When Even Fantasy Shuts Down

You’d think during a time of social distancing that one’s imagination would blossom and fill some of the daily routine’s newly empty space with unsuppressed wonder and delight. So imagine my disappointment last week when my one ongoing fantasy was utterly dashed. 

It was announced in an email from the University of Snipe’s Dean Dangle. He’s also commissioner of the Gump Worsley Invitational Fantasy Hockey League in which his school and my team, the Ellwanger Maple Leaves, compete. The unfinished coronavirus-plagued season is over. It won’t be salvaged. No make-up games. No playoffs. No cash awards to top finishers. 

W-w-wait. No cash awards? So what happened to the money I paid in, to fund the awards? 

No worries. According to Dangle, that money will transfer to next year “so no League fees will be required for the 2020/2021 season.”

Fantasy draft night is a national holiday if you call in sick that day. 

OK, if there’s nothing shady going on, then I guess it’s okay to reminisce about the season. It began with great promise, with the draft party at the commissioner’s office. Bold signage let everyone on the block know if was draft night. Dean Dangle’s squad showed off new University of Snipe wearables and shared such locker room staples as pizza, wings, pucks and water bottles, as well as complimentary mints. My fantasy was festive!

Food spread at the draft party anticipated the fast food fare champions could expect should they accept an invitation to the White House. 

My team, the Ellwanger Maple Leaves, got off to a rough start, but by March we had clawed our way back to fourth place in the 10-team league, getting hot just in time for the playoffs. My fantasy had fire!

Then on March 12, the NHL suspended play. Anyone who knows anything about fantasy sports knows our league needs the pros in action so their stats can fill our score sheets. In other words, my fantasy was f***ed!

If white males focused as much attention on the election as they do on their fantasy hockey drafts, Wayne Gretzky would be president.

But not so fast. Our league play was officially on hold while the NHL worked out details of if and how it would complete the season, and last week the NHL returned to action. Well apparently Dean Dangle got deked during negotiations, because the NHL chose to close out the year with a format that was incompatible with the Gump Worsley Invitational bylaws. The NHL’s 24-team playoff means that fantasy squads with players on the NHL teams that advance would have an insurmountable advantage.

So Dean Dangle was forced to forfeit our fantasy. It’s hard for me to say those words. (F’s have always given me trouble and with that much alliteration…I don’t even want to go there.)

These University of Snipe water bottles can contain any legal beverage.

For what it’s worth, the unprecedented action came “after much deliberation and due an abundance of caution,” Dangle claimed. “The League spent a great deal of time consulting officials and reaching out to how other fantasy hockey leagues across the sphere were handling the end of the season. There was no consensus – but we felt this one was the fairest across the board.”

These University of Snipe logoed hockey pucks have no actual role in fantasy hockey. 

Whatever. As another Gump once said, fantasy is as fantasy does. And in my fantasy, my Maple Leaves are just starting what I believe will be an epic run that will eventually find me hoisting high the Gump Worsley Cup (not the athletic supporter he wore when playing goalie, but something more like the Stanley Cup) while dancing around in my living room, occasionally blocking my wife’s view of the TV.

I’d invite you to join the celebration, but I’m not yet ready to fantasize that the coronavirus pandemic’s social distancing will be over any time soon. All the same, please go ahead and enjoy a mint, compliments of the University of Snipe.

Mints provided on draft night were custom made in the University of Snipe’s team colors, red and white. 

Note: Photo of Gump Worsley at top of page is a trading card photo of the Montreal Canadiens goalie that was printed on the backs of Chex cereal boxes in the United States and Canada from 1963 to 1965.