Hello managers,
Did you watch the Academy Awards this past weekend? Me
neither, but that does signal that it’s finally award season. Unlike the Academy
Awards, FantasySpeedSkating.com gives out awards that people actually care
about. Think you had a good enough team to win one? There's only 9 awards going out this year so only the most deserving candidates earned any recognition.
As always, I’ll be awarding
Choir Awards
to a few managers for making some very good moves this
season. After, I’ll also hand out a few
Emin Awards
for the managers
that made big mistakes. Let’s not waste any time and just get right into it.
The Choir Awards
The
Choir Award for Best Draft Pick
goes to two
managers this year: Paul and Max both got Han Mei in the 7
th
round. This
was an incredible discount for a skater who finished the season with 519
points, good enough for 6
th
in the skater rankings. A first-rounder
in the 7
th
round is bonkers. Shoutouts go to Peter for taking Han a
bit earlier in the 6
th
round, Keirsty and Hayleigh for snagging Joy in
the 6
th
, and Molly+Claire+Victoria for locking in Ning in the 6
th
.
These were all fantastic 6
th
round picks and each of your teams were
much better for it.
The
Choir Award for Best Rookie Manager
goes to
Matt Z who finished in 4
th
and earned himself some cash. Matt Z was
lucky enough to draft Stolz (which undoubtedly gave him a massive advantage),
but so did Sofia and Eric+Emil and to find them in the league standings you have to scroll
down for a few minutes. Matt Z ran with his advantage and surrounded Stolz with
solid points-earning skaters. He made free agent pickups when his team needed a
boost and made sure to submit a smart bench each and every week. If you idiots
played the game like Matt Z plays it, maybe you’d have a chance at winning
money too. But, you don’t, so for now you’ll just have to gawk at his mighty
team and admit that he deserves this Choir Award more than you do.
The
Choir Award for Most Improved
goes to Jake,
who climbed from 26
th
playing alone last year to 1
st
on a
team with Dylan this year (that’s 25 spots for those of you who can’t count).
Yankun gets a shoutout too for climbing from 32
nd
last year (aka
dead last) to 10
th
(that’s 22 spots). One spot ahead of him last
year in 31
st
was Matt L who finished this season in 18
th
,
an improvement of 13 spots. For those of you who finished at the very bottom
this year, take note: if these two “geniuses” can improve that much, literally
anyone can.
The
Choir Award for Best Free Agent Pickup
goes
to Taylor. She got 179 points from Michele Malfatti—a free agent pick that I’m
pretty sure I characterized as “brain dead” in an earlier column. This was one
of those odd moments where I look like I was wrong. Three other managers also picked
up Malfatti as a free agent but only managed to milk him for between 146 and
157 points (shoulda snagged him sooner!). The real honourable mention goes to
Ryan for picking up Rio Yamada and getting 169 points out of her. This was a
sneaky good pickup that paid off big time by the end of the season. Three
managers got 145 points for picking up Jenning de Boo and I just wanted to point
out that they did not win this Choir Award.
The Emin Awards
Now it’s time to hand out this year’s four
Emin Awards
(plus one bonus award), awarded in memory of the version of
Even
Steven’s Semen Eating Emins
that competed in our 2019/20 season and
finished dead last by a significant margin. This year’s version of
Even
Steven’s Semen Eating Emins
finished much, much higher but the name is
sticking for now (sorry Cooper). Congrats to all the following “winners” on
making some bad choices! Better luck next year shitters!
The
Emin for Worst Draft Pick
goes to Eric+Emil
for taking Connor Howe in the 2
nd
round. Howe ended the season with
only 90 points. Most 2
nd
rounders easily climbed past 100 with most
hitting 200, 300, or 400 and a few even hitting 500. Honourable mentions go to Jill
for taking Esther Kiel in the 3
rd
, Nick for taking Krol in the 3
rd
,
and Greg for taking Verbij in the 4
th
. Compared to previous seasons,
its actually crazy how good these picks are. Most years we have skaters in the
first 4 rounds who are retired, injured, pregnant, or all three. This year? We
have a 90-point Canadian stud who just couldn’t get it together through the Fall
World Cups. Congrats to the whole league for making good picks in the top half of the
draft!
The
Emin for Most Unimproved
goes to Thomas for
dropping an incredible 27 spots, which is more spots than our league even had for
the first three years that we hosted this competition. A very, very honourable
mention goes to Greg for dropping 29 spots. Yes, I’m fully aware that 29 looks
worse than 27, but we
expected
Greg to drop this much. He was a rookie
manager last year that had just about the luckiest run I’ve ever seen. On the other
hand, Thomas is a veteran manager who went into this season with the 3
rd
best average finish in the history of the league, is a two-time podium finisher,
and just came off back-to-back top four finishes. Going from consistent
finishes near the top to losing to the winning team by over 1500 points earns
Thomas what is likely his first-ever Emin Award.
