Despite never having laced up a pair of skates (except for those of his two young sons) and growing up in Red Sox crazed Massachusetts, Rick Roos has been a huge hockey fan nearly all of his life. Inspired by often wearing a Canadiens jersey to the old Boston Garden (it’s a long story…) and living to tell about it, Rick started to join fantasy hockey leagues back in the 90s, where he found himself waiting eagerly by a fax machine for weekly stats updates. He has since been in – and won – leagues featuring elite fantasy hockey writers. In real life, Rick is an attorney, which made him the perfect choice to write his previous “Holding Court” column on DobberHockey, where he debated both sides of a fantasy hockey issue and rendered a verdict for readers to debate. Later, for several years, he did similar for the popular “Cage Match” series. Today, Roos is freewheeling through a variety of monthly pieces: Forum Buzz takes a look at some hot topics our readers are discussing in the forum; Mailbag allows readers to write in to Roos with fantasy hockey questions; Goldipucks and the Three Skaters takes a look at three players (in the spirit of the old Cage Match, except Roos determines who is too hot, too cold…and ju-u-ust right); The Tournament is where Roos polls the readers and the forum community on a certain topic, just the way Tourneys ran in the old Cage Match, until a winning player in that topic is declared.
Cage Match – the Tournament!
The most daunting question in the world of fantasy hockey is: who is the best player in fantasy hockey?
This would have made for a great Cage Match except there is no consensus top two to pit against each other. I am not sure there is even a consensus top four. The field is wide open. The league is booming with young talent and the combination of injuries and parity has the effect of evening out the playing field. To single out just two players would be silly so to do it up right would call for a Royal Rumble of a Cage Match. That would simply be madness. There is only one solution: harness the madness.
With that in mind I am proud to introduce to you the inaugural Cage Match Tournament!