Week Fourteen Newsletter

Well, the newsletter is a little late this week, but nothing terrible. Celebrations of the Canucks winning streak was enough for me not to feel too keen on doing the write up yesterday. Ha ha. Go Canucks!

The lead continues to shrink up at the top... Jeff gained another two points on Dieter, while Don gained 11 points on Dieter. The race for the lead now is getting very interesting and it should be only a matter of time before the Top 3 really start jockeying for position.

For the rest of the money positions, there is only 8 points separating 4th place from 9th place... so if you're gonna make a move into the Top 10, you'll be in the hunt for some dough at the end of the season.

Consistent weeks with a gain (Hot, hot, hot!):
Caterina: +15 places in the last 7 weeks
Larry: +11 places in the last 6 weeks

On an elevator goin' down:
Trevor: -4 places in the last 3 weeks
Sean: -3 places in the last 3 weeks
Dale #2: -3 places in the last 3 weeks

Let's see what happened in Week Fourteen...

Player of the Week



A 4-0 record in Week Fourteen brought Roberto Luongo up to a tie for the Box 6 lead in points for the season. Wins against Calgary, Dallas, Edmonton and Florida gave the Vancouver netminder 8 points for the week, which was more than enough to give him the honours for the week.

Only taken four times in the pool, Luongo has proved to be one of the better unique picks in the pool, but remarkably, none of the Top 6 teams have the Canucks netminder. Luongo doesn't show up in the pool until the 12th spot.

Luongo and the Canucks only play twice in Week Fifteen, so there's very little chance that you'll see a repeat performance... unless there's a pair of shutouts in the works.

Week Fourteen had a pretty tight race in the Mover & Shaker department... and you have to remember, just because you get the most points in the week (as highlighted in green on the Standings page), doesn't necessarily mean you're gonna get this distinction. But with 76 points and movement of 3 places up in the pool, Benson wins the award for Week Fourteen. It was so close, in fact, that there were two other teams who had moved up 4 places and had 71 points a piece... but I wasn't gonna give out a shared award. Where's the bragging rights in that? Instead, more points with almost as much movement upwards was good enough for me.

Players that were key to Benson's success... Brodeur (8 points), Thornton (7 points), Marleau (7 points), Garon (6 points), Crosby (6 points), Ovechkin (6 points) and Straka (6 points).

Speaking of ties, there was an epic battle to become the Basement Dweller for the Week. Two teams struggled their way down the Standings by six places... but one deserved to be the worst by a difference of 4 less points. With 52 points in the Week, Ernest takes home the award, which will be proudly displayed on his page.

There were eight counting zeros on Ernest team, which kept him from making waves in the upward position this past week. If there is any tell-tale sign to most Dwelling teams is that there are quite a few zeros... not something to brag about.

Sidney Crosby & Martin Brodeur - 64 points
The Eastern Conference is now putting the best part of the scoring race together of late. Martin Brodeur came out of nowhere to catch up to Sidney Crosby for the pool lead in scoring. A few more wins with a shutout against Montreal for good measure gave Brodeur six more points than Crosby in the week, which was enough to catch him.

Long-term Injuries and Pool Trades
With Chris Pronger going down with injury, Week 15 sees the first trade to get rid of him... and it's Trevor, who is in the race for a money position, to be the first one to drop him for Stars defenseman Phillippe Boucher. It will be interesting to see if anyone else is going to move him.

Hawks winger, Martin Havlat, has been lost to the team again for what could be a couple weeks with another groin strain. Still with only one team having picked him the pool, Caterina may want to consider using her last trade for the oft-injured winger, despite his scoring ways.

Hockey Night In Canada this week...



It's here! It's finally here! Hockey Day In Canada has finally arrived! The all-Canadian tripleheader, preceded by a few hours of stories and tales from across the country about hockey. 14 hours of solid hockey coverage. Set the alarm, get the beer in the fridge and have a whale of a day! Coverage starts at 10am with the coast-to-coast look at volunteers in the hockey community and then at Noon, the Canadiens are in Ottawa to play the Senators. In the second game, the Canucks are in Toronto to take on the Maple Leafs at ACC. Finally, to close off the telecast, the Oilers are here in Calgary to continue the Battle of Alberta against the Flames.

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