The Allure of the Fantasy Draft

For most of you this post might be to late as you have probably already completed your fantasy drafts, but although this post will include a few sleeper picks I would like to suggest, its mainly about asking the question: why do people love fantasy sports so much?
Its the dream job of many to become a NHL general manager and build a Stanley cup winning team, but if that's not possible whats our next best option? Fantasy hockey. The idea of building your very own hockey team and most importantly competing against others seems to intrigue many sports fans, mainly because sports fans at heart are athletes themselves and therefore have an intense love of competition and the game itself.
Well at least that's my take on the subject, I haven't really said anything new or meaningful, but this post is just really something I have decided to post since I haven't posted anything in years and no one reads this blog anyway. Also here are my sleeper picks for anyone out there doing a draft: Villie Lieno(Detroit rookie), Cam Barker(Chicago offensive defenseman, guy put up big numbers in junior so he is just waiting to break out in the NHL), Bobby Ryan(gets significantly better every season), Sergei Shirkov(as much as I hate the canucks this guy is suppose to get a chance on the first and second line), Dustin Byfuglien(as we all saw in the playoffs this guy is a menace), and for a goalie Semyon Varlamov(splitting time with Theodore who we all know will have another terrible season), with one last honourable mention to Pascal Leclaire who will be the starter on a high powered offensive team in Ottawa so he should at least pick up a few wins.

Sutter Didn't Disappoint

I personally was expecting Sutter to make a splash during the draft, but I didn't think he would make one of the bigger moves in the whole draft. Basically from two trades he made, one with LA and one with Montreal, he ended up swapping Cammalleri for Tanguay(a drop of nearly 2 million dollars in cap room) and also moving down 8 spots in the 1st round, but gaining a 2nd round pick next year. So some may argue that Calgary didn't receive enough for Tanguay but when you add that trade together with the Cammalleri deal I think Sutter made the flames a better team and I will be very interested to see how Cammalleri plays with Iginla. Also worth noting from these trades Calgary picks up another center, which I think would mean either Langkow or Conroy will be gone next season for sure.

Draft Day Finally Something to Look Forward To?

After years of terrible drafting by the Calgary Flames during the pre-Sutter era of management that included first round draft picks like Rico Fata and Daniel Tkaczuk, and even the rare flames draft pick that made the NHL were 2nd/3rd line players like Saprykin that ended up never really taking advantage of there opportunity's with the team. However now with Daryl Sutter making the draft day selections, the team is picking up talent in not just the early rounds but deep into the draft as well. In his first season Sutter as most know took Dion Phanuef, who next to Gary Roberts and Al MacInnis may be the one of the teams best ever first round draft picks, and that selection was made just after Sutter was giving the job as general manager of the Flames. In the following 2004 NHL draft Sutter showed his worth again making three strong picks in Chucko, Prust, and Boyd. Of the three Prust is probably the biggest disappointment so far due to injury problems, but Dustin Boyd is already starting to show he can play in more than just the world juniors(which he was one of the top players). In 2005 Sutter made probably one of his better late round picks in Matt Keetly, he tore up the WHL with the Tigers and may be the future of goaltending in Calgary if anything should happen to Kiprusoff. Also last season Sutter picked another world junior star as Mikael Backlund was the main reason Sweden won silver in last years world juniors, scoring the game winner in the semi-finals against Russia. With all this success so far at the draft there is no reason why Flames fans shouldn't have faith in management going into this weekends NHL draft(also thanks to the flames weak finish to the season they have the 17th overall pick).

Goalie for MVP?

In the new NHL scoring has greatly increased for sure, but as we get half way though the season even with all the goals it looks like the winner of the hart trophy this year could be a goalie and not one of the many forwards tearing up the league. One of the more under rated goalies is Tomas Vokoun who is probably the main reason why Nashville is challenging the powerhouse Red Wings for 1st in the division and 1st in the whole league. The next candidate is not one but two goalies, if the combination of Manny Fernandez and (former Flame) Dwayne Roloson could be combined in to one goalie they could possibly be the best in the league. Another candidate is the Flames own Mikka Kiprusoff who has been nothing less than amazing for Calgary over the last couple months, he got off to a slow start which hurt his stats but if you just watch him for one game you can see he makes at least 2 or 3 almost unstoppable saves every game, and even when the Flames offense doesn't show up he has gave them a chance. The final candidate is someone who is not new to being a hart candidate and that's the Dominator, Dominik Hasek, he isn't talked about a lot because of Ottawa's great offense but he is 2nd place in wins, goals against average, and save percentage. So the race to watch may not be for the leading point or goal scorer but to watch who wins the vezina for top goalie.

