Don't Drink and Jump...

Russian Ivan Ukhov faces a year ban after he competed at the Lausanne Grand Prix a week ago ... while very drunk.

The 22-year-old high jumper, one of Russia's best, was upset after failing to qualify for the Olympics. A big fight with his girlfriend apparently pushed him over the edge and he hit the bottle hard.

Here's the moment that will likely define Ivan for the rest of his life:

Waikiki Hockey Fantasy Hockey Preview - Our Four Step Plan

After reading our Fantasy Hockey Site Guide we figured it wasn't very responsible for us to give you all of that information and not tell you how to use it. Our 7th place finish in our league last season clearly illustrated the system is unbeatable!

Last season aside, our strategy has worked out pretty well for us in the past so maybe it will for you too.

A lots of fantasy sites will overload you with information: sleepers, busts, projected stats, cheatsheets, Top 300 lists, etc, etc, etc. We guess with charges of upwards of $40 they need to make you think your getting you money worth.

Our plan assumes two things: 1) you have a life and 2) you don't want to spend a fortune to get prepared.

So without further ado here's our 4-Step Plan for success in your pool on the cheap.

1. Get the best sleeper / breakout list you can

• If you're paying for anything this is where you should do it ... we recommend Dobber Hockey or Fantasy Hockey Scouts (see our Fantasy Site Reviews for more info).
• Sites that give out their draft kits in pdf form (like Dobber and FHS) make it very easy to split the cost amongst a few friends (preferably not in your league).
• If you can't find an owner to split the cost ... trade draft kits with somebody else. Two for the price of one!
• Instead of buying a fantasy magazine why not buy a digital copy and split the cost?

2. Pick a conservative cheatsheet

• You want a list that the majority of owners in your league will follow.
• This doesn't have to be a perfect list but should be close to how you think your draft will go.
• If any player seems too high or low ... adjust it. Make it your own.

3. Pick your Targets

• Make your first three picks count; don't take risks early.
• Make sure one of your first two or three picks is a goalie; you need a top netminder so make sure you get one.
• Get as many sleepers as possible; try to draft them one round before you think they will go

4. Hit the Free Agent Market Early and Often

• Not all of your sleepers will pan out so you'll need somebody to fill in for Todd Bertuzzi when he stinks it up again.
• This year's Mark Streit is sitting on your waiver wire somewhere ... find him.
• Don't be afraid to hit the wire early in the season; you'll get more value out of your free agents and there will be more surprises early on.

By following Waikiki Hockey's patented advice you could be this guy:

Otherwise you'll end up looking like this guy:

The choice is yours.

Waikiki Hockey Fantasy Hockey Guide - Best Sites

We figured it was time we throw our hat into the fantasy ring and introduce all of you Waikikians to the Waikiki Hockey Fantasy Hockey Preview.

Our hockey preview is a bit different than many you'd see on the Internet. First, we are NOT going to give you any projections, cheatsheets, depth charts, etc. Second, we're not going to charge you anything.

The WHFHP (we've got to work on the name) reviews the best fantasy hockey sites out there so you don't have to.

You won your pool last year? Good for you! Netted the $100 prize? Way to go! You needed to buy four hockey preview magazines and paid $50 for a website subscription? Wow, sounds like it was the magazines that won your pool!

Being real men here at Waikiki Hockey we have a self-imposed ban on Fantasy Hockey Guides. We don't need some overpaid chump to tell us who and who not to pick ... especially when they are charging us $7.99 for the privilege. Our goal is to pay zero dollars for our fantasy prep work and still win it all.

So if you are looking for the most bang for your fantasy dollar you need to check out the sites below. You also may want to check out our four step plan on how to use the below sites to your biggest advantage.