The
Emin for Worst Team
goes to Brooke for
finishing dead last. It was a very close battle at the bottom this year. Sofia and
Eric+Emil drafted terrible teams but eventually got bailed out by Stolz. Darby
and Nick had the bad type of season that is reserved for rookie managers, but
even these two were outdone by two even worse rookie managers. In the end, the
basement slot came down to 40 points. Brooke, who accidentally benched 44
points worth of Tim Prins at Worlds, narrowly lost to Jill. Jill still gets the
honourable mention for having just as bad of a team. Better luck next year
ladies!
The
Emin for Worst Free Agent Pickup
goes to Christian
for picking up Masaya Yamada and getting zero points out of it. This wasn’t the
only bad pick, as the following three honourable mentions should be almost as
ashamed of themselves: Bon snatched Yankun Zhao and got zero points out of him,
Rachel only got 10 points out of Conor McDermott-Mostowy, and Darby only got 11
points out of Takuya Morimoto. These were all sloppy blunders, but the price
that Christian paid for his Yamada pickup sets him apart by a wide margin and
earns him this undesirable Emin Award. At least Bon, Rachel, and Darby didn’t DROP
HAN MEI.
Also, since I love pointing out all your mistakes, Molly+Claire+Victoria
snagged Qishi and got zero points out of her, though they got her early enough in
the season that I feel that this pickup was somewhat more justifiable. Had they
waited a week or two longer, surely this group of talented fantasy managers
would have had a better chance at winning this Emin.
The
GD
Award for Worst Management Decision
goes to Christian for DROPPING HAN MEI??!?!? This management decision ending up
costing him 494 points. I want to put this mistake into perspective. Lindsey benched
both Roest and Goetz at the 4x World Champs event. Her total loss? 268 points.
Any other year, that blunder would have easily won this award—usually bad management
mistakes are limited to 50-75 points, with the more egregious ones climbing
just past 100. Yet, Christian managed to fuck up almost twice as bad as Lindsey’s
incredibly low benchmark and almost 10 times more than your typical big mistake.
And this guy is a veteran who has been around since day one. Embarrassing. That’s
also why I named this award after him. Unlike most of the awards, this one is
actually new this season. Since Mr. Emin actually had a respectable showing
this year I thought it was only fair that we name this award after this year’s
winner.
FantasySpeedSkating.com by the numbers
As we wrap up our 6
th
season, here’s a
quick look at some records and major milestones our league hit for both this
season and since we started:
83,524 – Total points earned by all teams this season.
60,500 – Number of words Dad wrote for the column this
season.
13,276 – Most points accumulate by a manager since
2018 (Cody).
5429 – Number of visits to the website this season.
3207 – Most points accumulated by a skater since 2018
(Miho).
3206 – Most points accumulate by a team in a single
season (Jake+Dylan).
$1510 – Total prize money paid out since 2018.
1506 – Number of draft picks since 2018.
977 – Lowest league winning score (Jonah, 2021).
973 – Most points earned by a skater in a single
season (Stolz).
330 – Most points earned by a skater in a single
weekend (Schouten).
66 – Number of managers that have competed in this
league since 2018.
60 – Number of teams that have competed in this league
since 2018.
50 - Number of Dad’s Column posts written by Dad since
2019.
41 – Number of managers that have played multiple
seasons.
40 – Most teams to compete in one season (2023/24)
29
th
– Worst average finish for a returning
manager (Lindsey).
25 – Number of posts on Dad’s Column this season.
16 – Number of FantasySpeedSkating.com hoodies and crewnecks
out on the streets.
12 – Fewest teams competing in a season (2018/19).
$10 – The league buy-in since the beginning.
8 – Number of managers that haven’t missed a season.
6 – Number of fantasy speed skating seasons.
5 – Number of non-speed skaters to compete in the
league.
5 – Number of teams to use a “Kok” pun in their team
name.
4 – Number of time zones the league organizers live
in.
3 – Number of Dad’s Column contributors.
2 – Number of league organizers to get engaged since 2018.
1 – Number of times Christian rigged the draft.
0 – Number of times Dad has won :(
As I said in the last column, next season’s Draft
Night will likely take place around the first week of November (possibly as
early as the last week of October). We will be reaching out to all the managers
who played this season to see if they want to join us for another exciting
season so you can expect to hear from us next September or October. If you are
not already a part of the league and would like to join, make sure to reach out
to Cody, Christian, Thomas, or Simon before the next season begins. Spots are
limited and priority is given to current managers so don’t wait until the last
minute if you want to join! Also, if you know of someone who wants to join,
please let us know and we can add them to our list.
That’s all I got for now folks. For those of you
racing at the Oval Finale this weekend, I wish you all the best. I’ll likely be
in Calgary watching some of the races so make sure to say hi if you see me. As
for the rest of you, thanks again for joining us this season and I can’t wait
to absolutely destroy your pathetic teams next season. Next year is finally
gonna be my year!
It's been one Hell of a ride this season. Thanks for all following along with the column!
Until next season,
Dad