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GHL Power Standings
Will Cox III presents: THE GHL TEAM OF THE WEEK
Players of the Week
Trades by Matt Banks
GHL Rumours
Grienk's HipChecks

GHL Power Rankings
     The Top 10 Teams in GHL(as of Fri, Dec 10, 1999)

LW	TW	Team	Pts	Last 10	Comments
1	1	Royals	42	6-3-1	Have to rate BA's team #1 again.  However, a tie and 3 losses in last 10(4 losses since last issue!!) are un-Royal-like.  Could Big Al's housecleaning be finally catching up to him?
3	2	Bearcats	38	5-4-1	Bearcats are not letting Royals out of their sights.  If anyone will knock Royals off their perch at #1 look for the Kitty Cats to do it!!!
5	3	Ice Dawgs	33	6-4-0	How does GM Kemp keep this squad winning? He is riding Beezer's hot hand and Boris Mironov's MVP caliber season to the top of the GHL.
2	4	Hurricanes	32	5-4-1	GM Moreau's team is quite the enigma.  Power play is worst in the league yet has the best team scoring average.  'Canes penalty killing is 3rd worst, but then again, this soft team is never in the penalty box.
6	5	Lumberjacks	32	5-5-0	Playing in the bruising American conference, the 'Jacks continue to impress.  This Kariya led team knocked off the Royals since last issue and will only improve with the addition of Straka.
8	6	Odyssey	32	6-2-2	GM Lancaster's team is streaking.  HOT!! HOT!!! HOT!!!  In last 10 games, the Odds have knocked off perenial powerhouses Royals and Hurricanes.  If they continue this ride, they will end up on top!!
7	7	Wolverines	29	4-4-2	No change for the Wolves.  Although GM Banks hates me for saying it, they have to beat some top teams to move higher.  Fact is ....Wolves have beaten 1 team over .500(Hurricanes) in 28 games.  Future games against the Lumberjacks, Odyssey, & Ice Dawgs will determine whether the Wolf Pack move up or down the Rankings.
4	8	Storm	29	5-4-1	The third squad to beat the Royals in the last 10 games.  Storm are biggest droppers in this week's issue(from 4 to 8).  This is a great team about to break out of a horrendous slump.  Watch out GHL when the Storm wake from their GHL championship hangover.
10	9	War Pigs	29	3-3-4	After huge blockbuster deal to acquire Lindros, the Pigs are fit to be tied.  5 ties in last 11 games, including 4 in a row.
-	10	Arsenal	30	6-2-2	Out of the rankings last week, the Arsenal return with a vengeance!! Unbeaten in last 5(4 game win streak) with wins over the higher ranked Wolverines (twice), Royals, and a tie against the Pigs.  Newly acquired Olaf Kolzig has not let in 2 goals in each of those last 5.  Check out their review in Will Cox III's TOW report.

NOTE: Dropping like a rock: Humpbacked from 9th and 5th 2 issues ago.
             Watch out here they come: Earthquake
 

WILL COX III presents: THE GHL TEAM OF THE WEEK
(EDITOR NOTE: GHL NEWS is proud to announce the signing of Will Cox III.  We welcome Will to the paper and look forward to his
article which will analyze the success/failure of a particular GHL team each issue.)
 

