Headshot

It was a tough slog, but the champions of the futuristic Shattered Realm defeated their monstrous foes and saved the solar system! Here's a shot of Nathaniel's hero Demorus, who used his jet pack to fly up above the uber-beholder and finish it off with a final devastating blow!

That moment when you score a crit on Demogorgon...

Well, not Demogorgon, per se, but a nasty extradimensional beholder with the same stats as the CR 26 demon lord. Here's how it went down!

In the climactic battle of our science-fantasy Shattered Realm campaign, this suped-up beholder and its mighty dragon underling had designs upon conquering the solar system, but standing in their way was a coalition of champions. The two sides met upon the barren surface of an asteroid, with the fate of the entire system hanging in the balance!

Most of the characters moved up to engage in melee, while Matthew's character Kai crouched upon a ridge overlooking the battlefield. You can see Kai in the image above; he's at the bottom with the bluish-gray cloak and a rifle aimed at the beholder. While other heroes distracted the beholder, Kai lined up the perfect shot with a devastating antimatter rifle borrowed from an ally. Matthew rolled a natural twenty, so his damage ballooned to 12D8 from the rifle and 10D6 from sneak attack. All told, it brought the beholder down by about a quarter of its hit points. We still have a long way to go in this battle...

Also, if you look closely at the photo, it appears that Garm -- the king of dire wolves -- is farting out a fireball. I assure you, it's just glare from the bright overhead lights!! :)

Godzilla: Tokyo Clash

The title sounds like a movie that Matt and I would've rented from the local Blockbuster during our Jolt-fueled doctoral studies in Rochester. As it stands, Godzilla: Tokyo Clash is a board game that delivers monster mayhem a la King of New York, but with gameplay that more closely approximates the action of kaiju films. I'm thinking about picking up a copy for the boys for Christmas, but this game has one major flaw: there's no Gamera. Come on, he's the friggin' Friend of All Children! The lack of Rodan is also problematic. Maybe they'll show up in a future expansion set...

NHL '94

I've always been more of a paper-and-pencil gamer than a video gamer. Keep your first-person shooters and your MMOs, and give me board games and roleplaying games any day of the week.

However, one of the few video games that has left an indelible mark upon my life is NHL '94 from EA Sports ("It's in the game!"). Every day after school, my good buddy Jason (the legendary Sir Roberts from the original Druid Cycle campaign) would come over and we'd load up '94 on the Sega Genesis. We played through countless postseasons, winning Cup after Cup. Although we were both die-hard Rangers fans, we kept coming back to the Maple Leafs. Those early '90s Toronto teams were a lot of fun. There was Doug Gilmour, Dave Andreychuk, Wendel Clark, Felix Potvin...and then, after the season, the MATS SUNDIN trade! Rocked our worlds. 

Now, EA Sports is bringing back NHL '94, and I can't wait to download it. I've posted a few times here about playing the last couple of EA Sports hockey games on our Xbox, and they're very good, but nothing can compare to the original! (Well, technically it wasn't the first game in that series, but it was the one that created a decades-long phenomenon!) I can't wait to share it with my boys!

Halfway Point

We're halfway through what's shaping up to be a fantastic season! Much like last year, the teams are closely clustered in the standings. The gap between first and worst is very narrow as our five teams fight for three playoff spots; if the playoffs started today, the Victorias, Thistles, and Comets would be in, and the Bulldogs and Millionaires would be out.

Let's take a look at some of the key storylines in Season 4.

Forward MVP

In the early going, it felt like a two-man race between the Bulldogs' Gord Roberts and the Thistles' Alf Smith. Roberts (9 G, 5 A, +4) is tied for first in goals and is second in points (one point behind high-flying defenseman Cyclone Taylor), while Smith is tied for first in goals and is tied for fourth in points (9 G, 3 A, -2). And what about two-time defending Forward MVP Frank McGee? After a painfully slow start, he's been pouring it on lately and has climbed all the way to third in the scoring race (8 G, 5 A, +1). The Bulldogs' Bruce Stuart (3 G, 9 A, +3) and the Millionaires' Jimmy Gardner (7 G, 4 A, -2) are dark horses worth watching.

