League Background

BAINS POOL

It all started with Gian raising his three boys to not only be successful adults but to also love hockey. Unfortunately Gian could only turn Onkar into a Canuck fan while Sukhi cheers for the Oilers and Sunny now is cheering for the Avs. Not surprisingly in 1996 the Bains family (Gian, Onkar, Sukhi, Sunny was still too young) started a hockeypool. Sukhi won the first ever hockeypool. Attila, a friend from high school, entered the pool as the first ever manager who was not a Bains. Attila did well to identify Forsberg and Kariya (both were just coming off their rookie seasons) in the later rounds. However it was his first round pick that doomed him, picking Pavel Bure who would only play 15 games and get only 13 points due to an injury was too much to overcome. Gian on the other hand had Lemieux and Lindros who both got well over 100 points, so Gian ended up winning the championship. Sukhi benefitted from a very strong season by Jaromir Jagr to finish second. However had Sukhi not picked Primeau over Gretzky, he may have been celebrating his second straight championship. Next season another high school friend and Sukhi's hockey teammate Jeff Cornelious ended up joining the league also. Jeff and Attila went back and forth from the beginning to end pulling well away from the Bains family. In the end Attila ended up winning the pool by only 2 points. Jeff was not happy about the great importance that goaltenders were given in the Bains pool. Attila benefited from Brodeur bringing him 110 points that allow him to grab the championship. This has been over 13 years ago but Jeff still only allows a smaller roles for goaltenders in his hockey leagues. With high school ending, the Bains pool was put to rest with Jeff dreaming bigger. There was three different champions for the Bains pool: Sukhi winning in 1996, Gian in 1997 and Attila in 1998

FAILED LEAGUES-DARK AGES

Jeff Cornelious was the first to create a keeper hockey league. He found 14 managers for the league including Sukhi, Onkar and Attila. Jeff did well with his pool and Onkar was among the leaders also. Sukhi was mid-pack and Attila was struggling not to finish last. The league was poorly designed as the winning teams got more revenue and were able to get better and better while the already poor teams had to sell off the little good players they had left by the end of the year. Not surprisingly Sukhi, Onkar and Attila all left the league at the end of the season and the entire league folded after just two seasons. Sukhi and Attila made an attempt at a keeper league also with a league called the Premier Hockey Association however that was short lived as three brothers joined with the last name Jones and the oldest kept ripping off the younger two and there were no rules in place to prevent this.

JEF-HL

Jeff was determined to make a keeper hockey league that thrived. This time it worked. He re-branded the league calling it the Jef-hl and made up some excellent rules this time. Interesting to note that these rules (with some minor modifications) are the rules that are still used in the Premier Hockey Association and the Champions League of Hockey today. During a golf tournament, Jeff personally invited Attila to join and Sukhi joined in the last minute to become the tenth managers of the league. Jeff being the creator of the league knew the winning formula and did not make the mistake that Attila (with Jagr and Kariya), Sukhi (with Forsberg and Selanne) and many others did. The mistake was picking players at a salary higher than 9 million when the cap of the league was 50 million. Both Attila and Sukhi as a result stayed middle of the pack (Sukhi ended up staying there for the entire history of the league). The championship was decided between Jeff and Sal, actually it wasn't even decided as the two ended up tying and for the only time there were co-champions in the league.

In the second season Attila really arrived as a great GM and pulled off a miracle. With his team finishing in 7th the year before, there wasn't much hope. However Attila was able to get rid of Kariya's 9 million contract for Brodeur's 6 million contract that expired at the end of the first season. With most of the good forwards in the league taken Attila had no choice but to built his team from the blueline (this is similar to LT's later strategy in the PHA). It was an amazing blueline (perhaps the best ever) with: Lidstrom, Zubov, Jovonovski, Ozolinsh, Scott Niedermayer, Sydor and others. At forwards Attila made some great editions with adding Bertuzzi in a blockbuster trade with Jeff Dubois, Shannahan as a free agent and in December Mario Lemieux (for Samsonov from Ian E) and Cory Stillman in February. With Jagr, Ray Whitney, Bonk, Stumple, Viktor Kozlov already on the team and Chechmenek and Potvin the goaltenders, the great defense was able to carry the slightly above average forwards and goaltenders. Attila pulled away but Jeff was coming back in a rocket pace. Just like with the Bains pool in 1998, it was going to come down to the last few days between Attila and Jeff. Sukhi the oppurtunist offered Forsberg for youth to both managers, surely the team with Forsberg would win the championship. In the end Sukhi wanted too much and neither team got Forsberg. Attila ended up winning once again by again barely beating Jeff (by less than 15 points).

