Sunday, September 28, 2008

The 08/09 Miyazaki Maroons

Of all my geeky interests, my yearly participation in a fantasy hockey league is maybe the most passionate. I love hockey, but here in Japan there are very few games to be seen on TV (ESPN Asia shows about a game a week, but this is hit and miss due to the vagaries of licensing rights, etc.). Fantasy hockey is a useful and fun way for me to keep up (on a daily basis) with the game I love.

(I'm fairly certain that none of this blog's regular readers are much interested in hockey (let alone "fantasy" hockey!) but, as I've said before, it's my bloody blog, and I'll blog about what I want to blog about! With apologies...)

The league I'm in, the Pacific Rim Hockey League, had a live online draft this morning in order to set our team rosters (there are eleven teams in all). Until I ruthlessly dump under-performing bums and replace them with even more worthless under-performing bums, here are the 2008-2009 Miyazaki Maroons [*]:
  • Goal: Roberto Luongo (Vancouver Canucks); Cam Ward (Carolina Hurricanes); Tim Thomas (Boston Bruins)
  • Centre: Jonathan Toews (Chicago Blackhawks); Anze Kopitar (Los Angeles Kings); Patrice Bergeron (Boston Bruins); Steve Stamkos (Tampa Bay Lightning)
  • Left Wing: Ilya Kovalchuk (Atlanta Thrashers); Vaclav Prospal (Tampa Bay Lightning); Christopher Higgins (Montreal Canadiens); Milan Lucic (Boston Bruins)
  • Right Wing: Patrick Kane (Chicago Blackhawks); Jason Pominville (Buffalo Sabres); Pierre-Marc Bouchard (Minnesota Wild)
  • Defense: Dennis Wideman (Boston Bruins); Braydon Coburn (Philadelphia Flyers); Shea Weber (Nashville Predators); Andrej Meszaros (Tampa Bay Lightning); Marek Zidlicky (Minnesota Wild); Paul Martin (New Jersey Devils); Mattias Ohlund (Vancouver Canucks)

I'm excited. Aren't you?

[*] That I have the coolest team name in this (or perhaps any other) league is beyond dispute. This should be clear to anyone with a general knowledge of a) hockey history b) English vocabulary c) Bugs Bunny d) my life and interests.

3 comments:

  1. Okay, so I know this hockey game is not like the one I played at school and it involves a puck, some skates, a flattish kind of hockey stick, a very small goal area and a slidey kind of surface - oh yeah and a lot of men who seem to like to fight a lot. How'm I doing here? But now, help me out, I think what I'm talking about is hockey, but WTF is "fantasy" hockey? Please, not so gentle writer, explain to your confused reader.

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  2. AV,
    The game you played at school is "field hockey." In Canada I think it's played exclusively by girls ... ;-)

    Fantasy hockey (or any "fantasy" sport) is for us dweebs who can't actually play the real thing (knee injury in '95, don't you know?...).

    It basically involves a) a "draft," in which fantasy team "managers" select real life players for their team, and b) use those players' statistics (goals, etc.) as the basis of a point system to determine fantasy team standings.

    And yes, it's as childish as it sounds. What about it? ;-)

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