Ridiculous Rookies

When the expansion Millionaires were taking the league by storm, it seemed that goaltender Hugh Lehman was a slam dunk for this trophy. Now? Not so much. The field is wide open, as all five rookies in this year's class have made significant contributions to their teams. The Vics' Harry Hyland (2 G, 5 A, -3) leads all rookies in points, but first-overall pick Jack Laviollete is really starting to impress me (2 G, 3 A, +6). As of this writing, the young blueliner is tied (with the Vics' Billy McGimsie) for first in the entire league in plus/minus!

Millionaires' Playoff Hopes

They had sole possession of first place at the one-quarter mark, but they've hit a rough patch and now are in last, albeit just one point behind the Bulldogs. There's plenty of time, of course, for them to get hot again and make a serious run for the postseason. After much deliberation about whether they should be all-in or should start focusing on the future, I elected to make one trade that helps them today and down the road: The Millies shipped Fred Whitcroft to the Thistles in exchange for Harry Westwick. Whitcroft never really got it going for the Millies, but the the Thistles will appreciate his offensive upside and ability to play defense as well as forward. In Westwick, the Millies are getting a good faceoff man (they're hands-down the worst faceoff team in the league), penalty killer, and puck-possession maestro (as rated by my informal metric that looks at three different Strat-O-Matic stats and assesses how well a given player maintains possession of the puck for his team) who will help them for the stretch run but also serve as an important long-term asset. 

La Belle Draft sans Merci

As with last year, the two teams that miss the playoffs may fall short by just a couple of points. Heartbreaking, yes, but there's an upside: Duke Keats and Frank Foyston, the two top prospects in the upcoming Season 5 entry draft. In particular, the team that finishes in last place will get the honor of adding Keats, a truly special player the like of whom we have not yet seen in the entry draft. (And I promise some sort of Keats joke in every single post that references this guy. Gotta put that English degree to use somehow, right?)

Ode on a Creighton Urn

Season 4 has been a nonstop thrillride, with our best-ever crop of rookies, a back-and-forth MVP race between Alf Smith and Gord Roberts, and of course one very precocious expansion team. I've thought a lot about he overachieving Millionaires and what their first-year success might mean for the long-term future of our newest franchise. Prior to the season, I'd figured that the Millionaires would ice a respectable team but finish in last place, allowing them to secure the first overall pick of the Season 5 entry draft. 

And what an interesting draft it will be! Five members of the Hockey Hall of Fame will be joining the league next season, and among these entrants are two defensemen who are unlikely to earn much playing time, one versatile winger who projects as an everyday player, and two absolute studs: Frank Foyston and Duke Keats. Foyston is a slick-skating right wing with great scoring skills and the discipline to stay out of the penalty box; he's a shoo-in to become a first-line player on just about any team. Keats, meanwhile, is a generational talent who will quickly become a number-one center and MVP candidate right from the get-go. I'll have more to say about Keats when we get closer to the Season 5 draft, but damn, this guy is a beast!

Now let's get back to the Millionaires. They were lined up nicely to draft a true franchise player in Duke Keats -- until those pesky castoffs started winning! Now what? As the coach and general manager of all five teams, I'm trying to make the best decisions for each. Championship flags fly forever, so do the Millies go for it in their first year? They don't have a lot of assets at this point, but they could flip a couple of veterans to upgrade at center and perhaps one other position. At that point, they'd be as strong as any team in playoff contention and would have a reasonable shot at the cup. But if they fail, I will have torpedoed their future by robbing them of the perfect player to lead this team to many seasons of glory. No team could benefit from a top-line pivot more than the Millies. I have a little more time before the trade deadline to determine if the Millies should be all in, but there's still going to be a lot of  uncertainty -- and the future of a franchise may be at stake!

Only in the Shattered Realm...

The Druid Cycle setting is a place for stately high-fantasy storytelling, with narratives drawn from classic myths and works of epic poetry. It's a stark contrast from the anything-goes genre mashup of my Shattered Realm campaigns. To wit, I'll share a couple of pics from this past weekend's climactic battle. First up, here's a purple worm (deployed by the heroes as a living weapon against their foes) munching on an android trooper. Before the end of the battle, the worm had devoured three such androids along with a smallish dragon.

