Welcome to the finish line, folks. The Winter IDL 2012 season has been completed. Congratulations to the Super Shotgun Spurs, We&#039;re All Doomed, Super Chargers and Killingbrowns for advancing to the post season in the IDC! Congratulations to the Brokeback Cowboys, Mass Destruction, Ricochet Rockets and Fnordy Niners for advancing to the post season in the WDC. Best of luck in the tournament, gentlemen. ;)<br /><br />With that said, it&#039;s time we start discussing awards. The first thing I want to point out is that this thread is in no way, shape or form an official ballot. The only true, historically maintained award is the MVP. The rest are just based on community discussion. Regardless, being praised by your peers is an awesome thing so while it&#039;s not official, it&#039;s still a pretty cool thing to be appreciated by the community. Let&#039;s begin:<br /><br />Captain of the year:<br /><br />Here are my top 3 candidates in no particular order: Ralphis, ThatsJustPrime and Strangle. <br /><br />Ralphis, SUC:<br /><br />While there were some players calling SUC&#039;s roster mediocre at best, I still believe most people thought this team would do okay. It certainly wasn&#039;t the power it typically has been in the past but they were no push-overs either. With constantly having to shuffle his roster game after game, Ralph&#039;s Superchargers were right there with their opponent&#039;s in every loss and tie. They were never swept in a loss and are possibly a few plays away from being the #1 seed in the IDC. Ralph was a man on fire this season and carried the load when his players weren&#039;t always performing. His endless work ethic to improve his team&#039;s abilities and chances is remarkable. Regardless, with a weaker SUC team in recent memories as well as the presence of SGS and WAD, SUC was a fun team to watch. Good job, Ralph!<br /><br /><br />ThatsJustPrime, BBC:<br /><br />Like Ralphis, Prime didn&#039;t have any superstars on his team. At least, not top 5 worthy. While Gyross was a great addition and probably the strongest player he had, it was apparent after a few weeks he wasn&#039;t going to be around. Having your number 1 pick bail and being forced to win with a 3rd who has hardly seen any IDL gametime is pretty impressive. To do that [b]and[/b] lock up the number 1 seed in your conference? Incredible. Prime manned up this season and was lights out. This was his best season (probably not statistically) by far. He has a great chance to make a good post season run with the #1 seed and perhaps he&#039;ll make a return appearance to the masterbowl. <br /><br />Strangle, KNF:&nbsp; &nbsp;  <br /><br />Probably the long-shot of the group but what Strangle did this season was impressive. Having Whiteboy is a pretty cool thing but Strangle made everyone scratch their head when he drafted Legion. Give credit where credit is due, Strangle had faith in Legion and Legion was a baller this season. The scary part is, if White actually cared a little more and practiced more often, this team could have been even better. Regardless, given the preseason predictions, Strangle exceeded expectations (just want to point out I said this team would make the post season!!). Good job, Strangle!<br /><br />All 3 of these captains are examples of what make good IDL captains. They are responsible, committed and have a desire to win, improve and to simply enjoy the game. My personal feeling for Strangle is that having Whiteboy probably eliminates his chances. Ralph and Prime didn&#039;t have a true superstar and Ralph is Ralph, so....my vote goes with Prime. His team was predicted to be basement dwellers in their conference, his #1 overall pick bailed and he still managed to win the #1 seed. So...<br /><br />IDL Captain of the Year, Winter2012: ThatsJustPrime!!!<br /><br />Comeback/Breakout player of the year:<br /><br />To be honest, this will seem bias but in my mind it&#039;s pretty simple. Out of all the people you could nominate, who would you select over Bloodstrike? He came out of nowhere to have his best year ever as a player. His contributions helped build the best regular season record in the league for SGS. I&#039;ve never run but manged 50+ caps with him backing me up. And to even further prove my point, I&#039;ll say this: Junior had 30+ caps last season, this season he didn&#039;t even crack 20. Last season he had Bloodstrike and I suspect Blood probably made him look much better than he really is, much the same way he has done for me. Not really totally relevant but something worth note, I believe. Anywho, if someone can rival this, I&#039;m interested in hearing!!!<br /><br />Comeback/Breakout player of the Year: Bloodstrike<br /><br />Ralph Vickers&#039; Just for Men MVP, Winter 2012:<br /><br />This list is very exclusive but I believe it&#039;s worth mentioning more names than people realize. Ralph and Prime, two of the captain of the year candidates, were awesome. And in fact, without these two players, their teams would be like PBH: probably winless. I know I&#039;ve been mentioned and while I jokingly predicted that I&#039;d win the award, I seriously don&#039;t want to toot my own horn here. Chaindude is definitely worthy of discussion. 64 captures in one season has to be a new record. But, there&#039;s part of me that hates selecting guys on stacked teams. The question is, for players like Chaindude and I, would we be doing this on less-talented teams? And were our contributions the highlight of our teams? I&#039;m not even sure either of us are the best players on our teams, so I don&#039;t know where I stand on that. But since Prime won the captain of the year award and exceeded expectations there, I&#039;m hesitant to give him the MVP nod. Stats do matter and thing he tops out in are flag returns. Ralph has fragged it up, gotten a respectable 19 captures and has been the sole reason for why his team made it this far. He&#039;s played practically every position for SUC and in my mind, has the stats necessary to be considered for MVP. My vote would go to him but this is something the board will determine. Nonetheless, my 2012 Winter MVP is Ralphis!<br /><br />Ralph Vickers&#039; Just For Men Winter2012 MVP is none other than, well, RALPH!!!!