The Greatest Video In History...

Sorry we haven't been around in ages. I'm sure all five of you who visit have been crushed with disappointment. The greed mongers at work seemed it a good idea to ban blogger.com at work. We're thinking we're the only ones in the office who use it, so it's a pretty big smack in the face to get back to work.

We're not dead yet though. In fact, our good friends at Fantasy Hockey Scouts have just been picked up by theScore.com's blog network. Congrats to them. Their success has inspired us. One day soon we may reach the coveted double digits in readership!

Even though our Internet access has been severely shortened we came across this video courtesy of Ghostrunner on First:

Now we know two important things:
1) You can do the Haka on skates.
2) New Zealand has a ice hockey team

We feel all the better for it.

Kris Versteeg Must Like Hazings...

Kris Versteeg is this year big rookie on the Hawks. He's got ten points this year and was impressing us enough we were thinking of picking him up on our fantasy team. Now we thing we'll pass:

Rookies in the NHL get a bit of stick from their teammates. How bad will Kris get it after this disgrace?

Our Belated-Quasi-Halloween Post...

We were planning on doing a big Halloween post last week but then we remembered two things:

1. Going Five Hole stole our post idea (by stole we mean we had the same idea but were too lazy to post it before Halloween.)
2. We hate almost everything about Halloween

So we cut the Halloween idea but it still bothered us that we wouldn't get to include this photo:

(From College Humour via TheScore.com Blog)

Hockey fans, know what's going on and are probably thinking one of two things:

1. Wow, that is totally tasteless!
2. Wow, that is totally awesome!

We're only slightly embarrassed to admit we're in category #2. For those of you in #1 ... come on, it's been 15 years, let it go!

For those of you that don't know what we're talking about ... you should probably just move on. Seriously leave. Still here? Alright don't say we didn't warn you ... here you go.

We just finished watching the infamous clip again ... the first time in years. We kinda forgot how horrific it was. Now we feel terrible that we said the costume was awesome. Ummm .... we need to make it up to Clint now. No better way to do that than by posting his 2006-07 Parkhurst hockey card. Sorry Clint:

The Hidden Puck Trick...

Were you watching the Leafs - Devils game last week? Probably not. You, like us, were expecting a blow out. Something along the lines of a 4-0 shutout at the hands of Marty Brodeur, maybe? In reality, the Leafs managed to score 5 goals on the future Hall of Famer and the game went to a shootout. Stupid Leafs.

Anyway, our post today isn't about Leaf bashing, well not all of it. In the shootout, Nik Hagman pulled the hockey equivalent of the hidden ball trick:

First off, is Nik Hagman really the best the Leafs can dredge up for a shootout? Yikes. Things are worse than we thought in Leaf Nation ... which makes us quite happy actually.

We've always been a bit unsure of our feelings on the hidden ball trick in baseball. We know it's legal (assuming the ball is live and the pitcher never steps on the mound) ... but it just seems like such a cheap play. On the plus side, any team that is asleep on a play deserves to get caught out. So we're a bit unsure on the ol' Hidden Ball Trick.

Enough baseball talk. Even though Brodeur found the play quite funny, he couldn't really have done anything to stop the tomfoolery from happening. For this reason, we vote a big thumbs down on the the play. Now we worry that all the no-talent players (aka: the rest of the Leafs) will be trying to duplicate Hagman's success. First Marty had to put up with Avery and now this!

Maximum Exposure...

Colby Armstrong, Max Talbot, Sergei Gonchar and Evgeni Malkin did a commercial for A L Motors last season. It's awesome. Check it out. (The stupid person who posted it disabled embedding for some reason).

Both Gonchar and Talbot make that commercial one of the greatest in hockey history.

Going Five Hole made our day as they reported that Max Talbot is back in the role that made him famous ... guy who bought a BMW.

Dil-don't...

From Deadspin.com:

We really wish we read 'The Local' on a daily basis because we would have loved to sit down with our morning paper and read that headline.

Here's how we got to the above photo:
- Player Jan Huokko) made a dirty little movie with his girlfriend on his cell phone
- Huokko gets cell phone stolen
- Video ends up on the internet
- Fans decide to 'delay match with dildo downpour' (did we mention we love that headline?)