In the next photo, we have a silver dragon harassing a tank, while Garm -- the elephant-sized lord of all dire wolves -- ambushes the dragon from the rear to save the human soldiers trapped inside the vehicle.

Although many human and monstrous lives were lost, the allied army defeated the invading force of robots and undead. As it turned out, however, the attack was a only a ruse, and the true threat is about to manifest...

Battlefield

Our science-fantasy Shattered Realm campaign, set in the distant future of this setting, has been building up to an epic showdown. On one side, we have an alliance of human colonists, goblinoid legions, and various allied monsters (including an enormous dire wolf and a purple worm!); on the other, a merciless cadre of androids, undead, and a pair of young dragons. 

Here are a few shots of the battlefield before we began...

We've got human tanks and hobgoblin trebuchets firing side by side at strafing dragons, while a pike hedge advances ploddingly toward a line of robots with laser rifles. It's been a crazy battle so far, and we're nowhere near being finished. The purple worm just tunneled underneath the battlefield and emerged behind enemy lines, however, so things are about to get really interesting...

Deja Vu All Over Again

Are we going to see a first-year team make a historic playoff run, like the real-life Vegas Golden Knights in their inaugural season? It's still way too early to get excited, but the expansion Millionaires have hit the one-quarter mark of Season 4 in sole possession of first place! 

How are they doing it? The Millies are averaging 3.75 goals per game (first in the league) while allowing just 2.75 (second). Their penalty killing unit is ranked first, although their power play is fourth out of the five teams. That's just about the only blemish. Individually, our newest franchise boasts a balanced attack led by Harry Watson (3 G, 3 A), Jimmy Gardner (3 G, 2 A), and Barney Stanley (2 G, 3 A), but every single skating player has at least two points. Remarkable! They also boast four of the league's top ten players in plus/minus (Joe Hall, Harry Watson, Fred Whitcroft, and Rusty Crawford all at +3). Goaltending, too, has been a major strength. Hugh Lehman is making a strong case not only for Rookie of the Year, but also Goaltender MVP; he's currently second among netminders in GAA (2.75) and tied for first in save percentage (.904) with the Thistles' Riley Hern, last year's Goaltender MVP. 

Bring on the next quarter! If the Millies are in first place then, at the season's halfway point, then it might be time to start taking these upstarts seriously!

First Win!

Season 4 is shaping up to be quite a wild ride! Cyclone Taylor has resumed his customary place at the top of the scoring chart after a mediocre Season 3, the defending champion Comets are mired in a brutal slump, and Thistles winger Alf Smith is finally living up to his enormous potential and making a strong (if very early) case for Forward MVP. Amidst all the excitement, I don't want to overlook one important milestone: The expansion Millionaires won their first game.

And boy did they win! After a narrow loss to the Thistles in their first game and a tie that probably should have been a win in their second game against the Victorias, I felt the Millionaires were thisclose to a victory. Their third contest pit them against the Comets, our latest Creighton Cup winners. Eager to shake off their sluggish start, the Comets came out on the attack. In the opening minute of the game, Billy Gilmour chipped home a Frank McGee rebound to put the Comets ahead.

And then...the champs fell apart. A series of bad penalties gave the Millionaires three power plays in rapid succession, and they didn't squander the opportunity. Jimmy Gardner notched his third goal in as many games to tie the score at one apiece, and then Ernie Russell picked up his first of the year. All of a sudden, the Millies were 2-for-3 on the power play! The score remained 2-1 into the latter stages of the first period, when Harry Watson scored twice in just over a minute to give the Millionaires a commanding 4-1 lead heading into the second.

There was only one lamp-lighter in the middle period, but it allowed the Millionaires to pad their advantage. Ernie Russell scored for the second time, shattering any hope of a Comet comeback. Rookie netminder Hugh Lehman did his part, as well, robbing Frank McGee at the tail end of a power play late in the frame.

The third period was largely uneventful until, around the midway point, George Richardson scored to make it 5-2. In moments, however, the Millies restored their four-goal lead when rookie defenseman Joe Hall tallied his first career goal. When the game ended, 6-2 in favor of the Millionaires, I imagined lusty boos raining down upon the hapless home team, which remains winless at 0-2-1. The expansion Millies, meanwhile, are now 1-1-1, with a +3 goal differential. Remarkably, they're also leading the league in goals scored with 11. They can't keep this up...can they?