Dobber Hockey
Relatively new in the Fantasy market, Dobber and his team have really made a big splash. Their draft kit costs $9.95 ($14.95 with the keeper analysis) and it's some pretty damn good analysis. One thing that Dobber has over some of his competitors is that hockey is his bread and butter ... you know that he's a fan and he's pouring his heart into things. Even if you're cheap like us and don't want to pay the $10, Dobber's site is full of free articles and other goodies. One big downside is that Dobber's ego seems to be growing along with his traffic...from his 2008-09 Fantasy Guide Preview: "When The Hockey News or The Score Forecaster need an expert opinion for their hockey pool magazines, they come to Dobber"

FANTASY HOCKEY SITES

Rotowire
$14.99 for their draft kit. $39.99 for the entire hockey season. $59.99 for the entire year. Definitely one of the biggest fantasy sites out there ... but for $60 they better massage our feet during the draft in addition to their first rate fantasy news. Their updates are unbeatable as they have a large team scouring the Internet for any fantasy worthy news. Excellent projections (unlike most the include PPG, SHG, Shots), depth charts for each team and some pretty good in-season feature articles make it almost worth your $40 / season. If you got the bucks to spend this would be a good site to do it at.

Fantasy Hockey Scouts
On one of our many searches across the Internet we came across this little gem. We've been going back every day since for their daily news which is quick and easy to read. Throw in the odd feature article and you've got a nice little fantasy site. We're a little leery on new fantasy sites as they seem to come and go, hopefully these guys will stick around. For your upcoming draft the guys at FHS have come up with a 79-page 'Breakout Bible' ... which will set you back $5. It has to be the most detailed sleeper list on the Internet. The guys are also nice enough to give away their projected stats for free. Free ... it's our favourite word.

Frozen Pool
They describe themselves as the place to go for new and unique fantasy tools .... which seems bang on after what we've seen. Chart-a-Player looks great (graphically shows the split of PP/SH/EV ice time and goals/assists per month). Compare-a-Player would definitely come in handy when trading. NHL Line Combinations should make it easy to see who is playing with who. And there's much more. The site seems to have a few bugs in it ... #2 scoring line in March was Darche, Halbern & Ouellett? It looks like this is the first year for this site so we're hoping they figure it all out for the upcoming season. It's a very slow site but since everything is free and it's going to be updated in-game we won't complain.

FantasyHockey.com
I'm not sure how these guys got the golden website address as they have only been putting out their draft kit for three years. Their kit costs a reasonable $6.99 and includes the typical stuff...sleepers, busts, rankings, cheatsheets etc. We didn't purchase it (maybe if you clicked on a few more ads we could afford it) but it sounds like it would be a pretty decent deal. If anybody has seen it let us know what's it's like.

Fantasy Hockey Grumblings
A few good articles and Rotowire-style player updates are offered for free. But some of their analysis seems a bit out there. Nikolai Khabibulin, Rob Blake, Markus Naslund and Cory Stillman are sleepers ... what? Their projections are pretty off-the-wall as well ... they have some points-based-thing happening that seems to overvalue goalies (currently it's based on last season's stats). Good for the price but analysis is only going to help you out on draft day if it's telling you something worthwhile.

Rotoworld
They call themselves "America's #1 Choice for Fantasy Sports News" which, if true, must be due to their price (free!) rather than their content. They essentially copied the Rotowire model but charge nothing for it. Sounds pretty good until you see that their content is much, much weaker than Rotowire's. Still a not bad option for checking the daily headlines for the cost conscience but their draft kit is pretty non-existant at this point.

Puck Junkie
We haven't signed up for Puck Junkie because from our standpoint they don't provide much value ... that, and we're cheap bastards. For $11.99 you get access to their cheatsheet projector which spouts out fully customized cheatsheets any time during the season. Cheatsheets are nice but there are too many variables to ever get really good projections. According to their own site their projections were within TEN points of actual 51.7% of their time last year ... and they say that's the best on the market! Are you going to pay good money for the Rolls Royce of cheatsheets when it's only right half the time? We're not.

