and can get it on every device, so how does a smart owner sift through to find the nuggets to help them win?
The answer — to me, at least — is to find the best experts and let them do the heavy-lifting for you. Develop trust with the things your experts say. More importantly, find a place that often challenges your own gut. There's nothing that will sink your fantasy squad quicker than thinking your own methods and analyses are the only way of doing things.
Fantasy insights are everywhere on the internet and in social media. Big sites like Yahoo!, CBS and ESPN offer solid, reliable and timely information. And there are other great sites like Dobber Hockey that deliver good daily observations and regular weekly analysis.
Paid sites like RotoWire typically provide fantasy owners with the little extras that can make or break a season. The draft kit provided by RotoWire is second-to-none. Pop your scoring categories into the custom analyzer and out spits every single player in the NHL, ranked against each other based on scoring projections for the season. It's a whole lot easier to tweak that list based on your gut than to put in hundreds of hours trying to build projections yourself. Through the season, minute-by-minute updates that are pushed to your phone keep you in the loop 24/7, so you can make roster moves while other owners sleep.
Fantasy hockey continues to evolve in conjunction with the on-ice game and technology alike. The future will continue to allow fantasy owners to mimic real general managers…without the risk of getting fired for their mistakes.
Happy hockey, all!