Season 4 Begins!

The first day of Season 4 featured the Thistles hosting the expansion Millionaires in their first-ever regular-season game. 

The contest opened quietly with a lot of dump-and-chase, and about the only remarkable thing through the first half of the first period was that the normally faceoff-savvy Thistles kept blowing draws. As such, the Millionaires had a possession advantage early on, but it was the Thistles who struck for the game's first goal when defenseman Dickie Boon fired a shot through traffic that eluded Hugh Lehman. Just moments later, however, the Millies' rookie blueliner Joe Hall snapped the puck to Harry Watson, who chipped it past Riley Hern to tie the game. So now there's an answer to the trivia question, "Who scored the first goal in Millionaires history?"

Not long into the second period, Alf Smith scored to put the Thistles back on top. The Millionaires answered right back when Jimmy Gardner tallied on the power play. The new squad was certainly demonstrating a lot of resiliency, but late in the frame, Tommy "Tools" Smith set up Moose Goheen to give the home team their third lead of the night.

The Millionaires put on the pressure in the third, but Hern was up to the challenge. He did, however, benefit from some good puck luck. The pivotal moment came when Millies winger Barney Stanley had a wide-open net in front of him. The Strat card gave him a 90% chance of scoring with no possibility of a saving throw (so to speak) for the goaltender. Stanley missed the gimme and his team fell 3-2.

Still, it was a pretty successful debut for the Millies. Lehman was solid in goal, the team was a perfect 4-4 on the penalty kill, and if not for some bad luck in high-leverage scoring chances (there was Stanley's blunder, of course, but several other unlucky dice rolls as well), they might've had another goal or two. I don't see this team making the playoffs, but they may well prove to be respectable even in their first year.

Preseason Game 3

In giving the Thistles and the Bulldogs a preseason game, my main intent was to see first overall pick Jack Laviolette in action. The rookie defenseman had a rather quiet debut, but his teammates certainly made a statement. The Bulldogs went out and thumped the Thistles and their MVP goaltender, Riley Hern, by a 4-0 score, with Scotty Davidson, Bruce Stuart, Tom Hooper, and Art Ross all lighting the lamp. Although it won't count in the standings, Paddy Moran posted a 23-save shutout. It's just one game, but if the Dogs keep up this kind of play, they'll be serious contenders for a playoff spot in Season 4.

Preseason Game 2

This is probably how it's going to go when the regular season starts. Although the Millionaires showed up well against the Comets in the first preseason game, they got annihilated by the Victorias in the second contest.

The game started quietly enough. Late in the first, still scoreless, Vics blueliner Phat Wilson took a shot from the point that eluded Hugh Lehman. It remained a one-goal game through most of the second period, until Hobey Baker scored on the power play to make it 2-0. Shortly thereafter, in the final minute, first-year forward Rusty Crawford atoned for an earlier penalty by setting up Millies captain Art Farrell for a blast that cut the Vics' lead in half. The rally was short lived. Right at the buzzer, Dubbie Bowie found rookie center Harry Hyland alone in the slot to make it 3-1. Things really fell apart for the Millionaires in the third. Early in the period, Marty Walsh and Hobie Baker struck in rapid succession to make it 5-1. A glimmer of hope arose for the home team when Jimmy Gardner scored on a nice feed from Ernie Russell to cut the deficit to three, but Cyclone Taylor picked up a power-play goal late in the third to put the exclamation point on a resounding 6-2 triumph for the Victorias. Taylor led all scorers with four points (1 G, 3 A), while Baker, Wilson, Bowie, and Billy McGimsie all had multiple-point efforts for the winning side. Penalty killing was again a major problem for the expansion team, as they allowed two power-play goals on four chances. They failed to score on their only try with the man advantage.

