Friday, May 30, 2008

Give me time?

Apologies for the delay in writing. I'm in the middle of the biggest class I will ever take in the shortest possible time to take it. I'm beyond stressed out, but it will be over the middle of July.
My team finished somewhere in the middle of the pack in the fantasy league. Russia defeated Canada for the gold, with the "Capital Punishment" line of Ovie, Semin, and Feds dominating the tourney. Pens-Wings in the finals. Wings up 2-1, game 4 tomorrow in Pittsburgh. Rooting for the Wings, who gave Osgood two shutouts in the first two games. Pens' flightless wonderboy finally scored in game 3--first goal of the series for them (130+ minutes without a goal).
Brads is back in a Capitals jersey. Three years-$3 million. Karl Alzner signed his entry-level deal. It will be interesting to see where he ends up next season, Hershey or DC. Waiting for more signing news. Word on the street is that Feds wants to come back (per Ovie). How awesome would that be?!

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Three Weeks Later

And so the long, boring off-season begins. Wait, did I say boring? Didn't mean that at all. Got a few updates that I'm behind on posting. The Caps are doing well at Worlds. Our Russians have been lighting it up, with the three forwards all scoring a goal today in Russia's 3-2 win over Nick's Sweden team. Nick is bringing some Washington style to the Swedish team, although they aren't doing as well as I would hope as a fantasy owner. Flash is chipping in every once in a while for the Czech team. Varlamov injured his ankle, so he's not playing for Russia. Lepisto was cut from the Finland team, but added after preliminaries. Green is definitely helping out Canada, scoring the first goal and getting an assist on the game-winner in their game the other day. One of the announcers called him "one of the premiere offensive defensemen in the world". I was so proud. He's a little bit older than me, but I get proud of him like I would a little brother. Huet did very well, backstopping France. However, France didn't do so well for him and they're finished for the tournament after beating Italy in relegation.
My fantasy team is suffering. My Russian players are dropping like flies. First Medvedev gets cut, then D. Markov gets hurt, now Morozov goes down when I get Markov back. I added Andrei Markov in the supplemental draft along with Swedish forward Warg. My Latvian goalie did very well for me the other day, stopping 62 shots to put me up in the middle of the pack. But Canada's 10-1 win over Germany and the subsequent points gained by my fellow GMs dropped me back down to my home at second-to-last.

Sadder news. Olie is officially gone. Not sure where he'll go or what he'll do, but I wish him the best and respect the hell out of him. I won't say much else, because everything's been said.

Off-season is here, but have no fear. The Caps will be very busy...

Thursday, May 1, 2008

IIHF World Championships

Things are getting better every day. Eight Capitals and 1 prospect are playing for their home nations in the IIHF World Championships. Alex Ovechkin, Alex Semin, Sergei Fedorov, and Simeon Varlamov are all playing for Russia. Tomas Fleischmann is playing for the Czech Republic. Mike Green is playing for Team Canada. And Sami Lepisto is playing for Finland.
Some of the regulars over at WaPo C.I. are running a fantasy league surrounding the tournament. I entered, not quite realizing what I had gotten myself in to. I've gotten 12 hours of sleep in the past few days because I've been up all night researching. I had 7th overall pick out of 8 drafters with a serpentine draft style. I figured the other GMs would draft the good NHLers, which is all I know. So I went out and researched the other guys. Superleague, Latvia, Sweden, I looked at them all. We picked 2 national teams, 4 defensemen, 6 forwards, and 2 goalies. I've got 2 Russian forwards, 2 Russian defensemen, and a Russian goalie. I've obviously got a thing for Russians. I've got a Swedish defenseman, a Swiss forward, a Latvian goalie and a forward. Rounding out my team, a certain Czech forward with red hair, Slovakian defender, and a Canadian forward/captain. My two national teams are Sweden and Germany. Russia was taken...


More Caps news: Boudreau was nominated for the Jack Adams alongside Babcock and Carbonneau. Ovie was nominated for the Hart & Pearson. Iginla and Malkin are also up for both. Backs is up for Rookie of the Year. Laing was put up for the Masterton, although he hasn't been nominated yet.

I'll keep you posted on the fantasy league/IIHF results. Tune in June 12th to see the NHL Awards and watch our boys take home a ton of hardware.