Hello managers,
We entered a new year as the clock struck midnight
last night. In typical fashion, Dad rejected hundreds of invites to cool and sexy
parties to instead stay home and finish the
Crappy Tire Power Rankings,
as
demanded by all of you skating fans. So, as promised weeks ago, the rankings
are finally done.
I didn’t get a chance to whip it up in time for today,
but I’ll soon update the Free Agent and Injury Trackers. I’ll also post a look
around the league and a quick review of various Olympic Trials. I may or may
not update the Power Rankings after World Cup 5, and then the final update will
happen between the Olympics and World Championships.
Crappy Tire Power Rankings – World Cup 4
Update
The Stars Have Aligned
1 Max
2 Christian
There is still no doubt that these are our two best
teams. Femke is doing Femke things and the rest of these rosters are strong
with medal threats up and down the lineup. It would take a pretty incredible
turn of events for either of these two teams to fall below second place in
these rankings. The fact that these teams are likely to put skaters like Peder
Kongshaug, Nikola Zdrahalova, and Marten Liiv on the bench at the Olympics
speaks to their incredible depth.
I AlSo DrAfTeD FeMkE kOk
3 Dylan
(+2)
4 MCV
(+4)
Not much else to say here other than these managers
also happened to draft Femke Kok. Without Femke, they’d be either in the low-
Top
Cheddar
or high up in
The Chase
. Which means these are very
respectable teams, but with Femke they essentially turn into a lock to finish
in the money.
Everyone’s New Favourite Team
5 Paul+Anna
(-1)
If there is one team that has a real shot at a podium
finish despite not having the privilege of having Femke on their roster, it is
this team. And if you are actively cheering against every team that has Femke
(which you should be) then this might just be your new favourite team (which it
is). With Jenning de Boo, Jutta Leerdam, Brittany Bowe, Wataru Morishige, Casey
Dawson, Mia Manganello, Beatrice Lamarche, and Ted-Jan Bloemen all having great
seasons, they only need a bit more from either Kim Min-Sun or Ayano Sato and
they might have just enough firepower to clutch out a podium finish.
Top Cheddar
6 Simon
(-2)
7 Abby
(+3)
8 Matt Z
(-1)
9 Ryan
(+2)
10 Daniel
(+10)
These teams feel pretty second-class compared to the
five teams listed above, but for now these teams are also the most likely to
lock up a spot in the money by the end of the season. Unlike most of the top
teams, these teams don’t benefit from having a total stud like Femke Kok…
except for Abby. Honestly, it’s actually a bit embarrassing that she finds
herself down here with teams whose rosters are limited to mere mortals. Kok is
currently earning 40% of Abby’s team’s points, which is probably the highest level
of dependency on one skater in the whole league (but I’m far too lazy to
actually run the numbers).
There are quite a few common skaters shared among the
top ten teams in the Power Rankings. Femke is on half of these teams and is
clearly the biggest difference-maker, but there are plenty of skaters on three
of these teams: Jenning de Boo, Jutta Leerdam, Brittany Bowe, KMS, Valerie
Maltais, Mia Manganello, Chris Huizinga, Beatrice Lamarche, Kaja Ziomek-Nogal,
and Marek Kania. In fact, Leerdam, Bowe, and KMS are each on at least three of
the top five teams. Notably absent from these top rosters are the following
skaters: Danila Semerikov, Greta Myers, Anders Johnson, Masaya Yamada, Momoka
Horikawa, Vladimir Semirunniy, Angel Daleman, Beau Snellink, Connor Howe, Sander
Eitrem, Francesca Lollobrigida, Marijke Groenewoud, and a bunch of other
skaters who clearly aren’t good enough to carry their team to the top.
The Chase
11 Bon
12 Shawna+Kathy
(+6)
13 Thomas
(+4)
14 Sam
(-1)
15 Zach +1)
16 Jordan
(-9)
17 Garrett
(+14)
The vibes model still has these teams on the hunt for
a 2000+ point season, which means these teams are very much still in the mix.
Shoutout to Garrett who started the season ranked in the bottom 3 of the power
rankings and his now climbed all the way up to
The Chase
. He’s got five
skaters that qualified for either the women’s 5k or men’s 10k at the Olympics
and will be looking to make up some serious points at that 4x points event.