We would write more about this but we have a weak stomach. Click here for all the dirty secrets.

CanucksTV...

While our last post (Goals of the Week) may not have been typical Waikiki Hockey fare this one certainly is.

Did you see the excellent hockey references from "How I Met Your Mother?" this week? Well the good people at NHL.com were good enough to get the clip from 20th Century Fox.

A hot Canadian hockey fan. Dion Phaneuf has options now.

This NHL reference was much better than the last one that appeared in the show (from IMDB.com):

Robin: We can split a cab to work together, we always have a standing lunch date, and last night, at the hockey game, Curt got us into the locker room and I met Mason Raymond.
[gang looks clueless]
Robin: Left wing for the Vancouver Canucks!
Barney: What's the opposite of name-dropping?

We like this show but with all these Canucks references we're going to have to keep a closer eye on things. It won't be too long before the Sedin twins make their second television appearance:

Goals of the Week...

We're not in the habit of posting highlights very often. They are neither bizarre or obscure. But we figured with the start of the NHL season we would make an exception.

There's no better way to get pumped for the new hockey season than by watching the Goals of the Week:

YouTube's Best Sport Videos of the Week - Oct 12th to Oct 19th

Another week big of the best (and worst) the sporting world has to offer...

- The Minnesota Wild may play a boring brand of hockey but at least they have an entertaining commercial.

- We've got two borderline police brutality moments for you this week. First a drunken Red Sox fan gets tazored in Tampa Bay. With five cops standing around is tazoring a drunk fan really necessary? Next, an over-zealous cop tackles a fairly docile fan at a Rough Riders game.

- Pittsburgh is now the best place to watch hockey. Who knew we could learn something from a Puck Daddy article.

- Check out Tampa Bay coach John Maddon checking out Craig Sager during the ALCS.

- Another video from the 'so bad it's good' list, that we love so much at Waikiki Hockey. Patrick Kane of the Blackhawks is cooking steaks with two seemingly mentally challenged hosts. Plenty of akward moments.

- Jaromir Jagr tends to Alexei Cherepanov on the bench minutes before he passes away. Tragic.

- Some crazy lady yells at Sean Avery (go to the 2:00 minute mark).

...for the first time ever we have two Clips O' the Week. The new hockey theme for CBC and TSN are up and running. As you probably already know TSN is using CBC's old anthem and the fans voted in the new CBC anthem. TSN obviously has the better theme but in our opinion CBC has the better graphics. You be the judge, here are both intros:

CBC (click here for a top quality version)


TSN

< Last Week <> Next Week >

Another Sarah Palin Interview...

You've probably seen the clip of potential VP Sarah Palin dropping the puck at the Flyer's home opener last week. But have you seen the clip of her on Coatesy's Corner?

This might be the crappiest show to ever have somebody as famous as Palin as a guest. We just hope Tina Fey does a parody of this interview as well.

Welcome Back, Carter

Yeah, that title is pretty pathetic but the name 'Carter' is pretty tough to be clever with. At least it lets us up put a picture of the real Mr. Kotter ... something we won't get many chances to do.


Kuklas Korner posted a video from Maxim.com where Jeff Carter was being interviewed by some dorky Maxim guy (we always imagined Maxim writers would be cooler):

It's pretty standard fare ... although seeing how many pucks it takes Carter to pull a 'William Tell' was mildly interesting. The best part of this video was that they mentioned this famous YouTube clip from last season's playoffs:

Over the summer we must have forgotten about this classic fan moment and are disapointed in ourselves for not including it in our Fightin' Fans article from a few months back -- a big oversight on our part.

The fans must be getting a bit more confident nowadays as a female fan gives Sean Avery (go to the 2:00 minute mark) a tongue lashing in the Blue Jacket - Stars matchup last Saturday night. We're sure Avery deserved it.

Def Leppard?

The NHL season is now in full swing. We're pumped here at Waikiki Hockey and other than the Leafs pulling off the miracle upset it was a great first day of the (North American) season. Alex Burrows and Jonathon Cheechoo are on pace for 164 goals and the rebound that everybody is expecting from Kiprusoff will have to wait for at least one more game.