Attila putting everything into the great run last season and making horrible free agent signings (example Sanderson, Al MacInnis who was injured for the entire season) fell on his butts finishing again in 7th place like two years ago. This allowed the powerhouses of the first season to dominate once again. Sal won the following season and Jeff won the seasons after. Unfortunately the league was gradually dying. The main cause was like with the NASL, it was expansion. The league expanded to 12 teams however 6 of the managers in the league were virtually 'dead-wood'. The six managers that cared eventually got fed up with the six that didn't. Jeff being friends with the dead-wood managers didn't feel right about firing them, instead the entire league folded. To make things 'more exciting', the Jef-hl featured its only playoffs format in its last season. Sal won what turned out to be the last playoffs over Attila who rebuilt with a very youthful team and pulling off a shocker similar to when he won the championship years ago to get to the playoffs and then to the finals coming back huge against Jason who was already bragging. Jason who joined in the last season of the Jef-hl and made the semi finals in his first season would start the next keeper pool. Interestingly, Sunny Bains who has been wanting a team in the Jef-hl for years finally got one just as the league folded.

JASON LEAGUE

Jason had 10 teams for the new keeper league to start. Sukhi, Jeff and Attila joined this league, but Sal did not. While the hockey knowledge of all the managers were great, Attila and Sukhi used the experience of the Jef-hl and quickly became the two powerhouse teams in the standings. Jeff's team struggled and was near the bottom of the standings. Then Jason and Jeff had a disagreement about the league rules and Jeff soon abandoned his team. Attila had Crosby and Sukhi had Ovechkin but more importantly both teams had solid depth. Attila ended up finishing first to win another championship and Sukhi finished second. While in the end Sukhi's team was not close to first place Attila, the team did pull away greatly from the rest of the pack. This was the first times since the Bains pool in high school that Sukhi was able to build a relevant team. After only one season the league quickly folded mostly because the league organizer lost interest with his team being close to last place.

PREMIER HOCKEY ASSOCIATION

Attila created this league for the hockey forum he has visited for years. The rules were almost identical to the Jef-hl with only slight modifications where it made sense. The biggest difference that for the first time the league was not straight points but head to head with an 82 game season and a head to head playoffs each season. The league captured everyone's interest and went on to become the best league to be part of for years. There was adversity to the league as Attila got too busy to maintain his commish position (he even dropped out of the league in its 3rd season only to come back in the 4th season) but with the great interest from the rest of the managers it was the rest of the league that kept the league going especially Leeaf and Gord serving as the commish and doing a fabulous job for years and years.

Attila drawing from his great experience in keeper pools built a primarily Eastern European player core dream team with: Ovechkin, Kovalchuk, Datsyuk, Havlat, Hemsky, Hasek, Oleg Tverdovsky, E. Staal, B. Richards, Lidstrom, Bertuzzi, both Kaberles, Koivu, Bergeron, Stillman, Nabokov. It was quite possibly the best team ever created. Only Emil (possibly the second best team ever created) was able to push Attila's Golden team to finish first in the regular season. Attila's Golden team however ended up destroying Emil in the playoffs. Attila's Golden team ended up winning five regular seasons in a row after partly with the additional help from Euro stars like Malkin, Gaborik, Semin, Backstrom Sedins, and Hemsky. However each playoffs they got upset in the semi finals. It was remarkable how it would happen year after year. Emil got their deserved championship the year after. Luke a young up and comer upset Attila that year after boldly predicting to do so. Leeaf with a very young team and injured Crosby and barely making the playoffs (as the sixth seed) won the championship the year after upsetting the great Emil team in the finals in 7 games (Spezza and Heatley letting Emil down in the final day).