The Pack
18 Cody
(+6)
19 Ian
(-5)
20 Joel+Josh
(-8)
21 Eric+Emil
(+6)
22 Matt L
(+4)
23 Cooper
(+7)
24 Charlotte
(-4)
25 Rachel+Daria
(+8)
26 Reece
(-11)
27 Erik
(+1)
28 Greg+Sofia
(-5)
Almost all of these teams started in
The Pack
or
The Chase
and have been humming along well enough so far. Nothing too
special, but definitely overall some strong enough picks to be competitive. The
two main exceptions to this are Cooper and Your Biological Father.
Cooper pulled out of the league last minute, which led
to two things happening. First, he lost his kneecaps. Second, a dummy team was
drafted in his name just to maintain the balance of five relatively equal
pools. This led to his team having an initial rank of 39
th
because
it really wasn’t that good. And yet, this team is now sitting 23
rd
—not
far from the midway point of the league. For any managers ranked below that,
just know that you’re literally losing to a bot.
While “Cooper” is skyrocketing through the rankings
(not due to his own actions but mostly because other managers are technically
falling down the rankings past his team), Your Biological Father is stuck in no
man’s land after about nine bouts of whiplash-inducing swings over the first
half of the season. He started the season ranked 5
th
with what
appeared to be a very strong roster and a whole host of managerial accolades
from previous seasons. He then proceeded to take a nosedive and found himself
in the bottom five of the actual league standings. He’s got Beatrice Lamarche
and Finn Sonnekalb—two of the brightest stars of this season. He’s also got
Marijke Groenewoud, Mei Han, Ayano Sato, and Nikola Zdrahalova, all of whom
have taken their sweet time this season getting into top form. Other skaters like Peder Kongshaug have had
moments of greatness (he’s now a top 12 all-time 5000m skater) and moments of
what
the fuck?
(zero 1500m podiums and only one top 8 finish so far). With lots
of points on the table at the Olympics and Worlds, there is technically still
time to close a gap. But due to such an underwhelming start to the season, this
Shitter is stuck in
The Pack
for now.
Playing to Lose
29 Kiersten+Hayleigh
(-4)
30 Peter+Brooke
(+5)
31 Adam
(-2)
32 Connor
(-10)
33 Lindsey
(-1)
34 Robert
(+4)
It was a good effort, but ultimately these teams are
going to come up short. Not everyone can be a winner, especially those who pick
Kjeld Nuis in the first round. Or, it turns out, Francesca Lollobrigida in the
first round. Or Canadian sprinters. Or Vanessa Herzog in any round. Or any
number of other regrettable picks these teams made.
Unlucky as Hell?
35 Taylor
(-14)
If one were to have made picks based on last year’s
results (which we all do) and assume that those skaters will be likely to
perform relatively similarly this year (which we all mostly assume) then one
could be forgiven for either picking this team or thinking that it looks pretty
solid. Joy Beune and Ivanie Blondin is a pretty nasty one-two punch up at the
top. But it is now looking like Joy only qualified herself one spot for the
Olympics and Ivanie is rumoured to not be going to Allrounds.
This is not ideal, but totally survivable… unless the
rest of your team is Binyu Yang (huge regression after last year’s breakout
season), the Woj (barely recognizable in her current shitter form), Connor Howe
(legitimately injured), Daniele Di Stefano (buddy somehow fell out of the A Div
Mass Start??), Momoka Horikawa (she also got sent to B Div), and Bart Hoolwerf
(on pace for his first non-top-3 MS classification in over 4 years). The stars
have entirely unaligned for this team.
Emin Chasers
36 Darius
(+1)
37 Jack
(+3)
38 Jenna
(-3)
39 Emma+Darby
(-5)
40 Nick
(-1)
There are winners, and there are losers, and then
there are those who win loser awards. Emins aren’t just handed out like candy,
so they carry some sort of unique value. This group seems pretty eager to
collect their fair share of Emins, and at this point I don’t see many other
teams lining up to challenge them.
That’s it for today. Racing resumes on January 23 with
World Cup 5. This gives you lots of time to make some adjustments to your
roster based on all the Olympic Trial events happening around the world right
now. Keep in mind that the 2x World Cup Classification points will be paid out
after the next (and final) World Cup. This is usually an easy way to find some
points in the back half of the season!
Cheers,
Dad