I was most curious about the performance of rookie goaltender Hugh Lehman, who got torched in this game but had a solid effort in the first one. Over the course of the two preseason games, he finished with a 4.00 goals-against average and .897 save percentage. If Lehman puts up numbers like these during the regular season, the Bulldogs will have been justified in passing over him to select Jack Laviolette instead. Speaking of the Bulldogs, I ought to give them an exhibition contest (I'll set them up against the Thistles, who also have yet to take the ice in the preseason) to see how young phenom Laviolette fares.

Preseason Game 1

Prior to Season 1, I conducted a mini-tournament so that I could learn the Strat-O-Matic hockey rules and experiment with line combinations and strategies. Each of the four original teams played two games, so I thought it fair that the expansion Millionaires should also get two exhibition games before I commence with Season 4. As such, the Millionaires took the ice was for the first time tonight, at home, against the champion Comets. The outcome and stats won't count toward league totals, but they'll help me assess how this new team might hold up against the established clubs.

The game started with a bang when, right after the opening faceoff, Comets sparkplug Billy Gilmour leveled his former teammate, Jimmy Gardner. I know it was just a random outcome of the Action Deck, but damn, it seemed appropriate! Gilmour is always right in the thick of it, and he immediately gives the Millies a heel they can despise. Shortly thereafter, Ernie Russell got some payback when he took down superstar Frank McGee. These early penalties set the stage for a rough, physical contest.

The home fans had plenty to cheer about late in the first when Fred Whitcroft, the defenseman-turned-center, scored unassisted on a breakaway. The lead was short-lived, however, as playoff hero Mike Grant tied the game early in the second with a power-play goal that was set up by Gilmour and McGee. Later on, Percy LeSueur made a couple of big saves against Whitcroft and Harry Watson, and the second period ended with a one-all deadlock.

The final frame featured more penalties and clutch saves by both netminders. Lehman impressed with stops on Grant and Fred Maxwell. Just when it looked like the Millies might come away with a draw in their first game, George Richardson scored for the Comets on the power play, with the assists going to McGee and Grant. Special teams really were the difference in this game. The Millionaires went 0-for-3 on the power play, while the Comets clicked at 2-for-6.

Not long after Richardson's tally, the clock ran out and the Comets skated away with a 2-1 triumph. It was a tough loss for the Millies, but they acquitted themselves well. Lehman stopped an eye-popping 38 of 40 shots. (It was 25 of 26 for LeSueur, who had a much lighter workload.) If the Millionaires can avoid the penalty box and find a way to get a few more shots, they'll hold their own in this league.

Meet the Millionaires!

Now, with all transactions complete, our expansion team is ready to take the ice. Let's meet the Millionaires! (Non-rookies are listed along with some basic career stats: games played, goals, assists, points, plus/minus, and penalty minutes.)

Goaltender

• Hugh Lehman: The team's first-ever player by virtue of his selection in the Season 4 entry draft, Lehman will have his work cut out for him. Paddy Moran's worst-ever season (4.00 goals against average, .870 save percentage) is about what I would expect to see out of Lehman this year with the team that he has in front of him. But maybe he'll surprise us! He is, after all, the first new goaltender we've added since I started this league.

Defensemen

• Graham Drinkwater: (33 GP, 4 G, 13 A, 17 P, +2, 8 PIM) A steady veteran coming off of a cup-winning season with the Comets, Drinkwater moves the puck well and will see time on the power play. 
• Art Farrell: (36 GP, 3 G, 10 A, 13 P, +7, 8 PIM) This solid all-around player will serve as the Millionaires' team captain. He won two cups with the Victorias, so he brings playoff experience and the mentality of a winner. As the team's (nominal) top defenseman, he'll play on the power play as well as the penalty kill. 
• Joe Hall: Hall is a Season 4 draftee acquired from the Comets. He'll be a regular on the penalty kill as long as he stays out of the box himself. 

