am one….

Before I begin my weekly purging of all fantasy related neuron transmissions, I do need to address something that has been on my mind all week. On Superbowl Sunday, Winnipeg lost two of its most decorated fire-fighters in a terrible accident during a seemingly routine house fire. It is too bad that it takes incidents like this to make us all realize just how important and often under-appreciated these everyday heroes are. I for one am going to make a better effort to give these men and women a few more friendly nods, appreciative waves, and spontaneous thank-you’s. None of us know when it may be our families that they save, and the fact that they ‘run towards’ while all others ‘run away’ is pretty damn heroic in my book. Anyhow, I just want everyone who reads this to sit back and think for a moment about losing everything that matters to you, and in turn, join me in doing a little extra to show our appreciation.

(In no way was this intended to be taken as a “shout-out” to Notch. In fact, I am still of the belief that he only fire-fights because he loves the tickle the pole gives his arse on the way down)

Now in regards to the heading of this article, I suppose you are wondering why I would discredit my weekly offering so harshly, however the fact of the matter is that you absolutely agree with me. Most of you just don’t realize it yet. In fact, I am confident that if most of you actually sit back and consider why you tune into my column each week, you will begin to see that you are not in search of new knowledge or hidden tips. In reality, I can guarantee that you actually seek to endorse a set of pre-conceived beliefs that you yourself have developed. The fact that we have a large audience merely makes your own ideas seem that much more credible when you do in fact find one of us echoing them in print.

I am willing to bet, that for those of you who are regulars to this site, your initial visit to DobberHockey.com resulted in one or two major similarities between what we were projecting and what you had come up with yourself. It was this sudden justification and legitimization or your own thoughts and theories that immediately programmed your synapses to relate our site as a valid and genuine source for all things fantasy. Consider what your initial reaction would have been if our site completely went against what your gut-feelings, projections, and homework had produced. My guess is that you would have written us off as just another site full of useless crap from guys who obviously know nothing about the game. I know …. I’ve done it myself.

The truth is that when we search for help in regards to fantasy sports, we are not really searching for help. We are looking for reassurance on certain things that we already know we are going to do, regardless of what anybody writes or thinks. I for one think this is a great way to approach your research, and find few things as gratifying as nailing a sleeper pick or going “a little wide” at the draft and having things work out as only you predicted. The problem arises when we get blinded by the search for validation of our own ideas, and write off all contradictory information as rubbish.

The key to winning, or at least being successful in fantasy sports is to input, process, and output as much information as possible, and then narrow it down to a set of targets and objectives based on the output you have produced. You must be as skeptical of your own beliefs as you are of others. You must re-visit the opinions you wrote off as impossible, because those are the ones that are most likely to become very valuable possibilities. You must reconsider players that you hate, and in order to be truly objective, possibly come to hate players that you originally considered. For me this would be the Sedin twins. For some reason, I have never gotten on board with these guys, and when considering them for my fantasy team, I get a feeling akin to finding them in bed with my mother. Not sure why, but I’ll be damned if the twins ever get on my team. Now if I apply my own instructions from above, I find that having Daniel and Henrik in place of two other guys on my main keeper team, puts me in about four spots higher in the standings.

When visiting this site, or any other for that matter, try focusing 90% of your attention on the 20% of information that most emphatically contradicts what you think. I challenge you to then whittle this down to one single transaction or roster move that you can then apply to your team. I am willing to bet that this simple exercise will help to prove my point, and that this may be the necessary first step towards opening up your inner demon that causes you to overlook some very valuable information.

The dog days of the pools are here, so please remember that you owe it to everyone in your pool to stay active and on top of things. You will appreciate the level of commitment this develops within your pool when it is your turn to make your run at the top.

Peace Out

Burnsy