One thing that we thought was truely bizarre was the NHL signing up Def Leppard to play for the crowd before the Leafs-Wings tilt. Isn't the NHL supposed to be young and hip? Or at least convince people they are young and hip. Even Ron McLean was puzzled by the move when discussing the band with Grapes on the Coaches Corner.

Just came back from a visit at Fantasy Hockey Scouts and they had an even better clip of Def Leppard ... so we'll pinch it. Here we see exactly why Def Leppard is a terrible choice to open up the NHL season.

Alexander the Cheap...

It's not very often our internet searches lead us to CNBC.com. That's exactly what happened when we came across this story about Alex Ovechkin's new endorsement deal with 'The Hair Cuttery'

Ovie (the guy with the $124 million contract) gets his hair cut for $14 at 'The Hair Cuttery'. The company found out about their famous client and quickly arranged the following ad campaign:

Ovechkin is fantastic. The more we hear about him the more we like him. Whether it's playing ball hockey with some kids or appearing on a bizarre Russian Game Show dressed as a shark:

It's not often you see a player with the most skill and personality in a league. All hail Alexander the Great!

New NHL Ads...

NHL.com has been completely redesigned and it looks pretty impressive. Way to go NHL.

They are premiering their new ad campaign, 'Is This The Year?', on the site before it hits Versus, TSN, CBC and the NHL Network (what no NBC?). Definitely worth a look as they are pretty flashy.

In addition to the new ads, the NHL is set to launch their new 'Game Center Live'. Wow, we're impressed. It definitely deserves this medal:

We've heard rumours that it will cost $100-$200 for the season ... which means it looks like it's a few weeks of Kraft Dinner for us.

Claude Lemieux is the devil...

We realize is this kind of old news now. But we wrote it before we had some technical difficulties ... and we're too lazy to just pitch it and write something else.

RDS is reporting (in french) Claude Lemieux is thinking of making a comeback this season in the AHL or NHL. That’s no typo. 43-year-old Claude Lemieux who hasn’t played professionally since 2003-04 in Switzerland is thinking of making a comeback.

“Most people will think I’m crazy, but I miss being with the players and the feeling of being on the rink. We only have one life and if we feel something in our heart or in our head, we have to go for it.”

Puck Daddy put in his two cents on Lemieux’s comeback and his man-love of the most hated player in hockey history is a bit sickening. Our Red Wing bias puts us on the opposite side of the spectrum. Claude Lemieux is the devil and should never be allowed to play again. Here's a picture we found of Lemieux taken in the off-season:


Why is he the devil? How about this play where he nearly kills Kris Draper? (Go to 1 minute mark)

I might have a shred of respect for Lemieux if took the backlash after a cheap shot. But Lemiuex has never been know for his courage:

We don’t understand how you could be happy about having this guy on your team. If he signed with the Wings (wouldn’t that be an awkward first day) we would be embarrassed to have him on our team.

Judging from his performance on "Pros vs. Joes" the rotund looking Lemieux is a very long way from being in game shape:

Just a couple of thoughts to finish with:
- Pros vs. Joes ... greatest show in television history?
- 'Clode' gave a Joe a high stick! How cliche is that?
- Lemieux is only one of two NHL'ers to appear on the show (the other being Grant Fuhr). How much would it cost to get Bob Probert on this show? We want to see that.

Our Date With Hockeywood...Third Visit

Buon Giorno. Welcome to the Waikiki Hockey Ristorante. The Ristorante has been fully booked so it's been awhile since we've been able to come in.

If this is your first visit to the Ristorante you may to want to look back to our first and second visits where we looked at some couples in our quest to determine who the most interesting hockeywood couple is.

Today we'll add another five couples to our ever growing list. Let's get to it:

Jordan TooToo and Kellie Pickler – dated for most of 2007
When an American Idol contestant is considered as a celebrity things are getting desperate. Kellie finished sixth on Idol in 2006 but after her elimination she was signed to a record deal and released her first album…“Small Town Girl”. The country album went gold and three singles reached the top 15 on the billboard charts. Kellie Pickler is also infamous for conclusively proving she is not smarter than a fifth grader ... shouldn’t somebody have told her that going on this show would be a bad idea?