Hello, and welcome to edition 3 of Team Review by William Cox III. This week I will take an insight into the heart of the Charleston Arsenal of the GHL's Canadian Conference. The Arsenal have been fired up in their last 10 games with an amazing record of 6-2-2. They have accumulated 14 total points over that span which is almost half of their total points. Also, their 6 wins is nearly half of their total 13. They have risen up to third position in the Canadian Conference behind only the Hurricanes and the Bearcats. They are playing even .500 hockey with a record of 13-13-4. Also, they have scored 94 goals and allowed 93, just about even there as well. They main backbone of this team would have to be, on the blueline, Mattias Ohlund and Jason York, up front, Jason Allison, the surprising play of 27 year old rookie Chris Drury and Pavol Demitra. Pavol Demitra holds one of the GHL's records with 5 points in one game. He shares this honour with 9 others, including Paul Kariya 4 times! Demitra completed this feat during game 70 of the GHL, badly enough he did this against my Abyss! He potted a hat trick and added two assists. On a small side note, the Arsenal farm team is tops in the Canadian Conference with a record of 15-12-3. They have four players on the scoring list as well Jason Wiemer, Scott Walker, Ian LaPerrierre and Randy Robataille. GM Chris Bailey is a devoted GM to this league and his own and always finds time to talk trades with his fellow GM's. I wish Chris the best of luck in this GHL season, and hopefully more to come! Until next week, I have a question I would like answered by whoever can...isn't there a league rule against illegal use of foreign substances to make farm players increase in value? Well, the Abyss have been shown a large FACT.. the Earthquake have had a little "LUCKY?" streak lately...Josh holden 76...I don't know about that one...Cale Hulse 77 from 68... HMMMMMM???... I see ILLEGAL SUBSTANCE written all over the foreheads of these two players!

                                                                                 William Cox III
 

WEEKLY HONOURS
 

Tenderizer of the Week:  Olaf Kolzig Olie the goalie gets his 2nd tender of the week honour....this time with another team.  Regardless of the team, Olaf has been outstanding this year.  While platooning in the pipes for the Arsenal after coming over from the Royals, Olaf has lifted the play of teammate Patrick Roy and helped the Arsenal get on a 5 game unbeaten streak.

Slut of the Week(SOW award??): GM Moreau Everyone was scratching their heads when the Hurricanes obtained Mike Modano and Guy Hebert for Alexei Yashin, who will not be available next year if he does not play this year, and Dominik Hasek, played terrible and got seriously hurt in NHL and is scheduled to retire.  GM Jessica Moreau came clean after GHL Canadian Conference president Will Cox III were set to veto the deal. Suddenly.....a Hurricanes report was issued stating that Jessica performed a "kinky strip show" (ED NOTE: see above pic) and gave a "SPECIAL CHRISTMAS GIFT" to GM Al Barkhouse.Chris says hes " Moreaus #1 Fan, and would give his whole team away to her for just one night of her time."  After hearing this new evidence and after further "probing" the situation, Cox  came to the "hard" decision that the deal would go through as long as the rest of the GHL had access to pix of the Strip Show.  GM Moreau provided the early photo above and set up the web site WWW.HURRICANEHOTTIES.COM for the more graphic pix.

Goon of the Week:  Mike Grier The Storm's Mike Grier is this Issues's GOW winner. He only has 16 PIM this year, but Grier went snake in a recent Storm-War Pigs battle.  These two teams always meet in the playoffs (ED NOTE: Storm always win the series) and the meetings get ugly.  In the last battle, Grier was not penalized on the play where he kneed Cameron Mann, prematurely ending the rookies season with an indefinte injury length.  Later, Grier was assessed a game misconduct where he went after Lindros.  After the game, Conference President Keith Grienke reviewed the game tape and issued Grier a 5 game suspension.

PLAYER OF THE WEEK:   Petr Forsberg - leading the league!!! Petr Forsberg looks to have found a nice home with the Earthquake.  He not only leads his team but also leads the league in scoring this year.  Forsberg also lead all scorers with 17 pts since last issue.  Look for Forsberg to right the Earthquake's ship this year, just as he did with the Lumberjack last year when it appeared they had no chance at a playoff spot.  Forsberg is the best center in the GHL and the best team leader in the league.

GHL Rumours
 

GM Tom Eisenring Recovers from Mystery Virus!!!! Tom Eisenring is back in the GHL after a mystery virus.  Tom is not mentioning what virus he had, but it took a  2 month stay at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota to get rid of it.  This editor only hopes that he never made any questionable deals with the Hurricanes before this virus was cured or the GHL could be facing an epidemic!!!

