The Pastor preaches to his flock about not being a glutton on draft day and expecting too much

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Yesterday, at my day job at Portage Alliance Church, I preached about gluttony. Since I usually try to talk about things that are relevant and matter, I had never talked about gluttony before.  I work for a church, not Jenny Craig. Plus I don’t want to get the bigger boned members of my flock upset, they’ll throw their fried chicken at me and the grease burns. But, I was stuck because I decided to devote a week to each of the 7 Deadly Sins and gluttony is one of the 7. You might be most familiar with the seven deadly sins from the Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt movie “Seven” where a serial killer uses each sin as a theme for his murders.

Gluttony was weird to talk about. The other six on the list – pride, lust, envy, greed, anger, sloth – are a little easier to preach about. But I gave it go and have no grease burns to show for my efforts. In fact, it went well enough that I am going to keep the ball rolling and see how gluttony can hurt your fantasy chances.

Hope it helps you in your pool, but if nothing else it will be an opportunity for you to score some points with whomever it is in your life who wishes you would go to church with them. This is the advantage reading a fantasy hockey article with spiritual themes in it; it kind of counts as going to church. So whether it is your mom, significant other, or the Ned Flanders guy who always leaves you little pamphlets at work, you can tell them you already go to church: the church of the Puck Pastor every Monday and this week the sermon was on gluttony.

Here we go.

Gregory the Great (they called him “Great” because he won his keeper fantasy jousting league from 545-555ad) says there are four ways to be gluttonous. Here are the four ways and the way they can hurt your fantasy pool.

1. Too soon.

The glutton has no patience. He (or she…ouch I just got pelted with some KFC) wants what they want and they want it now. Yes, you want Jussi Jokinen because a top 6 forward in Pittsburgh is fantasy heaven. Yes, you want Nazem Kadri because you bleed blue. But you need discipline to wait. You take a 60 point guy when there are still 80 point guys available and your sin will find you out.

2. Too expensively

The glutton doesn’t care what it costs, he just wants it in his belly (or on his roster). Beware of the trade which asks too much of you. Beware of the overpriced player in the salary cap league. All those points might be costing you more than you think if you split that salary among 3 lesser players. Those of you in the Dobbernomics game have probably already found deals like Malkin, Spezza, Weiss, and Versteeg. All four of them for the price of Ovie (roughly).

3. Too many

This is what we think of when we think of gluttony, someone eating way too much.  This form of gluttony can inflict your fantasy life in a couple ways. First, you can have too many players from one team. If the team has a great year – that’s awesome. But if a crucial cog or two gets injured you are going to wish you had diversified.

The other form of too many in fantasy hockey is in the number of fantasy teams you have. I limit myself to 2 (Yahoo, and Dobbernomics). Simply because I can spend way too much time thinking about those 2 teams – I can’t imagine if I had 4 or 5 on the go. Things I value in life would start to suffer. My fantasy hockey time would become less fun because of the vague sense of guilt accompanying it as it keeps me from other things. Not saying you have to only do 2, but I am saying you should stop before it becomes too much.

4. Too eagerly

Here, the glutton starts salivating at the mere sight of the restaurant on the side of the road. This kind of glutton is taken in by smells and pictures and ends up ordering something he probably didn’t want – and certainly didn’t need. What’s more, the owner of the restaurant saw him coming a mile away and knows he’s going to be able to get rid of whatever has been in the bottom of the freezer if he plays his cards right. Those who are eager are taken advantage of.

Don’t be taken in by the hype that surrounds a player. Grabovski is not a franchise player. David Clarkson isn’t either. Don’t be over eager based on ink spilled and attention given. And, if you do have actual legit reason to be eager, don’t let other managers see it. No doubt you have a few guys on your roster you want to get rid of. But when you approach managers about them you need to have for a wary and reticent posture. Even better is if you can somehow get them to approach you. Share how you almost got stuck with way too many LW’s in the draft to prime the pump and see what they think about their roster. Hint and nudge. But make them come to you.

That's it. Gregory the Great would be proud. Enjoy week one of the NHL season, sitting in front of the TV with nacho's and beer. But as you sit there feasting, beware of gluttony.

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