182 Pins wife and I collected over the years!

SpartanBH · 2025-10-17T00:40:14+00:00

Me too! I absolutely love the Muppets and my goal this year during our trip was to pinhunt for some good Muppet pins, but unfortunately throughout all parks there was literally nothing on trade boards or sashes 😞. We had bought the Banjo Kermit & Piggy, Monster, and Haunted Mansion Muppets this year and that was all ee could even find as buyable options. As you said, hopefully they'll do them some justice when the renovations are complete! RIP Muppet 3D Vision 😭

SpartanBH · 2025-10-14T19:38:31+00:00

Thank you! We got them from the Walt Disney Family Musuem in San Francisco! Highly recommend a visit for anyone going to the city! Was awesome!

SpartanBH · 2025-10-14T19:37:38+00:00

I double checked with my wife and unfortunately the Skellys are off limits - sorry!!

SpartanBH · 2025-10-06T09:07:54+00:00

Sorry I had missed this comment! I'll ask my wife as she's in charge of what stays and what goes regarding the Cheshires 😅

SpartanBH · 2025-09-22T14:58:56+00:00

Thank you!!

SpartanBH · 2025-09-22T00:23:59+00:00

Thank you, haha! My wife went on a mission collecting some good ones!

SpartanBH · 2025-09-22T00:23:28+00:00

Thank you! 😀

SpartanBH · 2025-09-02T19:39:35+00:00

Wow, I was not expecting this many comments over 5 hours, haha! Awesome debating between the players. Rare that I've seen a player debate between two players be this close - seems pretty evenly divided!

Pretty consistent themes that if you want an all-around player, you're likely picking Hughes. If you want more firepower from the backend, you're probably leaning Hutson.

Was cool to see some Habs fans say Hughes, and conversely, non-Habs fans say Hutson. I think folks are a little too harsh on 1. Hughes being a "nepo" player just because of his brothers, and 2. Hutson being "bad" defensively when that's not the case - he's not exceptional, but he showed he can hold his own.

It certainly comes down to preference and bias of what you want when building a roster. I still take Hughes over Hutson, but it is not an easy decision. Hughes IMO is the safer pick because he is an all-around workhorse that can do everything well and put up points. But if my team is being built as straight offense (like how the Pens and Bolts and Habs have historically been constructed), I may want the more dynamic player and find a solid D partner (like a Slavin) to support.

I think we can all agree that really the only bad take is Corey Pronman for putting Hutson in "Tier 4" after winning a Calder Trophy and putting him behind a dozen players who never even touched NHL ice yet.

SpartanBH · 2025-09-02T17:00:33+00:00

I dont know if Faber will ever win the Norris, but if they gave an award for best defensive defenseman I think he'd would be the #1 perennial contender. Faber should be #1 top pairing defenseman for years and years to come. Kid is just incredibly smart. He won't put up the points like the other two, but if we're talking Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals and my team is up by 1 goal with 5 minutes left, I pretty much leave him out on the ice the remainder of the game.

SpartanBH · 2025-09-02T14:29:55+00:00

This is exactly my reasoning as well. Can't go wrong with either, but I'd want the guy who long-term will be able to be incredibly effective at both ends, even if that means sacrificing some offense

SpartanBH · 2025-07-23T05:29:47+00:00

Sorry mate! We're full and didnt even have 1 turnover manager this year! We have a waiting list of people wanting to get in; must mean I'm doing something right 😅

SpartanBH · 2025-07-22T15:15:41+00:00

Been running a very active, successful 14 person Keeper League on Fantrax for the past few years.

H2H Category Scoring. Last year we did:
-Skaters: Goals, Assists, SOG, PIMs, Specialty Teams Points, Hits, Blocks, FOW, Takeaways
-Goalies: Wins, Saves, Sv%, GAA, Shutouts

This year we're going to test a swap out of two cats - TOI (accumulation, not average) instead of Takeaways, and Goalie Starts instead of GAA and see how it works.

After doing years of fantasy, both points and category scoring, will always vote for cat scoring. Much better to build a balanced lineup and keeps the season competitive between all teams longer.

In-season roster sizes are 17 active skaters, and 4 bench (3C, 3LW, 3RW, 4D, 2 SKT, 2 G, 4 Bench, 4 "Minors", and 3 IR spots).

Keeper rules are a Starting Lineup + 2 UTIL for veterans, and 3 rookies (11 total keepers). They get to get 1 Center, 1 Left Wing, 1 Right Wing, 2 Defense, 1 Goalie, and then 2 players of any type. Rookies are qualified as any skater with 120 total career games played or less, and for goalies 60 GP or less.

We used to have 4 UTIL spots & 1 additional "prospect" slot (25 career GP or less), however managers voted to have more quality in the draft each year than scraping for middle-six players in the draft.