GM Al Barkhouse Furious after Being Called Stand Pat GM!!!  After last weeks HipChecks article in which the editor stated that "Barkhouse's hamster could do the Royals lines and still win the conference", GM Barkhouse was enraged.  "Stand Pat GM....I'm no stand pat GM.....I'll show that Grienke!!!"  Word out of the Royals camp was that the first casualty of Big Al's wrath was the hamster, who was last seen packing up his cage and big wheel.  Where is the hamster going? Word on the street is that GM Jack Bredehoft needs some help with his lines & would open up an assistant GM position for the rodent.

You only know GM Al Barkhouse is going after Petr Nedved.  Why would he want Nedved when he has Yashin and Fedorov?  Nedved would be a perfect fit in a dressing which contains the ALL-TIME GREAT bitchers of money, holdouts, and  contract squabbles.  Nedved (missed entire year in contract squabble) would join a growing Royals' list of which includes: Tkachuk(the greediest man in hockey), Yashin(holding out on valid contract), Fedorov(sat out 1/2 a year to sign contract which Detroit matched which paid him $14 million in 1998).

News and Notes!!! Forsberg dealt to Earthquake and gets 2 goals and 2 assists in 4-4 tie in his Earthquake debut.  Said GM Ryan Barkhouse, "Awesome, he is no Jagr, but he is damn close."  ......Did you see that Lindros and Hull moved as predicted in last issues GHL News?  Did you also see in the first edition that I correctly predicted a Jagr for Kariya deal?  GHL News is truly on top of the scene in the GHL.  This weeks rumours......Palffy is still heading out of the Royals camp....Tigers are at a time when they simply must make a deal or wait until next year.  Look for Tigers to deal Nedved or Bondra......Lehtinen is another name on the block.... Look for GM Bailey to make a deal with the Hurricanes any day now as he has been scouting the Hurricanes(or is he scouting Moreau?) lately.

HIPCHECKS
(ED NOTE:  This section will be about whatever I want to talk about.)
 

Hello....welcome to issue #3 of the GHL NEWS.  Hope you enjoyed it.    If you did not, make sure you email me. Thanks to GM Banks for his work on the trades section as I was clearly not up to the task. As you know from previous issues....I am always looking to improve the Pigs.  This week I am going to look at XTRASTATS to give you GMs an idea on what I am looking at there and how I switch my lines up based on what I find there. The four big stats I look at in XTRASTATS are M/G (avg minutes played per game), P/20 (avg points scored per 20 minutes),  P/G(avg points scored per game), and the DIFF (difference between P/20 and P/G).  First I look at players with a big negative differential, like my Pig Andreas Dackell at -.11.  I see from his P/20 is .80 or he almost gets .8 points every 20 minutes he plays.  I look at his P/G average and I see he only gets .69 points every game.  This guy is not playing enough every game and this is one reason why I dealt Brett Hull to make room for Dackell on the top two lines.  Clearly, if I could get Dackell playing about 22 minutes per game, he would average a point a game.  This helps a GM get a better grip on what players the SIMM seems to favour.  Dackell does not have a great OV rating, but last year he was second on my team in scoring and a reason for that was me seeing a trend in XTRASTATS and playing him more.  Just by glancing down the DIFF column, I would say that the Odyssey's Sebastion Bordeleau(DIFF -.30) needs more ice time. He averages a point every 20 minutes, yet plays only 14 minutes a game. So does the Hurricanes Scott Mellanby (DIFF -.27).  As you get to the 4th line players, I don't put as much faith into the XTRASTATS.  Radek Dvorak of my Pigs is a -.59, but he only plays 4.2 minutes a game and most 4th liners have higher negative differentials. What is your opinion of my theory?  Is it full of shit?  Worth some consideration?  As always....lemme know.  I LOVE getting feedback saying my head is in the sand on this Power Ranking or that I roasted you too hard.  At least it tells me that what we put out is worth reading. Thanks for reading!!!

Until Next Issue........HOW BOUT DA PIGS !!!!

GRIENK
[email protected]