Many people over the age of 40 remember the great game called "Small World". Thousands and thousands played it and loved it, for all the main sports. You select your team of players and using five transactions per week you would use the inter-game economic system to not only accrue the most points, but acquire the most wealth (i.e. increase the value of your team as much as you can). I played it back in 1998 and 1999 for football, baseball and hockey. It was my favorite fantasy game. I loved everything about it. I love fantasy sports… and I love the entire 'buy low' and 'sell high' concept of stocks.

And this was both!

So what happened?

Well, from what I could dig up, Small World grew too big and sold to RotoHog. RotoHog tried to monetize it and participation plummeted. Or maybe Small World tried to monetize it and sold to RotoHog after it had already plummeted. Whatever the reason – someone tried to charge money for the game and people stopped playing. I think it lingered up until 2004 or 2005.

Once I had the Dobber Sports network of sites up and running, my number one passion project was to bring this game back. And I will never charge money to play. I'm not stupid – I learn from mistakes, be it my own or other people's! In the future I will monetize it by selling tools (on the cheap) only to aid in finding the player you want, quickly, but it won't be imperative to play the game – just to give an edge as a time saver.

I have this game up and running, this will be Year 5 in Beta mode for Dobbernomics. The plan is to have the new platform ready for next season. This time for realsies. Work has actually been started. The new platform will be quick, slick, clean, and have an accompanying app. We have lots of new ideas to implement when the new platform finally gets released, including incentives/rewards, new tools and better filters.

In the meantime, this current Beta version will be the one we all play for another year. It's a great way to get a feel for the game, get good at it, and get hungry for next year's release.

Now, onto the reasons it's awesome, and what it's all about.

Each player gets $50M to spend on a team consisting of:

7 forwards, 3 defensemen, 2 goaltenders

Forwards/Defensemen: G 2.5, A 2.5, +/- 1.0, PIM 0.3, SOG 0.2, Hits 0.2, BLKS 0.2, PPG 1.0, SHG 2.0, OTG 0.5

Goalies: W 5.0, L 0.0, OTL 2.5, GA -1.5, SV 0.2, G 2.5, A 2.5, PIM 0.3

As with all points leagues, you win by accruing the most total points as above, getting five transactions each week and you can carry those transactions over (i.e. you can do nothing all year and have like 70 transactions in February available to you).

But, there is a second contest. And you want to try to win both (very hard). Get your team's value up from $50M to as high as possible. Getting it to $80M would be quite the feat. How do you do this? By buying low and selling high. You just heard that Warren Foegele was put on Connor McDavid's line? Grab him at $5.5M. A week later you hear that Foegele was taken off the McDavid line in practice that morning? Then dump Foegele at his price (at this point it may have risen to $6.2M) and pick up a better player at $6.2M. Your team value rises along with each player on your team (hint: it can also fall). So just from this one roster spot, your team value is $50.7M. Foegele just got you four points in three games and he gained your team $0.7M in value.

Player values rise and fall not from performance, but from overall game ownership.

If you own Robin Lehner at $9.0M and he goes on a hot streak, starting and winning five games in a row, rest assured dozens of people are scooping him up and boosting his value to $9.3M or higher. More people will continue grabbing him until his value is too high to spend on that roster spot.

If you own Derek Ryan at $0.8M and he plays with McDavid and does well, getting eight points in 10 games, his value is going to skyrocket. Let's say it jumps to $1.7M in two weeks. But then say he sustains a serious injury in Game 11 and is out for a month. You forget to go in and drop him that day, but remember the day after that. Oops. His value just went down below $1.5 in a single day. Wait another day and it could be $1.3 or lower. There are limits in place to how far a player value can rise/drop in a single day, but it's still in your best interest to drop a player when (or before) everyone else drops him.

Imagine if you caught his hot streak too late and you picked him up at $1.7M…and then don't have enough transactions to drop him when he gets hurt? Another 'oops' – this one bigger. Because now your team value is taking a hit for each day his value drops until you get your next set of five transactions allowing you to replace him.

Can you see the interesting slant on fantasy hockey strategy that you need to use? You have to balance your team's production with the need to push overall team value, while timing the use of your transactions. Maybe you'll want to win the overall points race. Perhaps you'd rather just drive your team value up the highest. Or maybe, just maybe, you're super greedy and want…both.

Everyone who plays it, loves it

By now you can see why Dobbernomics is fun and addictive. And it will be even more so next year with a faster platform and accompanying app. Try it. Call this year your "practice run" and then next year you'll be ready to dominate the real thing. Spread the word. Create a league and put your friends in it (you automatically compete against the world, but you can also create a league within that). Just make sure you create the league first, and create your team second, if you're starting a league.

And what the hell – go for it all: team value and most points.