Armchair Pools Blog

From Mike Chen's hockey blog:

The other night, during the awfully boring Phoenix Coyotes/San Jose Sharks game, my wife turned to me and said, “You know, these Coyotes games just aren’t as fun without Wayne Gretzky.” Of course, she wasn’t referring to the forechecking system that Gretzky used as opposed to Dave Tippett’s snore-inducing neutral zone trap. No, she meant that we wouldn’t get to see Gretzky blowing his lid behind the bench, making all sorts of amusing faces of fury.

With that in mind, I started looking to the rest of the NHL’s coaching fraternity to see if they could maintain the same level of entertainment with their “expressiveness.” Let’s take a look.

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Mike is currently 5th of 6 in our Blogger's Pool.

The 2009/2010 Bloggers Pool hosted by Armchair Pools is officially underway. We have invited various hockey bloggers from around the internet to compete in a hockey pool and put their money where their keystrokes are. Actually, there was no entry fee. And there is no monetary prize. So you readers from the Gambling Commission can just relax - the pool is strictly for bragging rights.

So who's in contention for wining the Bloggers Pool this year?

The field is below.

Armchair Pools is hosting a hockey pool.

Well, actually, we're hosting a lot of hockey pools. But this one is special.

It is our first annual Hockey Bloggers Pool. Poolies will consist of hockey bloggers from around the internet and bragging rights are on the line. Invitations are currently being sent out so if you are a hockey blogger keep an eye out for an email from us.

If you don't get an invitation and are interested in the pool, drop me a line at warren@armchairpools.com and I can make sure you get one.

The pool will be a minimal time commitment as picking players is all done online and there are no trades, benches or injury reserves. Once the season starts, all you just have to do is sit back and watch me win watch your pool.

Once the field has been established, I will write a post introducing the poolies and their blog sites. As the season progresses, I will post updates and standings and any other bits of interesting news.

I've included the pool format below.

Poolies will pick a team of 16 players with the following profile:

4 Goalscorers - 2 points for a goal and that's it.
4 Playmakers - 2 points for an assist and that's it.
4 Defensive Players - 2 points for each plus/minus. Be careful on this one, minus values count!
2 Goalies - 2 points for a win, 2 extra points for a shutout and 1 point for an overtime loss.
2 Enforcers - a quarter point for every penalty minute. Goals and assists don't mean anything.

Each poolie will "drop" the lowest player in each category. That is, they won't count towards point totaling.

Picks can be made and changed online up until midnight on Sept 30th. At this time, I will lock the pool and changes to teams will not be possible.

Good luck to all the poolies!