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?

The Price is Wrong Bitch Revisited....

We told you a few months ago that the Kings were going to be on The Price is Right.

It looks like 'David' wasn't much of a hockey fan as he didn't look to impressed at the Kings showcase. Looked pretty good to us. Two of the best tickets to a Kings game, some Kings gear we could sell on eBay, and most importantly a trip to Switzerland with tickets to the Worlds. Oh yeah there was also a boat. Did they run out of hockey connections?

David, the dumb non-hockey fan from Florida, passed on the Kings showcase but ended up winning puny $17,000 showcase. Too bad for him as the Kings showcase was worth $29,000! Way to go, jackass! That's what you get for not liking hockey!

Here is the showcase in it's entirety:

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.

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.

YouTube's Best Sport Videos of the Week - Oct 5th to Oct 12th

A big week for sports fans. The MLB playoffs are in full swing, the NFL season is well underway and the NHL is now up and running.

- As we mentioned Hockey is back. In Game #1 (in North America) the Leafs pulled off a miracle win over the Red Wings. Could it be the Leafs only win of the season? Will the Wings go 81-1 now?

- Are we the only ones who has a strong desire to drive the golf cart on the green? This french guy does what we've been longing to do in grand fashion in this prank.

- Craig Sager (who is apparently a legend) got champagned by Jonathon Papelbon.

- Mike Tyson's Brunch Out. It has Mike Tyson in it which is awesome, it references his video game Punch Out which is also awesome, but the rest of the Brunch Out clip is pretty ordinary.

- Apparently, Curtis Joseph is dating Shaina Twain. We'll add them to the pile for our next visit to the Waikiki Hockey Ristorante

- This week we wrote an article with 5 reasons to hate the Red Sox. Here's another reason. It's too bad Jason Bay is a Red Sox because we really like him. Very conflicting.

- Having hot girls shovel the ice seems like a pretty cheap promotion to us but we guess some people really like it.

- Our Clip O' The Week is a video we showed you yesterday. Def Leppard get signed up to kick off the NHL season and then total embarrass the league because "they are soccer boys". Way to go NHL.

< Last Week <> Next Week >

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.

YouTube's Best Sport Videos of the Week - Sept 22nd to Oct 5th

With our technical difficulties last week this will be a double shot of the best (and worst) sports videos that were posted to the net the past two weeks:

- Amare Stoudemire is doing his 'dancey-dance' on a show for toddlers (we assume).

- When the Cubs clinched a playoff spot it looks like their curse might finally be lifted. Three playoff games later and the curse is still going strong.

- A couple of Los Angeles Kings made guest appearances on 'The Price is Right', as reported by Waikiki Hockey earlier this week.

- Vancouver made a lot of noise when they named their goalie, Roberto Luongo, captain this week. Here's a good article on goalie captains in NHL history and why a rule was created to make sure they couldn't wear the 'C'.

- Three drunken female Cleveland Brown fans kiss each other for a free $5 t-shirt ... Stay classy, Cleveland!

- SportsCenter has made some good ads. Their newest, featuring author Stephen King, is another classic.

- Another CFL TD celebration clip. With the NFL outlawing this kind of behaviour the CFL is trying to fill the void. We're not sure a quick game of duck, duck, goose does the trick though.

- FIFA unveiled their new mascot for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. We're normally pretty horrified by sporting event mascots (for example) but this cheap looking lion is in a class all by himself.

The NHL season started last weekend in Europe. Now that we've had a taste, we have to make it through 5 more non-hockey days. Our Clip o' the Week may have been selected because we have hockey on the brain but it's still a dandy of a save from Carey Price. As Pierre McGuire says it's the save of the year and the year hasn't started yet. Bring on the 2008-09 season!

< Last Week <> Next Week >

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.

YouTube's Best Sport Videos of the Week - Sept 15th to Sept 21st

A slow week for the best (and worst) sport videos on the internet this week. It may be that there just isn't too much going on or it may be that we were slighty distracted by our two fantasy hockey drafts. On to the list:

- A bonehead play by Eagles WR DeSean Jackson, as covered by Waikiki Hockey earlier this week

- The Bulgarian Women's Ice Hockey Team lost 82-0 to Slovkia last week and we finally got some video. The annoucer really earned his money that night.

- Ever wonder what's in NFL commissioner Roger Goodell's wallet? No? Yeah us either. Well don't click here then.

- The NHL season is only weeks away now. Here's a Versus ad featuring Brandon Coburn to help get you through.

- Groin shots. Good enough for Homer. Good enough for Waikiki Hockey. Check out this painful skiing mishap.

- If we had access to a laser we would probably use to take over the world or something. This guy had a different idea...burn a NY Giants logo into a hotdog. Of course!

And our Clip O' The Week:

If you type 'drunk fan' into a YouTube search you get over 2,000 clips. For some reason sports fan think it's a good idea to tape themselves smashed and put it on the net. Some of them are very boring but the large majority of them are very embarrasing. But our clip of the week is something completely different. It runs nine minutes long, which is unusual for a drunken fan video, but we found ourselves watching almost the whole thing ... we had to see how it finished!

< Last Week <> Next Week >

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.