What If?

If you're like me and you've really missed playing fantasy hockey this season, check out What If? Sports at www.whatifsports.com. For ten bucks, you can draft a team of NHL players and manage them for a season against other people in your league. You get 50 million dollars to fill 24 roster slots, and your team can be made up of players from any era of the NHL, all the way back to 1919. Fill your team with your favorite players. If you're a big Minnesota North Stars fan, you can put together a line of Neal Broten, Tom McCarthy, and Dino Ciccarelli. You can even have the same player on your team more than once as long as you use him from different seasons. For example, you could have a defensive pairing of the 82-83 Paul Coffey and the 84-85 Paul Coffey. You could have Mike Bossy from 1981-82 as the right wing on your first line, and Mike Bossy from 1985-86 as the right wing on your second line. Your two goalies could both be Tony Esposito, one from one year, the other from another year. The trick is being able to spend your money wisely so that you can fill all 24 slots and still field a competitive team. If you spend big on one player or at one position, you'll have to scrimp somewhere else. To put this into perspective for you, Wayne Gretzky from any season in the 1980s will set you back anywhere from 10 million to 14 million dollars. That would tie up 20% or more of your salary cap for one player. Once you've drafted and named your team, What If? will put you into a league with other people who are also looking for a league, and then use a computer to simulate the games based on stats. Before the game, you make nearly all the coaching decisions. You decide which players will dress and which players will be scratched. You put together your lines and your defensive pairings, including power play and short-handed units. Match your checking line against your opponent's top scoring line. You can choose to defensively key on two players on your opponent's team. After the game has been simulated, you can choose to see every play, or just see the scoring summary. You can cut players and pick up other players off the waiver wire. You can send players down to the minors and call up prospects. Players get hurt and miss time, and they get tired and need to be rested. I could go on and on. There's a lot to think about, and it will test your coaching and general manager skills to their fullest. If it sounds intriguing, give it a go. It's very cool. They also have the same setup for NFL, Major League Baseball, and NBA basketball if you want to try those out, as well. I haven't done that...yet. I will warn you - it's addictive!

Cheers!