Dustin Boyd

Calgary Flames prospect Dustin Boyd has been tearing it up in the World Juniors for Team Canada. With only one game left in the tournament Boyd leads team Canada in points and goals, he is also tied for 2nd in the whole tournament in goals ahead of both Malkin and Kessel. Boyd was selected in the 3rd round 98th overall in 2004 by Calgary. Boyd has improved a lot since he was drafted in 2004 considering Kris Chucko who was drafted in the 1st round by Calgary that same year was cut by Team Canada. In his 4th season this year with Moose Jaw Boyd has 27 goals and 47 points in 32 games. Maybe Boyd is the number one center the Flames have needed for years or maybe that's going a little to far but either way he is currently one of Team Canada's top players and hopefully they can win gold tomorrow!

Streakist Scorer in the NHL

Welcome everyone to the year 2006. This year ended off with something very strange, a Shaun Donovan goal, it started two days ago when he broke out of his 34 game goal less streak with a goal against Minnesota, he followed that up with not one but two goal's against Edmonton. Donovan was looking worse and worse the last two weeks until he finally got that goal against Minny, than in the Edmonton he looked almost unstoppable and is finally using his great speed to his advantage, he is deffinently a streaky scorer but after seeing this is he the most streakiest scorer in the whole NHL?

Oilers Streamers

In the words of Jerry Seinfeld "What's the deal with...." those streamers the oilers had at their game against Nashville last night, I think someone forgot to tell them that New Year's is tonight not last night. Also I have to say, man is George Laraque bad, I didn't watch a lot of the game but for the one shift that I saw him on the ice he had to wide open shots in the slot, one even a breakaway, and one the goalie easily poke checked and the other he missed the net, not to mention the fact that George has a grand total of 0!!! goals, why is he even playing, the Flames have moved on from Oliwa who probably would have had at least one goal by now but for someone reason the Oilers keep Laraque around. Maybe I am just bitter because the Oilers beat Nashville and Calgary didn't, but I am sure after tonight I will feel much better. So happy New Year's to everyone and see ya in 2006

'Dead' man comes alive in morgue

A man was moved from a hospital morgue in Portugal to a care unit after he was heard coughing several hours after a doctor declared the 95-year-old dead.

Theo Fleury

I became a Flames fan in the mid 1990's so before the 03-04 playoff run my highlight of being a flames fan was watching Theo Fleury play in Calgary. He was one of the smallest players in the NHL at 5 foot 6 but that didn't stop him for doing things like scoring 50 goals, winning a stanley cup, and even getting in a few fights. For those of you who dont remember Theo Fleury was removed from the Black Hawks for abusing the NHL's substance policy a couple years back when he became more trouble than he was worth to use the term that was used at the time. Now, however, it has been reported that he would first of all no longer be considered abusing the substance program, which is a huge plus, and second is getting married and playing the game he used to play so well... well... so well again. I am sure right now Fleury wouldn't cut it in the NHL and might not even pass a physical, but if he continued to improve and really worked out I think he could be a 3rd or 4th liner in the NHL and maybe even for the Flames(I would take him over Jason Weimer).

Faking high sticking injuries

I recently went to the Flames game against Nashville on Tuesday and it was the near the start of the 3rd period, the Flames were up 3-2 and Matthew Lombardi and Darcy Hordichuck(who played chippy all game, but at least Simon beat him up) were skating towards the puck in the Flames corner when all of a sudden Hordichuk grabs for his face and dives to the ice like he was shot. I had 7th row seats(Christmas present) right in the corner that this happened so I could easily see that Lombardi never even touched him with his sticks, he had his stick up a little but deffinently never touched him and even the replay which only had bad angles it never looked like he hit him, but good old Mick McGeough fell for it and Lombardi with an extremely surprised look on his face went to the penalty box and Hordichuk even started the powerplay. The more weird thing was once again tonight I was watching the highlights(not very closely) and in what I think was the Montreal game a similar thing happened but they even had strong video evidence that the player had dived. So I think the NHL needs to start watching for this during the game and checking replays after the game and start fining players like they did with tripping or hooking dives.

Welcome to the Unofficial Flames Blog

I have created this blog to hopefully bring Flames fans together to talk about, of course the Flames as well as other stuff in Calgary, whats going on in the world wide web, and whats going on all around the world, but most importantly THE FLAMES.