Then came LT, he joined the league adapting a very poor team. In the off season LT did a good job building his team for the season however injuries soon would threaten to destroy the hard work. Despite more injuries then I can recall any team ever getting, LT did superb managing to keep his team somewhat in the playoffs. The team was very strong on defense but was only average at forward especially due to injuries. When the team was 12 points out of the playoffs chasing Jassa, nobody understood why LT is still adding players when he should be building for next season. Everyone thought LT was out of his mind. However soon the team kept winning and as they got some of their injured players back the team kept winning even more. In the end they did make the playoffs barely beating out Jassa. LT's team was very hot going into the playoffs and they kept that going in the playoffs beating one team after another. In the semi finals they beat Leeaf's good young team and then CC's team in the finals. It was like a movie from Hollywood. A horrible team, then a team crippled by injuries, never gave up and won the championship. LT had a better team on paper next season (adding great forwards to their already great defensive core) however they would be out in four game straight in the playoffs to Jassa's team (the team they knocked out of the playoffs the year before). This would be LT's last season in the PHA due to differences between him and the league.

After LT's championship victory. Gord pulled off a very similar miracle. In the year LT won the championship, Gord got frustrated with his team and traded all his best players for prospect. Everyone in the league thought Gord has completely lost it. Gord used the entire season to build for the following season. Gord used the money saved on not having his best players to pick up free agents in the off season but nobody saw Gord's team relevant so nobody paid attention. The team battled to make the playoffs and still nobody saw them as a threat. Then the team took off in the playoffs, first eliminating Leeaf's young superstar team, then Attila's powerful Eastern European team. Everyone thought with Gord beating the best teams, this would be Jassa's time to win the championship. That season Jassa benefitted from getting Henrik Sedin, Datsyuk, Hemsky and Bogosian for Malkin to help tremendously improve their depth. However Gord upset Jassa's team also and pulled off another Hollywood type of script. The following season Gord again started poorly and started doing the same strategy of trading their best players and having the whole year to build for next season.

JEF-HL Version 2.0

The Jef-hl was brought back again by Jeff Cornelious. Attila and Sukhi were given invites but they both politely declined. Surprisingly it was the youngest Bains, Sunny who took the invitation and his dream came true, Sunny was finally part of the legit keeper pool. Sunny picked a strong team, however injuries and players having off seasons didn't allow his team to reach its potential. Sunny was also double crossed by Ian when selecting players, the two had a deal on the side that Ian did not keep. Jeff was leading the league from beginning to end but with only five days remaining veteran Chris Devine jumped ahead. The two jumped back and forth until Chris ended up winning the league by only 3 points. This was Chris' first championship after years of building strong teams. With the Jef-HL still going Jeff declined participation in the CLH. Sunny Bains however has made the CLH his only priority after quitting the Jef-HL due to several questionable decisions by Jeff and the group that took over after Jeff was let go from his position due to self-admitedly trying to bend the rules his way. After the 2012-2013 season, the Jef-hl folded and Jeff was desperately trying to launch yet another new version of the Jef-hl just prior to the 2012-2013 season. Chris Devine has been announced as the new manager of the Expansion/Jets franchise.

