Ken

As in, "know in real life". I can say honestly that I'm better than anybody I ever played live against. This includes those guys who made similar claims (ie a mutual friend claims that we are equal players, but then we played and I won, etc). Then I started playing online, and found a bunch of dudes who were at least as good as me and some maybe better. Question is, have you guys had similar experiences? Were you the best guy in your circle of friends/hometown/school/whatever? side question: do you think this league is indicative of the best North American players?

I agree with just about everything you said here

I agree in principle that letting the best players pick the best/their favored teams creates a system where the best players will always come out on top. question is, is that a bad thing? or should we be creating a league whose goal is closer competition and parity? that's really the issue here - once (if!) people can agree on the goal of the league, then figuring out the draft is much easier.

yeah but you only account for 3 of those losses

yeah, I do think a lot of it is matchups. I noticed that SJ is 2-0 vs Calgary, and Detroit (me ) is 2-0 vs Calgary, but Calgary has obliterated the rest of the league (26-3!!!). maybe we match up well against him, or maybe we both got lucky and he'll cream us next time around. dunno. and last night Kgman beat me 10-1, easily the worst loss of my life as Detroit. there's something about his style I haven't been able to cope with. also also, NHL is like a lot of other things where you can go into a slump. over the past couple of nights, I lost like 8 straight with Detroit - previous to this, my longest lifetime losing streak was probably 2 or 3 games. it's a combination of me playing very tough opponents and me playing poorly.

HABS I found out last night that you live in Toronto. isn't that some sort of sin to root for the Canadians?

well there is only one way to settle this.... IT'S A WALK OFF!!!! seriously, if you wanted to play a best of 15 or something, I'm down. I could play a few tonight, but then not again for maybe a week and a half

Tick you're a great player and you seem like a gentleman to boot, no disrespect intended, but no I don't think you're better than me. I think at any given time I could beat you 4/7 and vice versa (last night you whooped me good as I said). ditto for Habs. I've played him a bunch of times and we've come out pretty even with me as Detroit and him as Canadians. with line changes he did kill me - w/o I might even have the edge. I dunno we are very close I think and he would probably vouch for me. as for kgman, he was clearly better than me, and I thought I would be fortunate to win 2 games out of 7...that was what I was trying to say.

if kgman makes it into the playoffs - likely I think - he's winning the whole thing. guy is nasty. (course I was drunk last night and got whooped by Tick as well, but kgman is the only guy I've ever played who I thought was better than me)

video games are fun, and I have more fun playing with certain teams...that's all I was saying.

awesome...I get 3 games with dallas as the prodigal son returns

a reverse draft order is fine with me, but I would prefer that seasons be kept on the short side if we do that. I'd rather not have to play 40 games with a team I don't like...but 20-30 is fine I guess.

Evan, This is amazing stuff - did your efforts have anything to do with the release of 94 with NHL 06 on Ps2?

i'm in if you need a guy

who's kgman? he's not playing in the apring league, is he? could you pm me or post him aim?

tick, how do you compare to the good players over there?

ditto for Evan doing a great job. as I mentioned in the other thread, the reg. season should be much quicker. the dedicated players were half way done with the season after 3 weeks, and waiting around kills momentum. less games in less time (maybe with less players) would be good.

Length of league and playoffs: I think in the next league, their should be less regular season games and/or should be shorts in terms of months. I think we should be able to do the entire league in 2 months. maybe 4 weeks for a regular season, 4 weeks for playoffs. the guys who are dedicated have no trouble with this schedule - plenty of people played 20-30 games in the first month, and they had no reason to! plus, playoff seeds aren't that big a deal - in the Campbell for instance there are 6 teams that are very close to each other, and all would have made the playoffs given a 30 team regular season. the guys who would have trouble with this are the guys who would eventually drop out anyway. so, I think a 30 game regular season is fine, played over 1 month.

maybe I'm biased, but I think the Campbell is much tougher than the Wales. Here are the teams with legit chances to win, imho. hope I don't insult anyone too bad Philly Montreal Boston Toronto Winnipeg Detroit Chicago San Jose Calgary 3 teams from Wales, 6 from Campbell and 4 are these teams are in the Central, which I think is easily the toughest division

my guess is that lag has little to do with the problem. Even on the console, there is a delay in switching over to the goalie. it's one of those things you need to do before it's neccesary to do. in other words, switch to the goalie as a rushing opponent is above the circles...switch to the goalie when an opponent is at the boards, preparing to crossover...switch to the goalie when you sense that a one time attempt will soon be started. if you try to switch to the goalie as an opponent is pulling "the move"...well, then it's too late. some shots are basically impossible to stop. That's ok. When an opponent scores one of those on me, I mentally tip my cap, and move on, b/c I know that I'm about to do the same thing to him. some basic defensive keys: Get your defenders in positions that prevent shooters from getting good shot angles on the goalies. Clog the center passing lanes to prevent one timers If your defenders are out of place/incapable of stopping a play, then anticipate what scoring move (one timer? crossover? slapshot? one on one move?) your opponent is about to do, and make the appropriate manual goalie moves/positioning ahead of him in order to stop him. in the end, it often comes down to who is mentally quicker and more creative offensiviely.

those methods of scoring are all legitimate and fun parts of the game. learning how to score, from various points on the ice and in various situations, is what separates the good players from average ones. also, some teams have better scorers than others, some better defenseman, some are faster, and some have better goalies. pluses and minuses across the board. if you want to artifically change goalie rankings, shouldn't you also want to artifically change the other rankings? just give everyone the same exact team? I agree, that in general, some teams have advantages over others. This is why a player draft would be a great idea, so players can craft teams that they want. thegr8199, if you think goalie is so important, then you can take Belfour or Roy with your first pick. my guess is that many other top players would not. personally, I'm fine with having an "ok" goalie, b/c good manual goalie control can neutralize many scoring options. I'd rather have speedy players with shoot and pass well, b/c you can't manually improve those things nearly as well as you can improve your goalie. edit: my guess is that you're complaining b/c LA's goalie sucks. This is true. he does. that's why you need to get better at manual goalie control. Sorry to be blunt, but the problem is not with the game, the problem is with how you choose to play.

just wondering... EDIT: ok, I tried to make this a poll, but I guess I'm too old to figure out how forums work. ha. anyways, just was wondering how old you guys were. I'm 30, and I'm probably one of the older guys.

both people taking random teams is a totally different thing than both people taking crappy teams. the point (I think) is to find out who the best players are (and have fun of course), and this is best accomplished by putting teams on equal footing. also, if you're going to pick random teams, a 7 game series is nowhere near long enough to overcome the edge that 1 player will (probably) get over the other

I think the league should be set up to give the best players the best chance to win. I see no reason to create rules/systems which hurt good players and help medoicre ones. assigning random teams does just that...I can't see how this help create a system where 'player ability' is most important. so what if everyone just takes the good teams? I see no problem with that...and it's in fact much better than the luck of draw.

Some ideas: where to buy a controller adaptor how to create a game in kaillera, log on, start a game up, etc