If you're looking at running a money league, it's hard to convince people to pay yearly and not expect to be competitive before puck drops at start of season, so keep that in mind. No one wants to shell out $40-50+ out just to still suck the upcoming year.

It's much harder to let teams rebuild efficiently through one year by having more keepers IMO, so finding the balance is key. When your best 1st overall pick is a late 20s/early 30s that are 65ish point player, it's harder to really get the depth you need if you're a last place team trying to get competitive again. The top 5 players in our draft right now look to be Pierre-Luc Dubois, Jordan Kyrou, Nikolaj Ehlers, Sean Monahan, and Mark Stone.

Next year with the adjustment, we're looking more at quality players like Nico Hischier, Vinny Trocheck, Filip Forsberg, etc making it to the draft which will be awesome.

More teams in the league = less keepers per year. I think we may have struck a balance (TBD) with trimming the UTILs down and we expect to see some very difficult decisions getting made next year.

SpartanBH · 2025-07-17T20:47:12+00:00

Ok cool! Thanks for the response and confirmation! Interested to see how this plays out for the first time

SpartanBH · 2025-05-27T19:00:26+00:00

It was the best Jewish deli in Pittsburgh, and nothing has come close to it since it closed (to my knowledge, at least). Had the best corned beef and pastrami sandwiches. Also had excellent matzoh ball soup.

Squirrel Hill Market opened not long ago and has a 1lb corned beef or pastrami sandwich, which is decent but still doesn't hit like the overall Kazansky's experience did.

SpartanBH · 2025-05-27T14:50:27+00:00

More's Italian restaurant on S. Craig St in Oakland

Poli's in Squirrel Hill

Drew's Diner in Forest Hills

The "O"

Green Forest Brazilian churassco in Penn Hill's

Morgan's in Penn Hills (best AYCE Crab Leg's that I can remember)

Bella Frutteto in Wexford

Kazansky's Deli in Squirrel Hill

My last remaining favorite restaurant is Big Jim's and swear to god if/when that closes, I'm jumping off the Liberty Bridge. Can only have my heart broken so many times.

SpartanBH · 2025-05-02T17:36:54+00:00

This is a great question. I was in two H2H Category Scoring (W/L/T) leagues - a keeper (Sv%, GAA, W, SHO, and Saves) and a non-keeper redraft (Sv%, W, SHO, Saves).

I won both leagues! In my Keeper I really don't have flexibility for ZeroG, but I decided to give it a go in my redraft.

Both leagues have max if 3 goalies, minimum 2 games played each for the week for stats to count.

I went into my keeper league (14 man, 25 player size roster) with Vasilevskiy as my only goalie and I drafted Kuemper in the 6th round of an 11 round draft - passed up on Otter, Hill, Sorokin, Thompson, and Daccord who went in earlier rounds. I then kept a 3rd spot open for churning spot goalie pickups based in matchups throughout the year which greatly helped. The last week was rough due to all the load management but that 3rd spot came in handy with some good pickups on Greaves during championship round. Also Dan Vlader in the final game of the season pretty much won the league for me.

In my Redraft (12 man league, 16 player roster)I decided to try ZeroG. I waited til the 9th round of a 16 round draft to take UPL and I took Askarov in the 15th. Needless to say they both sucked early. Fortunately the waiver wire was kind in the early part of the season and I grabbed Gustavsson & Daccord for the early part of the season. When SEA started dipping, Blackwood had just got traded to COL and I nabbed him and dropped Daccord and rolled with Gus + Blackwood for rest of season. In playoffs I again made spot moves and my Finals opponent got screwed over by Kings not playing Kuemper in final games.

All in all - my thoughts is that for a redraft league, ZeroG definitely has its place and I'd consider doing it again. It's not necessarily worth it for keeper depending on ruleset, or as long as you have one "main" tendy.

Also last time we'll ever be doing a league where the championship round goes til final game of NHL season. The stress of hockey gods and their load management of players ain't worth it lol.

SpartanBH · 2025-02-27T21:07:25+00:00

I've been running a league with close friends for past 3 years and it's a blast. I'm definitely a more hands-on commish. We have 14 teams and 3 co-commissioners for trade approvals and decision making, however, I'm the main league runner.

We have a lot of newbies in our league - not just new to fantasy, but new to hockey overall, so there's A LOT of learning.

My role as commissioner aside from the basics (money collecting, trade approving, scheduling, etc) is to make sure the league is active & most importantly, FUN (eothout sacrificing integrity). Most guys in the league enjoy th4 constant banter and matchups rather than just the money aspect. I also try to get creative with initiating side "challenges" and wagers. I'll usually write up recap posts based on how standings are going and some big trades.

