younggunshockey final ranking
- Thread starter Ola
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George Bachul said:
What we are is a new business looking to get our site going. Of course we'd wished everything would roll along smoothly but I hope that a player being listed twice on a chart for about 24 hours is not going to doom us.
As for the "controversial" rankings. I never realized ranking a few players higher or lower than other people had them would be causing a "controversy". Again, if we were just going to spew out the same stuff you could get elsewhere, then why bother? We take chances on players we really like and we'll stand by those choices. One thing that always bugged me was reading a draft guide and reading how much the author "really liked" a certain player, only to have him rank that player low anyway and then cover his but by calling the player a "sleeper" pick. That's a load of crap. If you are hyping a player then make the ranking fit the hype.
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George Bachul said:
Was there really something wrong with our comparing Phaneuf to Adam Foote? I dunno, I think the comparison and our mini-scouting report still stands as being accurate. Where a player is drafted happens because of many reasons. Had Suter gone a pick or two later, Phaneuf would have gone lower. As far as we're concerned, what it comes down to is we think anyone who looked at our Phaneuf comments would have gotten an accurate read on the player. In the end, we had Phaneuf as the 4th highest ranked D-man and he wound up going the third highest. I hardly think we missed the boat on that one.
We're not always right but we're certainly not always wrong either. We got a lot of raised eyebrows for having Ryan Kesler ranked higher than anybody else but there he was at 19 years of age suiting up for the Canucks last season, beating a lot of players drafted before him into the NHL. We also had Nilsson ranked in the second round, while others had him ranked in the top half of the first. Well, he had a crapper of a season this past season. You win some, you lose some. We feel confident that we'll win as many as anybody else.
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I'll sign off with this: All we wanted to do was put together a draft guide which wouldn't cost people an arm and a leg. Something so that when your team made a pick in the 3rd round, for example, you'd likely be able to find some info on him in our guide. The profiles we prepare on each player stand on their own regardless of where the player is ranked. We'll tell you a player's good and bad qualities. We'll throw in what we feel are interesting stats and facts to back up our opinions. I don't just want some "expert" telling me a guy is good offensively. I want him to back it up, if space permits, and that's what we try to do.
We're a new company that's still figuring things out. We may screw up from time to time in the execution of certain things but we take pride in the draft guide we put out and the new one is really packed with information. I don't think there's better bang for the buck anywhere.
We've put up a lot of free content so people could see what we can do. If you like what you see, that's great. If you don't, that's cool too. We know we can't please everybody.
We're a new company that's still figuring things out. We may screw up from time to time in the execution of certain things but we take pride in the draft guide we put out and the new one is really packed with information. I don't think there's better bang for the buck anywhere.
We've put up a lot of free content so people could see what we can do. If you like what you see, that's great. If you don't, that's cool too. We know we can't please everybody.
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Thanks for all the posts Chief. Good to see someone who runs a site give the lowdown on the rankings, logistics, problems etc.
I, too, get tired of people who say things like "Berti before Bickell! That's ridiculous!", as if this were a claim equivalent to saying the Pope is a Muslim.
As for the controversial picks- every site, every NHL team has them. In fact, if you didn't have them people would be complaining that you were just regurgitating the same old stuff...
I think the write-ups on your site are worth the reasonable cost and recommend it to readers. I think you'd get more clients though if you had put it up before the others came out and everybody got jaded.
I, too, get tired of people who say things like "Berti before Bickell! That's ridiculous!", as if this were a claim equivalent to saying the Pope is a Muslim.
As for the controversial picks- every site, every NHL team has them. In fact, if you didn't have them people would be complaining that you were just regurgitating the same old stuff...
I think the write-ups on your site are worth the reasonable cost and recommend it to readers. I think you'd get more clients though if you had put it up before the others came out and everybody got jaded.
RangerBoy said:
Ok, Sheriff!
Chief said:
Preferably writers should see the players and not go from second-hand resources. I respect what you're doing, your website looks pretty nice and it's always good to have other opinions. You should specify if you have writers who are on place to see those players (I doubt in much cases, even tho the profiles make it look like you've got writers all over the place), and if not, on what "resources" you base your opinions.
Keep an eye open around here, you'll meet quite a few persons that would make good writers for this kind of stuff. Vlad for instance, as long as you don't let him talk about films.
steblick said:
IMO the YoungGun´s are on top of the class so far. I´ve read both RLR and THN and it felt like waste of money. What does this say about a prospect - great speed solid size good vision ect.? It means nothing to me...
The youngguns write-up on the players is great, its pioneering compared to THN and RLR. I´ve read that they have scouts in atleast 3 european countries.
I´ve seen plenty of Swedish prospects and was in Finland and watched the WJC live and agrees with most of their reports on the Euros. Thats thats hardly not the case after reading THN and RLR...
Disco Volante said:
First of all, thanks for the constructive criticism. The only way we can provide a better service is to pay attention to people who give a hoot.
I have to go into a meeting for my day job, so I'll touch on more things later but I did want clear up one of your points lest people get the wrong idea. When I said there were few draft resources, I was referring to resources for fans of the draft, not our draft guide. Basically, you've got Redline, ISS, THN, McKeens and HF as main sources of info if you want to follow the draft. And to have them all you'd have to spend quite a bit. This isn't like the NFL draft, at least not in the US, where you have draft info coming out of your ears. We have 1 or 2 main scouts in every major European hockey country and 1-3 main scouts covering the various leagues in North America. With tape trading and the ability to download a game that someone posts on the internet, it's a lot easier to see more games.
As for the people on HF boards, I think your right. I don't come here often but there are certainly some posters I've seen already who know their stuff. The problem for now is that we do this as mostly a labor of love. There isn't much margin on a printed draft guide when you're sending things out Priority Mail in the US ($3.85) and Global Priority around the world ($7.00) and going to Kinkos to print out draft guides. I guess that's why other services charge $40 for a guide.
Thanks for the comments folks. And it's a good thing nobody checked the site at around 7:00am EST. I woke up today and went to our site to see if the correction had been made to the Top 15 chart. It was...but #12 was listed as Mark Schwaz!
I was lucky enough to call my web designer and catch him at his computer and he made the change immediately. See you guys later.- Status
