Welcome to the Slap Shot Fantasy Hockey League!
There are tons of Fantasy Leagues to choose from....why choose us?
Let's look at the history of the SSFHL. Oddly enough it originally started back in 1995 as a "fantasy hockey" site based on the outcomes of EA Sports NHL game series competitions between a group of players I met online. Fantasy sports was in it's infancy back then with only a few fantasy sites running. While they had the tech, you were also competing in a much larger pool with a significantly smaller chance of actually winning anything. Around 2000 I started building the database to generate scoring, house player data and create a format that I thought would as closely as possible emulate being a real GM. Let's face it, their job cannot be easy so making it challenge to match that was the direction I wanted to go. For example, a player gets injured they don't dump him, they are stuck with filling a hole in the lineup. Many of leagues back then and still today allow you to drop injured players at will and should they come back you could possibly pick them back up again. I wanted GM's to look further down the road when developing their teams and have less of the immediate gratification of changing players like you change socks.
Fantasy Hockey principals that are important to me to have?
1) Scores based on real stats, but highlight the importance of each position such as, defensemen typically don't score as much as forwards, so goals from them should be worth more points.
2) Salary cap is a must as allowing an unlimited budget can produce superstar teams and make the league much less competitive. An even playing field is critical!
3) You can't just dump players that get injured, it does not happen in the real world and should not happen in ours.
4) Make the prize money meaningful so that first place does not just get a team hat or a jersey for winning the season.
I could go on and on but at this point I should not. I digress.....
I have been running this site in it's current iteration in the early 2000'swith changes and tweaks along the way to keep things interesting. A programmer I am not, but have tried to keep things similar to the larger fantasy sports houses, of which there were way fewer back then. We have a great bunch of GM's some of which have been with this league for over 20 years, to me that says alot and that despite the lack of total automation, it is fun enough to keep gm's around. It never used to be a thing to have pay leagues or we got shunned as a possible scam, but have always taken virtually all of the dues paid and paid them back out to the GM's that keep the league going.
I have fluxed up and down on number of teams and in the heyday of the league, had 2 levels of leagues and almost 40 GM's. Over the years with automation and so many other league formats coming on board, mostly due to it being big bucks, it has gotten harder and harder to recruit GM's without all the bells and whistles of the large corporation league formats. I have fought the good fight to keep things relevant but have come to the realization that the experience is not always what GM's would like it to be and have come to the decision to move to a large format site. I have chosen FanTrax for that site as they currently most closely emulate the fantasy experience I wish to provide.
This site for now will still exist as a platform to recruit GM's and will likely be more of an informational site than anything else. Who knows, this is all still stuff kicking around in my head so we will have to see how it pans out.
I sinisterly want to thank all the active GM's and especially those that have stuck with me for 20 plus years. I feel like you are family and would love nothing better than to get together some time, the logistics and complexity of our lives makes that a significant challenge.
Here is the "Hall of Fame" List for GM's.
Mike McArty - 23 years
Francois Houle - 22 years
Bryn Trickett - 16 years
Jason Dambach - 15 years
Craig Daniger - 15 years
Harry Smalley - 15 years
Ronald Graham - 14 years
Don Heisser - 14 years
Robert Cavitch - 14 years
Kevin Piemeisel - 12 years
Michael Kawazoe - 11 years
The list goes on, but without all of you this league would have never become a reality. Thank you to all of you for many many many years of supporting the league.
On to the next chapter...
Once we finish the playoffs and award the prizes, I will start next phase of our journey. Stay tuned....
If you have an interest in joining and picking up an available team please let me know ssfhlcommish@ssfhl.com
Think you've got what it takes to win the SSFHL Title or the SSFHL Cup?!.....Prove It!
Scott