JUMP FROM THE PHA, CREATION OF THE CLH SUPERLEAGUE

In the following PHA season Leeaf won the league beating an emerging Fulcrum. Sukhi also joined the league turning a team around from 8th to 3rd. However things got personal between Sukhi and Fulcrum/Leeaf therefore Sukhi was let go. With Emil leaving the season before being frustrated with the league and LT, Sukhi being let go, the league couldn't possibly find managers good enough to replace all three. Jassa has stayed in the league but with moving to England on a very busy course load, he admittedly won't be able to add as much to the league. Luke has a great upcoming team however it seems like the powers want to keep him down with his recent Staal and Kopitar deal being voided while more biased deals by Fulcrum (for instance Getzlaf and Parise), are cleverly not even brought up. Therefore the PHA has greatly suffered, as a result Fulcrum and Leeaf became the big fish in a suddenly very small bowl. With nothing likely to change in the future, Attila has turned his current main attention to the CLH quiting the PHA. Why put hours into the league when people who are not great friends with Leeaf are inevitably getting screwed. Attila leaves the PHA with finishing first overall for five straight years and won one championship. Gord has joined the CLH also and is eager to use his experience from the PHA to build a team that will be a model CLH franchise for years to come. LT, another super GM, has been brought in to really raise the level of competition in this pool. Parmvir and Karun the two best young hockey minds arounds were also brought in to make the CLH potentially become the most competitive, challenging league yet. For the last spot, one of the originals Onka-rus Bains a person who has disappeared from the face of the hockeypool world has been brought back after ten years to finally fulfill his destiny and win a championship. Onkar qualified to the Champions League of Hockey by winning the Rick Hanson hockeypool. On a comical note, Leeaf and Fulcrum using four false aliases (one being a female alias) joined the league and were quickly removed. Anything can happen in the hockeypool world. Still into our second season Fulcrum still randomly sends emails with various false aliases that we ignore. The guy is obviously terribly bitter and pathetic. The PHA still lives on today in some capacity.

Karun, the P.Thind hockeypool winner, won the CLH Roster draft lottery and took Alex Ovechkin as the first player to be ever selected in the CLH. The first ever trade was between Sunny and Gord. Sunny got superstar twin Henrik Sedin and Gord got a dman solid as a rock in Seabrook and a bunch of draft picks. With the 15th round being completed, looking at the rosters, the league looks to be incredibly competitive and unpredictable as all 8 teams seem to be very similarly strong. It is impossible to identify any weak links probably because these isn't, all eight managers are hockey champion caliber. For this reason alone, this could be a very strong league for years and years to come..

The CLH had a very successful season first season (see the Season 1 Review) won by Karun's Flyers. The league expanded by two more teams as Chuck is managing the LA Kings and Alex is managing the Jets. Konafreak also joined the league for LT moving the team from Montreal to Toronto. The NHL lock-out did not slow the momentum created from a very successful first season and now the league's second season full is in full swing.

The biggest story in the second season was Attila acquiring Alex Ovechkin to the Rangers from the Avalanche in a blockbuster trade. The Rangers still struggled with Alexander the Great and were as many as 10 points out of the playoffs. However the Rangers got hot down the stretch going an unbelievable 23-5 in their last 28 games (including playoff games) to make the playoffs by half a point in the last game of the regular season and then winning the Stanley Cup. Chuck also managed an outstanding achievement guiding his expansion team to the playoffs. The major trophies for this league are the Gretzky Cup, Presidents' Trophy and off course the Stanley Cup. It speaks to the depth of the league that in the last two seasons six of these trophies have been awarded and no team won a trophy twice (as the six trophies have been won by six different teams).

BAINS POOL CHAMPIONS

1996 SUKI

1997 GIAN

1998 ATTILA

JEFF KEEPER POOL ATTEMPT

1999 JEFF

2000 JEFF

JEF-HL CHAMPIONS

2002 SAL/JEFF

2003 ATTILA

2004 SAL

2005 LOCK-OUT NO WINNER

2006 JEFF

2007 SAL

2011 CHRIS

2012 JEFF

JASON KEEPER POOL

2008 ATTILA

PHA CHAMPIONS

2006 ATTILA

2007 EMIL

2008 LEEAF

2009 LT

2010 GORD

2011 LEEAF

2012 CC (ATTILA's FORMER TEAM)

2013 PINERIDER

CLH CHAMPIONS

2012 KARUN

2013 ATTILA

GRETZKY CUP WINNER

2012 PARMVIR

2013 SUKI

CLH PRESIDENTS TROPHY WINNER

2012 ONKAR

2013 SUNNY