Tootoo is best known for being the first NHL player of Inuit descent to play in the NHL. He’s only 5-foot-9 and 190 pounds but he plays much bigger. He’s been called a cheap shot artist lately … mostly because of the one punch knockout he gave Stephane Robidas in 2007. Number 22 (a clever play on his name) has scored 22 NHL goals in 232 games so scoring isn’t part of his game. The relationship ended after Jordin cheated on Kelly.

Dinner Potential: During their courtship, country girl Pickler was planning on visiting Jordin’s family in Nunavut where she was going to “build an igloo”. We can't find any news if the trip actually happened but we would definitely love to hear those stories. Judging by her performance on 5th Grader Pickler would have been entertaining enough to even warrant her own reality show. We really need to consider the length of our meal before we invite Pickler…we can see her act getting old veeeery fast.

Quality Quotient: 3 (her) + 4 (him) = 7 total

Jose Theodore and Paris Hilton – weekend hookup in 2006
What do we say about Paris? She’s the pinnacle of no-skill stars … famous for no reason. She does it all: model, write, act, sing … but none of them very well. She’s also famous enough to get mentioned in a John McCain speech. That’s pretty famous. Her response to McCain was probably her best piece of acting work to date.

Theodore put up a few monster seasons with the Canadiens … especially in 2001-02 when he won the Vezina trophy. Since the lock out, he hasn’t faired too well (a GAA above three every year) but he got his career back on track with a good season last year ... which he translated into a two year $9 million deal with the Capitals. Jose must be one of the stupider NHL goalies out there -- his weekend fling with Paris happened while he was dating Stephanie Cloutier. Cloutier, who had just given birth to their first son only three months earlier, broke up with Theodore after seeing photos of him and Hilton in every single newspaper! Here’s a tip Jose: If you’re going to cheat on your girlfriend don’t do it with one of the most famous people in the world.

Dinner Potential: Even though Paris has always annoyed us, she probably has some pretty good stories to tell. She would also be invaluable if we wanted to check out some clubs after dinner, we probably wouldn't even need to wait in line. We could get used to being a VIP.

Quality Quotient: 6 (her) + 5 (him) = 11 total

Sergei Fedorov & Pavel Bure & Anna Kournikova - married? dated? we've got no idea
We realize Kournakova isn’t a Hollywood starlet but her modelling work puts her on the same scale as a lot of the ‘talent’ we’ve looked at. Sergei and Anna dated in 1999. They broke up and Anna started dating Pavel – who lived in the same apartment building as her. Rumours surfaced that Pavel and Anna were engaged … both denied the rumours. In 2001, Pavel and Anna broke up and Sergei and Anna got back together. Rumours then surfaced that Sergei and Anna got married … both denied the rumours. In an 2003 interview with The Hockey News, Sergei admitted: “We were married, albeit brief, and we are now divorced." The two were said to be married in a Moscow registry office but are no longer in contact with each other. Anna still denies ever being married to Sergei to this day.

Dinner Potential: Sergei and Pavel are two of the best players to ever play the game but with the Melrose-style love triangle going on here we wouldn’t want any part of it.

Quality Quotient (Sergei): 3 (her) + 8 (him) = 11 total
Quality Quotient (Pavel): 3 (her) + 7 (him) = 10 total

Valeri Bure and Candace Cameron – married with kids
Since we’re on the Bure’s we’ll take a look at Pavel’s younger brother Valeri and his relationship with Full House star Candace Cameron. Bure and Cameron were introduced by Dave Coulier (the guy that played Joey). Coulier must have thought they had so much in common since they are they are younger siblings of a much more famous brother.

Other than a 75 point campaign in 1999-00 Bure has never scored more than 55 points. So other than regaling us of the time he won gold for Russia in the Olympics we probably won’t have many good hockey stories over dinner.

Dinner Potential: Bure’s hockey stories may not be up to snuff but his true value may come when we order the wine … he is a bit of a wine connoisseur after starting up Bure Family Wines. In addition to their winery, the pair have also opened up a restaurant called The Milk and Honey Café ... making Valeri the first hockey player to open up a restaurant not featuring their name in the title.