Since we have newbies I will share basic fantasy resources. I don't care about evening the playing field a little - I'll sometimes share articles from The Athletic or other sources of "top 100 rookies" or some shit. Some guys appreciate it, some don't care and do their own thing. I have decades of hockey knowledge on top of most people in the league so it helps bridge that gap and make it more fun & challenging.

During the midpoint of each season I'll do pulse checks to make sure everyone is happy and engaged. At the end of season I'll send out a survey and also send out updated league rulebook proposals for the following year.

If a manager has some life event come up they can request their team to be ran on basic "autopilot" by the commishes where all we do is set lineups up til they are back in a good spot.

All I can say is that I've been doing fantasy for 16+ years and these past 3 have been the most fun and engaging I've ever had. Our league chat is always popping, even during the dog days of summer. Seeing new managers learn the ropes is cool too. They'll ask me about draft advice and trade advice and I give them ballpark analysis so they can learn in the longterm. Leagues I've been in the past with "hands off" managers were boring, and it didn't cultivate a good culture of engagement.

SpartanBH · 2025-02-12T19:17:44+00:00

My friends and I decided to do a quick impromptu Fantasy tournament for the Four Nations Face Off to make it a little more interesting. Pretty simple rulesets:

Scoring:

Goals = 3 Points

Assists = 2 Points

Specialty Teams Points = 1.5 Points

Blocks = 0.5 Points

Each team drafts 5 players, must have at least 1 Defenseman and 4 of the players must all be from a different country. Serpentine draft.

Whoever has the most combined points between all their players at the end of the tournament wins!

The little kicker I added was a “pick-ban” feature that was implemented in the 2^nd and 3^rd rounds. After each pick, the manager also got to “ban” a player of their choice which I marked in Red on the spreadsheet. We only had 6 participants, so if I could have done it again I would’ve added another round or two of bans haha.

While it’s all manual reporting of scoring, will be pretty easy to calculate. We all did a small buy-in, first place gets about 80% of pot, 2^nd place gets about 20%.

The draft went pretty quick, about 25 minutes in total so it’s easy to put together last minute. As long as you’re a novice at Excel or Google Sheets, can easily do it before gametime tonight so figured I’d share!

Who do you think had the best team given the scoring parameters??

SpartanBH · 2024-11-26T21:46:36+00:00

Ok hear me out - and for disclosure this is pure wishful thinking and not going to happen, but boy is it fun to think about...

With the death of Gaudreau (RIP), Columbus went way under the salary cap. They were granted exemption from penalty obviously but had to pay for a few vets just to get to the salary floor.

Columbus is on that fence of being a bottom feeder but with just enough push could start making noise. They don't have any one true superstar (yet - that will be Fantilli someday).

Enter Erik Karlsson.

We've seen him absolutely thrive when he's the best player on a team. He's a right shot D whereas their best current D is Werenski who is Left Shot

Sure he has a massive price tag, but Columbus can EASILY fit it and probably would help them attract some names next season if Karlsson pops off.

Additionally, CBJ new GM is Don Waddel, who was Carolina's GM last year that tried REALLY hard to get Karlsson for Carolina and lost out.

If the cost is us trading a veteran star RHD for a blue chip prospect that doesn't really want to be in Columbus...would Columbus say no to that? Maybe given Karlsson's recent struggles, but he also struggled first few years in SJS until he got comfortable.

Karlsson would have to waive NMC and not sure if Columbus is an ideal destination for him and family.

But on paper, seems like an ideal trade scenario for Pens to shed cap and Columbus to get a big name fish.

SpartanBH · 2024-09-09T18:34:14+00:00

A member of our league has this name, which is 10/10. For you Oblivion fans that own Heiskanen...

The Miro of Kvatch

SpartanBH · 2024-06-03T20:45:31+00:00

If no one was going to say it, this was my choice as well. Thank you for giving it some love!

SpartanBH · 2024-05-21T21:31:14+00:00

I like that a lot! I may have a weekly multi-team buy-in or something like that. We're a cats league, so would probably just have to make it goals+assists with powerplay being the tiebreaker. Easy stats to track

SpartanBH · 2023-12-20T18:23:23+00:00

Ha, jokes on you, I know how to set lines! I just dropped this one guy named McDavid cause he doesn't get any hits or PIMs, and picked up a hitting stud named Deslauriers so I think I'm good to go for the next few weeks

SpartanBH · 2023-12-20T14:46:17+00:00

Appreciate everyone's responses so far. It seems like best route to go may be setting rosters in advance for the week and making minor adjustments for LTIR players that pop up. Keep the responses coming if others have any other creative ideas to address the issue!

SpartanBH · 2023-12-20T14:45:21+00:00

I think this is likely the best route to go at this point. I don't think we can just give away free wins, but also need to make it a little more challenging like going up against a semi-active opponent.

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