Fantasy Hockey Realm
For a $14.95 membership you get projections, weekly positional rankings, fully customizable cheatsheets and a cool feature showing you which team has the easiest / hardest schedule each week. Still we find it pretty hard to take a fantasy site seriously when their 'Fantasy Force Top 20' has Sidney Crosby at four! Again we didn't purchase the membership but from we can tell there is much better stuff out there. If anybody has purchased a FHR membership let us know how it went.

ESPN & Yahoo & CBS
The big three, in terms of league management, all now offer some form of free league setup. During the season they all provide updates and injury information as well as sortable stats for your team and free agents. All three pretty much fall flat in terms of offering a draft kit. CBS is probably a step ahead of the other two as their analysis is strong but only available to paying teams. Yahoo has teamed up with Rotowire (selling their draft kit as an add on) while ESPN tried to come up with some in-house analysis but ended up being the butt of more than a few jokes.

NON-FANTASY BUT STILL GOOD SITES:

We've been getting a bit of feedback on some sites we missed. Most of the links passed along have been from some pretty good hockey sites ... but they aren't really fantasy hockey sites. We still thought it would be worthwhile to add them here for you, the loyal reader:

Spector's Hockey - The Spector (Lyle Richardson) combs the media looking for any relevant hockey news and rumours. We're happy to let him do it for us.

Hockey Buzz - Eklund (Dwayne Klessel) has made quite a name for himself when he started posting NHL rumours during the NHL lockout. Now his site is one of the biggest hockey sites out there and is really a collection of blogs from Eklund, experts, former players and the fans. He's gotten into a bit of trouble for not citing sources but it's a hotbed of activity and discussion.

Kula's Korner - Similar to Spector Hockey, but probably a little more thorough. They get the important hockey news from all over the net and put it in one place for you. They've just remodelled their site and added a chat room function but got rid of their great forum for some reason.

Crash the Crease - Crash the Crease has a similar set up to Spector Hockey and Kula's Korner ... all the breaking NHL from the internet all summarized in one spot. The have a forum section as well ... and forums are good.

The Fourth Period - all the rumours, trades and breaking news that's fit to print. We find this site the easiest to navigate around as it's much easier to quickly check for news some others.

HF Boards - a massive mesage board and forum site for all things hockey. They have a fantasy section and it's a good place to bounce potential fantasy trades off of other players.

Hockey's Future - the place to go for all your prospect related infomation. Top prospect list is a must read for any poolie. You don't want to be the guy who misses out on the next big thing, do you?

Hockey DB & Hockey Reference - The best sites for your statistical needs...especially historical and junior information.

We would love to know of a site we've missed ... especially any new sites to the market. There obviously isn't too much out there and we need all the help we can get in our upcoming draft.

Now it's about time you checked out our simple four step plan on how to use the above sites to your advantage.

YouTube's Best Sport Videos of the Week - Sept 1st to Sept 7th

Here are some of the best (and worst) sports videos that were posted to the net this week.

• Big Papi gives Sean Casey his top 5 movie picks. For more Big Papi videos click here.

• Insert your own Tiger-is-a-god joke.

• Mark Prior's (aka Calfzilla) calf muscles....well not really.

• A crazy play at the plate in the minor leagues. That poor catcher.

• Ahhh hockey. How we've missed you. The NHL season is about a month away. For now, we'll have to settle for some KHL action. No sign of Radulov.

• The new NBA franchise now has a logo and name ... the mighty Oklahoma City Thunder. Royalties from AC/DC's 'Thunderstruck' just went up.

• Are you ready for some football? We hope so, because the NFL is back. The Giants are now 2-0 in their last two NFL games.

• Arland Bruce of the Toronto Argonauts gets a penalty for wearing a Spiderman mask after scoring a touchdown. We don't make this stuff up people.

• How embarrassing would it be for Lebron James to lose a game of H-O-R-S-E to a warehouse worker? This embarrasing.

• And now for the Waikiki Hockey Clip O' The Week. When you have little toy hockey players and too much time on your hands this clip is bound to be made eventually. Click here for Part 1 and here's Part 2:

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