A good fantasy hockey league setup will have a lot of factors that affect the outcome. However, you do want to control the fundamentals.

1. Format

As discussed in a previous article of mine: roto vs. h2h, scoring format is very important in fantasy hockey. Besides standard roto and h2h leagues, another common format is points. However, overall scoring format isn’t the only type of format that needs to be considered. There are also different types of leagues, such as salary leagues or auction based leagues. Then, on top of those, there are also differentiations between single year leagues, keeper leagues, and also dynasty leagues, all of which operate slightly differently year by year. Discuss the format that your fellow managers would like to play well ahead of time so everyone is on the same page, it pretty much affects everything.

2. Categories

The types of categories used are important no matter what the league format is. The average fantasy hockey league is offensive production based with some goalie stats included and even sometimes defensemen based stats as well, for those who want it. You need to strike a good balance of categories overall. A good mix of offense and goalie stats should do just fine. Be careful with specialty stats like SHP if you’re in an H2H league, they can end up being very few and far between week to week, and can often end up tied 0-0 or ending up having the entire category won by a single tally.

3. Roster Positions/Size

Roster positions must be considered, as well as the overall team size. Are you looking to have a deep roster to manage with lots of positions or do you want a really basic team without having to worry about if someone is a left wing or a right wing? Perhaps you want to use multiple “forward” slots or maybe even just utility slots. Also, there needs to be thought put into the proportion of player positions vs. overall team size. If you require 5 D but only 5 forwards total per roster, then D are going to have inflated values in that particular league setup. Same goes for goalies. Also, the larger the overall roster size (and the more managers in your league) the more players will eventually be drafted and so you’ll be getting into real fringe production players. You may enjoy looking into finding those really deep in diamonds in the rough, I know I do, but not everyone does. Make sure your fellow managers are in agreement about how to go about setting up the roster positions and also the overall size.

4. Player Movement

Player movement is kind of my blanket term of anything involving drafting, post-draft player acquisitions (add/drops), waiver system (if any), trading, and any potential off-season activity if you’re in a keeper or dynasty league. There need to be good systems and sets of rules established that everyone knows ahead of time so there are less conflicts. For H2H leagues with daily transactions, you need to make sure your league institutes a seasonal move limit, with weekly transaction limit stipulations in order to curb any potential for “streaming” players to get more production in a given scoring period; this can be especially bad during playoff matches. Also, you need to have good systems for trading and potential vetoing of trades. A lot of this stuff is easily done nowadays with online services like Yahoo! but if you’re doing strictly live leagues with friends, it’s important to have a good rulebook or set written up before anything starts.

5. League Size

Depending on your specific goals in your league, you’ll want to have a decent amount of managers. Unless of course everyone wants to just goof off and have super all star teams, then that’s a different story. Most people, though, do enjoy playing with upwards of 10 managers per league. The more managers you have in a particular league (in conjunction with roster size) the more players will be drafted and accounted for, and the more knowledge you’ll need of all players in the NHL, including even the more fringe fantasy players out there. Deep leagues can be very competitive and surely bring out the best in fantasy hockey managerial skills.

6. Good Managers

Last but definitely not least is the requirement of good managers for the league. A well-functioning league absolutely needs good managers to last any significant period of time. What makes a good manager is a subjective question. Some example traits that are important though, are as follows:

• Competence:

  People who know what they’re doing.

• Integrity:

  People who won’t cheat.

• Perseverance:

  People who won’t jump ship when their team is experiencing the slightest bit of bad luck or weak production.

• Sportsmanship:

  People who aren’t d-bags when they’re losing or even winning.

• Just all in all non-jerks:

  Fantasy hockey is supposed to be fun.

So if you have all of these fundamentals covered, your new fantasy hockey league should be in for a good run. As you become more experienced over the years, you’ll probably want to expand into different formats, have more categories, deeper rosters and more managers. Maybe you’ll get into dynasty leagues with farm teams and of course start playing in real money leagues. There are lots of options to explore out there.