Kiss of death?

Kiss of death?

I recommend them, and the next game they fall apart. What kind of fate is that? I recommended Marko Jaric and he had a good start last night. He had 4 points and 4 assists in the opening minutes. Then he sprained his ankle. I haven't heard how serious the sprain is but he didn't play anymore yesterday.

Louis Williams from Philadelphia saw a total of 9 minutes of PT. I haven't heard if that was injury related or not but 9 minutes isn't going to make anyone a fantasy play.

NHL

On happier news, Havlat is back in Chicago. In his first game back he scored 2 goals for the Blackhawks and yesterday had an assist on their first score against Phoenix. After that Byfuglien took over. Basically an unknown in fantasy hockey circles before last night, Byfuglien scored 3 goals and had an assist as the Blackhawks jumped out to an early 5-0 lead over the Coyotes.

To place that into perspective, before Friday he had 3 G, 1 Assist, -1, 11 PIM, 1 PPP and 20 SOG for 24.5 fan Pts. Friday he was a Plus 2 and had 5 shots on Goal and added 4 Penalty Minutes for good measure in addition to the 3 Goals (2 on PP) and assist. In my league that totals 19 fantasy points. Not a bad coming out party. I added him to my watch list since this was his first game skating with a new line. Maybe it is a foretaste of things to come. But I'm not going to grab him until I see more.

Parise gets the hat trick

Devils forward Zach Parise had his first hat trick on Friday night in a 4-0 win against the Montreal Canadiens. Parise scored a goal in each period and assisted on Brian Gionta's third period goal.

Atlanta recalls Goalie Kari Lehtonen Saturday from an AHL reconditioning assignment after missing 16 games with a groin injury. Kari started the season awful before the injury. However not only did teh Thrashers recall Lehtonen but he is starting at Goalie tonight for them. Needing a Starting Goalie, I added him by dropping Mike Smith. I won't get the benefit (or detriment) of Lehtonen until tomorrow. I now have him, Coyotes' Bryzgalov who had an awful game last night against Chicago and Montreal plattooner Huet as my 3 Goalies. Other than Goalie, I have a strong fantasy team with:

C Mike Ribeiro (Dal - C)
C Martin Straka (NYR - C,LW)
C Jason Williams (Chi - C,RW)
C Zach Parise (NJ - C,LW)

LW Evgeni Malkin (Pit - C,LW)
LW Ilya Kovalchuk (Atl - LW)

RW Martin Havlat (Chi - RW)
RW Justin Williams (Car - RW)
RW Martin Erat (Nsh - LW,RW)

D Bryan McCabe (Tor - D)
D Nicklas Lidstrom (Det - D)
D Brent Burns (Min - D)
D Shea Weber (Nsh - D)

We can play 2 Centers, 2 LW, 2 RW, 4 Defensemen and 2 Goalies daily. Having players like Erat and all of my Centers other than Ribeiro able to play multiple positions helps. I am currently 4th out of 12 in my Yahoo Point league. With a little consistentcy at Goalie, I could get to #1.

It's not too Late - you can be a sportsaholic too!

This is my first year at playing fantasy sports and I am loving it!

Maybe your interest is piqued over fantasy sports but you haven't yet made the move to actually play. It isn't too late! Or maybe you have been playing fantasy baseball or fantasy football but haven't joined any fantasy league on basketball or hockey or Nascar. It isn't too late!

And don't feel that you have to be an expert to play fantasy sports. If that was a requirement I would not be having the fun I am now having. I certainly was no expert in fantasy football when I made the decision to play this year. The Pastor of our church is a sports fan and he wanted to start a league this year in our church. I knew nothing about fantasy sports. Nada. I didn't even watch a lot of NFL football on television. When I historically watched football on television it was usually college football or it was playoff games in the NFL. But I decided to play. And I have been having a lot of fun ever since I did.

Beginning a couple of weeks ago I joined in 3 NBA drafts and 1 hockey draft. If I didn't know much about NFL football, my knowledge of the NBA was no better. Again I tended to watch college games rather than professional games when I watched basketball. As for hockey, I live in the southern US. Hockey is not a well known sport here although there are teams in some of the larger cities such as Atlanta, Tampa Bay, Dallas, St Louis and Nashville. I had been to a couple of Calgary Flames matches several years ago but I really knew very little about the sport. And that is why I joined a fantasy hockey league.

If you want to know more about a sport, join a fantasy league for that sport. You will learn more about the sport than you ever though possible. It provides a perfect learning atmosphere. You will be motivated to learn because you will not want to lose. You will be safe learning because the other team owners probably are strangers and you won't fear appearing foolish. You are somewhat anonymous so can relax and ask those questions you are afraid to ask because others might think them stupid (by the way the only stupid question is the one that goes unasked). You will learn by seeing what the better teams are doing.

And you will be surprised how fun it all can be. The more you participate, the more fun you have.

If you have questions on a fantasy sport, ask. I'll be happy to try and address your question in a blog or email if you prefer.

Some places to play fantasy basketball are NBA.com and Yahoo Sports. Yahoo Sports also has fantasy Hockey and Nascar and Golf ....