For decades, some Minnesota women have found themselves "widowed" on the weekend of the deer hunting opener. They face a similar scenario all autumn, as fantasy football grabs hold of their men -- and doesn't let go.
Now they're fighting back by joining celebrity fantasy leagues, in which players "draft" famous folks and earn points based on published photos and items in celeb-centric magazines.
"It has really been a lot of fun," said Amanda Wood of the 10-woman league at her St. Cloud office. "The consensus was that we were pretty sick of husbands or boyfriends talking all the time about fantasy football. Now we love this game. We give each other crap in the hallways all the time."
Uh, sounds like ... guys, actually.
It turns out that more than a few men have tapped into the Celebrity Fantasy Draft site, many of them retired or rebuffed fantasy sports fans.
The NHL lockout prompted Kevin O'Malley to start a league with co-workers at the Edina Super Target.
"I usually am in a hockey fantasy league, and I needed something to fill the void," O'Malley said. "One of the guys I work with had said that his wife is in a celebrity fantasy league, and being that I work with all women, I'm, like, 'Let's do this.'"
Since the online game (www.celebrityfantasydraft.com) was launched a year ago, more than 2,000 players have gathered and selected their very own British royals and Kardashians, Beyoncés and Biebers. Once the teams (five women, four men, one child) are selected and entered into the site, Celebrity Fantasy Draft tracks the scoring and rules on unforeseen anomalies.