Forwards

• Rusty Crawford (RW): Drafted by the Thistles prior to Season 4, Crawford was selected for his skills as a defensive forward and penalty killer. He has very little offensive upside.
• Jimmy Gardner (LW): (35 GP, 10 G, 16 A, 26 P, +6, 34 PIM) Gardner is the closest thing the Millionaires have to a star and currently sits in 19th place on the league's all-time scoring chart. He was a valuable member of the Comets' cup-winning Season 3 team and will be given the opportunity to play top-line minutes at even strength and on the power play. Gardner can skate and score, and brings a nasty streak that the (fictional, of course) Millie fans will certainly come to love.
• Ernie Russell (C): (6 G, 10 A, 16 P, -6, 28 PIM) This journeyman forward will be playing for his third team in four seasons. Last year's campaign with the Bulldogs was a lost season, but Russell will be counted on to leverage his innate offensive talents to take the role of top-line center. 
• Barney Stanley (RW): (7 GP, 1 G, 1 A, 2 P, -4, 8 PIM) Acquired from the Victorias, Stanley was a rookie last season and saw his minutes dwindle as fringy Fred Scanlan outplayed him. Stanley can handle either wing and will likely suit up with Russell and Gardner on the team's first unit. I think he's a better player than his rookie season stats would indicate.
• Harry Watson (LW): (35 GP, 5 G, 17 A, 22 P, -7, 14 PIM): Watson spent the past three seasons alternating between forward and defense for the Bulldogs. The Millionaires will keep him at forward to maximize the impact of his superior skating abilities. 
• Fred Whitcroft (C): (36 GP, 5 G, 18 A, 23 P, -3, 32 PIM) In something of a surprise move, the Millionaires drafted longtime Bulldogs defenseman Whitcroft with the intent of using him as a forward. Whitcroft has heretofore untapped offensive potential and plays a good all-around game. He'll center the team's second line and get a lot of minutes playing the point on power plays.

Meanwhile, those players who were selected in the expansion draft but released from the Millionaires (Harvey Pulford, Jack Ruttan, and Fred Scanlan) will now become free agents. As we're returning to 10-man rosters for Season 4, however, these guys will have to wait until a roster spot opens up before they can sign anywhere.

Getting to this point -- the creation of a fully-functional fifth team! -- was every bit as fun as playing the games. Now I need to run through a few preseason games to get a sense of how the Millionaires will fare...

Drafted!

I've conducted the expansion draft, so now 13 players are (at least temporarily) the property of the Millionaires. Players are listed with their positional eligibility and the team from which they were selected.

• Rusty Crawford, F, Thistles
• Graham Drinkwater, D/F, Comets
• Art Farrell, D/F, Victorias
• Jimmy Gardner, F, Comets
• Joe Hall, D/F, Comets
• Hugh Lehman, G, Entry Draft
• Harvey Pulford, D, Thistles
• Ernie Russell, F, Bulldogs
• Jack Ruttan, F, Thistles
• Fred Scanlan, F, Victorias
• Barney Stanley, F, Victorias
• Harry Watson, D/F, Bulldogs
• Fred Whitcroft, D/F, Bulldogs

From the list above, I'll cut down to 10 guys to create the active roster for their first season in the league!

Exposed!

We now know who will be left unprotected in the expansion draft. Each team has exposed four players (one defenseman and at least three players who are eligible at forward). Below is a team-by-team list, along with each player's positional eligibility.

Bulldogs:

• Scotty Davidson (F)
• Ernie Russell (F)
• Harry Watson (D, F)
• Fred Whitcroft (D, F)

Comets:

• Graham Drinkwater (D, F)
• Jimmy Gardner (F)
• Joe Hall (D, F)
• Fred "Steamer" Maxwell (F)

Thistles:

• Rusty Crawford (F)
• Moose Goheen (F)
• Harvey Pulford (D)
• Jack Ruttan (F)

Victorias:

• Art Farrell (D, F)
• Fred Scanlan (F)
• Barney Stanley (F)
• Phat Wilson (D)

What can we say about this motley crew? The big name here is the Comets' Jimmy Gardner, a highly skilled forward who is almost certain to be selected. (The Comets have so many great players that they couldn't protect them all!) Davidson and Russell bring speed and scoring prowess, but also a propensity for penalties. Whitcroft and Drinkwater are versatile players who can suit up as secondary forwards or as puck-moving defensemen.

It's not a bad group, but it's sorely lacking in centers. Although several guys on this list can play center, there's no one here who routinely does play center in this league. That's going to be the biggest weakness for the Millies in their first season. They're going to get manhandled in the faceoff circle and end up chasing the puck a lot. Silver lining? The entry draft for Season 5 has several elite skaters who can play center!

