as always, draft night was a great time. i would estimate that close to half of the league came out and most of the crew participated in significant drunkenness. the tab was more than DOUBLE the last few years which is either a really good sign or an incredibly bad sign that O’Rourkes is ridiculously expensive.

the night concluded with about 10 of us playing very aggressive games of Ship Captain Crew, me losing an extreme amount of $$ and B Healy taking everything from everyone. He deserved it after last years debacle. thanks for coming out if you were there…if not, please start to show your face when you can. he has promised good food every week and outside of the cost, it was a great time.

on to the actual draft…..we have added a great crop of players this year….a few 1st rounders that everyone expected to go early, a few others that were picked significantly earlier than expected (DeCarlo 2x) and a lot of 2nd to 5th rounders that will definitely make the league better. in the 13yrs that i have been participating in this league, it has gone from 2-3 solid players per team to pretty much all 9 guys who can contribute. Outside of Brettman and Matt McDonald, pretty much everyone can score and impact the game.

a few surprises at the draft that i wanted to mention….

#1`Manzke picking McGinty over Kennedy and McCann for the first pick…..although you cant go wrong picking any of these guys, it was a major shock to see Manzke choose the new guy over the veterans. time will tell if this was the right move.

#2 Hanigan actually picking what most(not me) think is a decent team. although some of his picks were completely ridiculous, his squad seems to be deep enough to, at a minimum, win 4 games this year…..seriously though, its hilarious how bad of a captain and drafter this guy is

#3 DeCarlo’s team is so incredibly bad…..tough spot with the 9th pick but some of the decisions him and Healy made were insane. I fully anticipate this squad being in the play in game come playoff time. In fact, i am calling Hanigan vs DeCarlo as the 8 and 9 seed

all in all, outside of the 2 terrible squads, there seems to be a ton of parity. lots of unpredictable squads that could be dominant, others that will need to figure out how to score to win.

Pre-Season Power Rankings
————————-
1. Carroll—-combo of Kennedy, Carroll and Koll is scary
2. Brian Healy—McCann with Statham and Slager will cause problems…can hoops keep slager in check?
3. Manzke—matt Kelly and Manzke running with McGinty is going to create tons of mismatches
4. O’Malley—could be # 1 by wednesday, could be #9 as well. a big squad that may have trouble scoring
5. John Healy—rookies Fahey and Adams will be expected to score and play D. Gierhahn will run the show
6. Mceldowney—not sure what to think about this team, Mac has never won before and its unlikely again
7. Harrigan—pretty the same squad as they always have…tyler and vodicka will help the gunners
8. Hanigan—enough said about this squad, lets just hope Dylan can average 35 per game
9. DeCarlo—Healy is predicting that Konopka will dominate games, early lines are that he will average no more than 6 per game