Need a pool site that allows flexibility

I love the idea of a +/- for takeaways/giveaways, the only challenge is finding a reliable source for that stat...the others I mentioned should be do-able if I can pull off what I think I can.

Depending on how much work this is I may forgo the live drafts the first year simply because there are a plethora of sites that do them and if you're serious about your pool, entering them manually is no big deal. I think real-time stats would be cool but are probably unrealistic for ver 1.0. I like the idea of offering multi-positional eligibility but locking it down, maybe we could do a re-assessment at all-star break but obviously changing it on a weekly basis would be ridiculous...it really is an important facet though so I'd wanna get it right. The trade veto is also an extra chunk of work but I agree its a necessity

The game summaries on nhl.com always have takeaways and giveaways listed for each player. Not sure where you're planning on harvesting the stats, but would assume any other place that has them just takes 'em off those reports too.

You've got a good point about the live drafts, no need to bog yourself down copying a widely available resource. I also echo what ultrawhiteness said about having no programming skill but willingness to help if I can.

this site http://hockeyknight.com/ is supposed to opening soon

maybe wait and see what they can offer before you do any work for nothing

good point butch but I still think I can build something better...they don't have much info on their site but the 'features' they are touting are sorta retarded:

- Off-season trading
- Draft pick trading
- Year-over-year trade history

from a programming perspective, a trade is a trade is a trade, its irrelevant what exactly it is, what time of year it occurs etc and keeping a history of past trades is a given.

Crispy, I've looked for giveaways/takeaways on NHL.com before and never seen it, maybe I'm looking in the wrong spot, can you provide an example?

mister_mcgoo wrote:

Crispy, I've looked for giveaways/takeaways on NHL.com before and never seen it, maybe I'm looking in the wrong spot, can you provide an example?
You have to select RTSS stats.

cool I think I found it, you're talking about this sheet right?:

http://www.nhl.com/scores/htmlreports/20072008/ES030412.HTM

that does look like it has everything we would need and having it in a simple page with just the raw stats like that should make it easy to parse thru.

I'm not sure I know what all those abbreviations are...EDIT: I'm a moron, theres a legend at the bottom -lol

G=Goals
A=Assists
P=Points
+/-
PN=Number of Penalties
PIM=Penalties In Minutes
TOT=Total Ice Time
SHF=Number of Shifts
AVG=Average Shift Length
PP=Power Play TOI
SH=Short Handed TOI
EV=Even Strength TOI
S=Shots
A/B=Attempts Blocked
MS=Missed Shots
HT=Hits
GV=Giveaways
TK=Takeaways
BS=Blocked Shots
FW=Faceoffs Won
FL=Faceoffs Lost
F%=Faceoff Percentage

I've tried several sites, and have come back to CBS each time. CBS is more cumbersome than it should be, and they don't have detailed enough instructions for all of their custom functions. But after trial and error, I have been able conform CBS into the type of league I want. You can not only weight the stats, but you can also use a formula with any number of stats to create one stat category. The system has some flaws and limitations which I have reported (and hopefully get fixed) but all in all, it's the best I've found if you want to run a highly customized keeper league.
I really liked FanStar's layout and ease of use, but I had to abandon them due to some type of limitation (sorry, cannot recall what it was)
As for FREE, I don't think you will find anything better than Yahoo. Yahoo is far too limiting for my league, though. If you want to see the type of customization I have in my league (Including Stat Customization), you can check out the 'Rules' of my league at IcyGrail.com.

Butch wrote:
to get hits and blocked shots added to their menu

Keep on top of them, Butch. I've been asking for these 2 categories for the last 3 years. If enough of us keep asking, maybe they will finally add them. I would love to have these 2 categories.

I got another question for you guys on what you'd want in a pool management site, this is a biggie.

Positional Eligibility:

The Argument For:
-A handful of players are truly multi-faceted and their ability to play on either wing or move from center to wing or vice versa gives their coaches added flexibility. It only makes sense to pass this flexibility onto fantasy managers

The Argument Against:
-Its a big pain in the ass to implement and maintain.
-Its always open to lots of debate
-Some guys that get dual eligibility only get it because they're good on faceoffs, so even though they play the wing, the coach will put em on as the center during important faceoffs. Does that make sense to allow them to be started as a center when they dont really play the position?

Lets get your feedback:

1)How important is it to have (scale of 1-10)?
2)How important is it to choose whether or not you wish to use multi-eligibility in your pool (1-10)?
3)Assuming it is important to have it supported, should it apply to forwards only or does someone like Mark Streit get to be listed as RW/D?
4)How often should it be updated? Would it be acceptable to have it available pre-draft and then make updates at the all-star break? Or should it be set in stone for the season?
5)How should these eligibilities be determined? Should I follow the example set by Yahoo or some similar site or should I put them to vote on the boards or something. It seems like I'd want to have a definitive source but its a fuzzy area.

thanx in adavnce for your feedback!

1) pretty important... 7 or 8. like you said, it adds another dimension to the fantasy strategy.

2)don't give a choice, just do it.

3) i think it should apply to guys like Streit and Byfuglien as well. RW/D would be pretty sweet to see.

4)I think Yahoo has a good system here, if they actually stuck to it. I believe they wait for proof that the guy is switched for a certain amount of games... the number could be arbitrary... 3, or 10. see my next point...

5) use frozenpool.com. you can look for line combinations of players and see what frequency they play center, or lw, or whatever.

example - Cammalleri

using frozenpool, you could set like a threshold, say 20% of their shifts, and if a player plays more than 20% of the time on left wing, give him LW eligibility.

Don't make it democratic, or you'll be inundated with inane requests from guys trying to convince you that they swear they saw staal playing wing for a shift in the game last night.

this would still take a lot of work... maybe you could designate someone to do this work for you and let people submit requests to them... that person then goes to frozenpool and does the research. update it throughout the season.

start the year with whatever nhl.com or tsn.ca gives you for positions.

excellent suggestions UW, thanx for the feedback...great find on the frozenpool site, I wonder if I can find a way to query it programmatically and update it automatically every 2 weeks or something like that? The main thing I'm trying to avoid with it is a maintenance nightmare where I have to make frequent manual updates.

If I cant find a way to automate it I'll probably do what you say and have people submit requests for multi-eligibility. Direct them to frozenpool.com to do their own research, make it known that thats the site we use as our measure and to not even bother with requests unless their player is very close or over the limit I set. Only problem with that though is that no one is going to post to let you know when their player loses eligibility -lol