It's Getting Drafty!

I'm inching closer to the exciting expansion draft that will give the Millionaires a full team!

Currently, each of the four existing teams has the rights to 13 players (including the guys who were just selected in the entry draft earlier this week). For Season 4, I'm setting the active roster cap at 10 players, so the Millionaires will need to obtain nine guys in this expansion draft -- six forwards and three defensemen to join the one goaltender who is already on their roster. We'll follow the process below:

• Each existing team must expose four players.
• Teams must expose at least one "pure" defenseman (someone who has played at least 80% of his games on defense) and at least three players who are eligible as forwards (any or all of whom can also be eligible as defensemen).
• From these lists of unprotected players, the Millionaires will select three players from each team.
• The Millionaires will conclude the expansion draft with 13 players (12 selected in the expansion draft and one selected earlier during the entry draft).
• The Millionaires will evaluate their talent, decide on which players to keep, and then cut players until they are down to 10 men on their roster. 
• Players who are cut become free agents.

At this point, the expansion draft is over and any subsequent player movement would be the result of trades or free agent signings. Free agents will be handled using the process below:

• Prior to the start of Season 4, or at any point during Season 4, any team that has fewer than 10 players on its active roster (due to injury or due to players being cut for poor performance) has the option to sign a free agent.
• A team with an open roster spot may sign any free agent, but first all teams that had a worse regular-season record in Season 3 must be given the opportunity to sign that player. (Those teams may cut a player to open a roster spot if needed.)

With the rules in place, I'll take a look at all four franchises and determine which players will be exposed for selection by the Millionaires!

James Creighton Cup

In my historical Strat-O-Matic hockey league, I've referred to the championship as the "Strat Cup", but that's rather uninspired. After naming my baseball championship in honor of an early baseball pioneer, I thought I'd do the same for my hockey league. My search for an appropriate honoree didn't take very long. 

To stand beside the Jim Creighton Cup, we now have the...James Creighton Cup.

This James Creighton (no relation to baseball's James "Jim" Creighton) was an early promoter of ice hockey and helped popularize the game in Montreal in the 1870s. He's recognized today as having organized the first indoor hockey game in history, and he captained his team to victory. Like his American baseball counterpart, he is not a member of the Hall of Fame for his sport, but probably deserves that honor. 

And now I have a Creighton Cup for both sports!

Jim Creighton Cup

The boys and I watched the classic Simpsons episode "Homer at the Bat" last night. The premise of the episode is that Mr. Burns recruits professional baseball players as ringers for his plant softball team. Nine real-life ballplayers from the early '90s show up as guest stars, but initially Burns wants to bring in old-timey players who are more familiar to him. Cap Anson, Nap Lajoie, and Honus Wagner -- all of them stars in my nineteenth-century Strat-O-Matic league -- are briefly referenced. The punchline occurs when Smithers points out that his boss's proposed right fielder has been dead for 130 years.

Matthew really cracked up at that line, but it's no exaggeration. The player's name is not spoken aloud, but you can see on Burns's poster that the right fielder is Jim Creighton, who had indeed been deceased for 130 years when this episode aired in 1992. It's hard to believe that baseball has been around for so long that we can crack jokes about star players who were born almost 180 years ago. Creighton was, indeed, the game's first true superstar. He does not appear in my historical league, but that's only because he's not in the Hall of Fame. 

And he should be! This guy was a baseball legend. As a young man of 19, he revolutionized pitching. (Contrary to the Simpsons gag, Creighton was a pitcher and not a right fielder.) Prior to Creighton, it was expected that pitchers simply lob the ball underhanded so that the batter could put it in play. Creighton, however, saw the pitcher's role as trying to prevent the batter from making good contact. He hurled the ball with heretofore unparalleled velocity, and also experimented with various types of breaking balls over a decade before the likes of Candy Cummings. Creighton was a great hitter, as well, and batted 1.000 during the 1862 season (65 at-bats). 

Sadly, Creighton didn't live to see the dawn of major-league baseball in 1871. He died at the young age of 21 from an injury sustained while -- of all things -- hitting a home run. Going forward, the championship of my Strat-O-Matic league will be the Jim Creighton Cup.