Quality Quotient: 3 (her) + 4 (him) = 7 total

Eric Lindros and Kate Hudson – allegedly dating again in 2008
Perez Hilton (we can’t believe we just linked to Perez Hilton) reported in July that Hudson and Lindros hooked up again after Lance Armstrong dumped her for being “too needy”. Both camps deny the rumour and from our 3 minutes of research it looks like they truly are just friends. But we’re not going to let the opportunity to discuss an actual Hollywood star pass us by.

Like her mother, Goldie Hawn, Kate is a really big movie star who really doesn’t have many really good movies on her resume. Other than the excellent Almost Famous, she has been in ho-hum comedies and a lot of terrible romantic comedies. She’s very attractive, if you like the tall leggy blonde look (which we do) and she comes from a hockey family … kinda. Kurt Russell is Kate’s quasi-step-dad and he’s a big hockey fan, going as far as playing Herb Brooks in Miracle. His son and Kate’s half-brother, Wyatt, is also a goalie playing Division 1 in the NCAA. So it may just be a matter time of time before she ends up dating a hockey player anyway.

After a 57 game - 149 point season in the OHL, Lindros had the potential to be one of the greatest players in history. But other than a 115 point campaign in 1995-96 he never lived up to the hype as he missed 160 games due to injury in his first eight seasons in the league. In 1999, he almost died due to a collapsed lung which was misdiagnosed by Flyers training staff. The resulting feud with GM Bobby Clarke ended with Lindros to be traded to the Rangers where he had a few decent seasons but nothing like earlier in his career.

Dinner Potential: We can see it now. We pick a restaurant. Lindros says he’ll never go to that restaurant. We play hardball and go there anyway but Lindros doesn’t show up. We decide to instead have dinner with Peter Forsberg, Ron Hextall, Chris Simon, Mike Ricci, Kerry Huffman, Steve Duchesne, two 1st round selections and $15,000,000 cash. Sweet deal for us.

Quality Quotient: 6 (her) + 6 (him) = 12 total

We still have a few more couples to look at so keep coming back to Waikiki Hockey to find out who we pick as our most interesting Hockeywood couple.

YouTube's Best Sport Videos of the Week - Sept 8th to Sept 15th

Another edition of Waikiki Hockey's best (and worst) sport videos of the week.

• The NFL is in full swing which means SportsCenter will only broadcast NFL-related news and we'll see NFL advertisements 40 times a day.

• Want to hear a whole state gasp at the same time? Brady is out...bring on Matt Cassell. Who's Matt Cassell anyway?

• The Pittsburgh Penguins have a pretty cool promotion ... players deliver season tickets to the fans. This results in a few awkward moments like in this clip with Sidney Crosby. When the fan gets a crappy player doing the delivering ... the awkward moments are even worse for the players ... but better for us watching.

• This video teaches us two things about Greg Oden. 1) He has Obama-mania 2) He likes the backstreet boys. We think those two things may cancel each other out.

• How could you not like Trevor Linden? Here's his reaction to getting his jersey retired by the Canucks.

• The Hurricanes have a new third jersey. Their new logo doesn't look like a toilet being flushed so we figure they are making progress.

• Finally some good news for the Leafs. Apparently, the reason they sucked so severly last season had nothing to do with their complete lack of talent ... it was because the logo they had at center ice was "weak and limp". Phew. Crisis averted ... the new logo is definitely very strong and rigid.

• It was announced this week that Patrick Roy will finally be getting his jersey retired by Les Canadiens. Time to revel in some of his best moments (pardon the quality) ... our favourite? Roy at Disney World. What a dork.

• This guy had a pretty decent idea ... 10 dirtiest sounding sports names. But unfortunately he didn't excute very well meaning he ends up on the 'worst' side of the list. You think he could have at least gone to the trouble of memorizing the list. Just a little bit of effort ... that's all we ask.

And now for our Clip O' The Week:

You know what's creepy? When your dad comes and hangs out at your College. You know what's creepier? When your dad takes you and your two young female friends to a football game. You know what's even creepier than that? When your dad is David Hasselhoff and he films the whole thing and puts it up on his social networking site (which is called Hoffspace, we kid you not):

< Last Week <> Next Week >

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:

< Last Week <> Next Week >