Thoughts about Re-Drafting

Since there was no new True Blood to watch this week, I thought I would take some time to recap some of my thoughts on the CLS re-draft.

Next week will be the last episode of TB for another 9 freaking months! Sigh. At least there will be hockey to keep me busy (soon). I would like to say thank you to Wrap and the commenters on her blog for introducing me to Sookie Stackhouse and True Blood which has made this summer of no hockey pass by that much faster. I may have been swayed to start watching due to this post Alexander Skarsgard. By the way, True Blood is like tv crack...be warned...oh, and the books are pretty good too (I now have them all now). Love how Season 2 has more Eric in it...Love it.

So as some of you know, I have been participating in Cycle Like the Sedins' re-draft of the league. The process started as idea between James at CLS and some other bloggers after a post about NHL 10. The idea started back in July sometime asking bloggers "If you could choose one player to build a team around, who would it be? Then, through Twitter, it morphed into a re-draft of the whole league with 30 bloggers participating. The end result of this whole process will be entered into NHL10 and then according to simulation, it will tell us who had the best team. Like Stanley Cup winning team. Sounds easy enough huh?

The first pick was on July 28th, and now as of Labour Day, we are on Round 14, and slowly but surely, we are getting there.

During the past month I have come up with a few thoughts about the process so far:
1. With 30 bloggers (more now with Assistant GM's being added into the mix) it's been hard to predict when you'll actual pick. Clearly, every one wants to have the process move along, but of course we all have very different schedules in our lives. In addition we are also spread across different time zones. Thus some parts of rounds can zip on by, bringing your pick scary close or drag on and you think it may be another week before you get your next pick.

Now this is not a complaint about other bloggers, not at all, rather a comment on how it's rather unpredictable to gauge how fast your actual pick will show up. You really got to be always checking in to see the process.

2. Thinking you'll be able to pick a ridiculously amazing team. Yeah, not so much. With 30 bloggers picking, this ain't no small fantasy pool, hell no. I picked 2nd, picking Sidney Crosby, well that was awesome, but then the next pick doesn't come until #59.

3. The fantastic thing about having almost back to back picks, is that once you make a pick, you get a few days off.

4. The not so fantastic thing about having back to back picks is that you have to do a lot of catching up on who everyone else has picked between your picks.

6. Not having a crazy phone that can do stuff on the Internet, and crappy plans that Canadian companies offer due to a lack to competition in the industry. So to make a pick, I have to make a point to be able to access a computer on the day/night that I think I'll be picking on.

7. The feeling of frustration/momentary anger when you read that the player you wanted just got picked 3 picks before yours. This has happened so many times!

8. Help is greatly appreciated. I have had the help of Anaheim Calling in making picks for me while I was away in Chicago. I could not have done it without them. And I thank them for not drafting me Bertuzzi or Cloutier.


The key so far in making it this far, in my opinion, has been tons of communication. Like, behind the scenes of the picks, there is a ridiculous amount of e-mails being sent between each blogger. We are either tossing up new ideas, like deadlines, or defining the rules, like players that move to the KHL/retire, or paying forward the notifications of who is on deck to pick. Love the e-mails. If it weren't for the e-mails, I don't think I would have made it this far.

So we have a few more rounds to go, and I'm sure I'll have more thoughts as we finish up our picks.