Armchair Pools Blog

The official rosters for men's hockey at the Olympics can be found here at the IIHF website. The NHL also has a roster page. Changes can be made to these rosters until February 15th. On this date, there is some meeting at the IIHF where all teams submit their final rosters. So keep your eye on this page to see what happens with Ryan Getzlaf, Johan Franzen, etc ... I don't know when this meeting happens, but I will post something after it occurs.

Note that when you setup your Olympic hockey pool at Armchair Hockey Pools, you will be able to select players that might not be on the Olympic teams. For example Mike Komisarek and Paul Martin are still available for selection even though they have been officially replaced. We have players like this on the list because they have already been picked by some poolies and removing them would mean taking them off people's teams, and we don't want to do this.

Also note that this means that we will not automatically update injured players with their official replacement. Being aware of injuries is all part of the hockey pool challenge, so stay up to date and doublecheck the players you have picked!

Are you ready for your Olympic Hockey Pool? Armchair Pools has compiled a spreadsheet of all the NHL players that are (or might be) participating in the Olympics. It looks something like this:

First,Last,NHL,Olympics,Position,Goals,Assists,Games_Played
Maxim,Afinogenov,Thrashers,Russia,F,19,27,60
Daniel,Alfredsson,Senators,Sweden,F,17,31,50
David,Backes,Blues,USA,F,13,22,59
Niklas,Backstrom,Wild,Finland,G,0,0,45
Nicklas,Backstrom,Capitals,Sweden,F,26,50,62
Oskars,Bartulis,Flyers,Latvia,D,0,8,45
....

It includes their NHL team, their national team, position, NHL goals, NHL assists and NHL games played. You can download it here

Thanks to Richard's proofreading we discovered that Alexander Ovechkin was missing from our last file. He's included in the latest one. Although, if you really need help deciding when to draft him (hint: right away) you're in trouble in your pool already.

Note that we have included bubble players like Johan Franzen and Jeff Carter so you have their info just in case.

The file includes games up to Feb 13th. We probably won't update it to include the last 6 games tonight as the extra games will not affect things that much. If you have a strong need for these extra games, let us know and we can report the file.

Good luck in your pool!

With all the fuss about the Great One being in Vancouver, it was a pretty big surprise to learn that someone else lit the Olympic Cauldron.

"The opening ceremonies are Friday, and Gretzky's appearance in the host city Wednesday have many saying it's a sure sign he will light the Olympic cauldron to kick off the Games".
-NHL.com

I mean, if he isn't in Vancouver to light the cauldron, why on earth would he be here?

So strange.

Interested in some ideas for your Olympic hockey pool? Check out this CBC article.

There's another article here

The boxes for our Olympic box pools are complete! If you have created an Olympic box pool, you and your poolies can now make your picks.

You have to make all of the picks before you can save your team. However, don't stress it if you can't decide which players to choose. You can always come back and edit your team.

Pool administrators - by default your box pools are not locked and your poolies can make their own picks online. However, once you have decided that no more changes to teams can be made, make sure to lock your pool to prevent poolies from changing their team part way through the Olympics. This can be done under Pool Settings.

We've been getting this question from a lot of people regarding our Olympic Hockey Pool so I thought I would put up a specific post.

The pool costs $5 per pool, not per person. So this means that ...

A pool of 10 poolies is $5, not $50
A pool of 20 poolies is $5, not $100
A pool of 100 poolies is $5, not $500
A pool of 200.. you get the idea.

As always, any questions feel free to send us an email atsupport@armchairpools.com. Or post to the blog so everyone can read.

I have finished a first draft of the boxes for the Olympic Box Pool we are offering. I need to fine tune a few things but they should be up sometime this week. Thanks for your patience!

Here's a sneak preview of one of the boxes ...

Ziggy Paalfy - Slovakia
Sergei Fedorov - Russia
Jaromir Jagr - Czech Republic
Peter Forsberg - Sweden
Teemu Selanne - Finland

Don't worry, I haven't gone all 90's on you. I will have some boxes with the big names. But could not resist putting a box together with all the old stars. My money is on Jagr, but if Forsberg's healthy he could compete too. And Selanne always seem to surprise. Time will tell ...

The Olympic season at Armchair Pools is open for business. Any pool created between now and the end of the 2010 Olympics will be an Olympic pool.

We have loaded all of the rosters for all 12 Olympic teams. The boxes for our box-style pool have been built. Note that if box pools are not your thing, you can create a draft-style pool right now and pick any player on an Olympic roster.

All Olympic pools are only $5 but come with a free trial that lasts from now until a few days into the Olympics so come check it out for free. If you find any roster issues, please let us know. But please keep it clean. We had one user tell me to go f%k myself because he could not find Mikael Samuelson on Team Sweden.

Also, a lot of people have been complaining that Chris Pronger is still in our system under Team Canada. I sincerely apologize for this. We purged all of the players from the 2006 Olympic team and loaded the 2010 team. However, somehow he did not disappear and seems to be on the 2010 team. I keep trying to remove him, but I get this message that says "User cannot be removed. Please talk to Hockey Canada" every time I hit the delete button.

Hopefully I will figure out a way to get him removed before the games start, however it might not happen. I hope this does not cause you (or Canada) grief during the Olympics.

If there are any questions about our Olympic pool offering, feel free to send us an email at support@armchairpools.com or leave a comment on this blog post so others can read.

Armchair Pools now supports the creation of Olympic Hockey Pools. Check out this post for more information.

Belarus - Official Roster | NHL.com prediction
Russia - Official Roster | NHL.com prediction | Russians unwraps team | Coach Q&A
Sweden - Official Roster | NHL.com prediction | Forsberg and Lidstrom | Coach Q&A
Slovakia - Official Roster | NHL.com prediction | Gaborik, Chara, Halak
Norway - Official Roster
Latvia - Official Roster
Germany - Official Roster
Czech Republic - Official Roster | NHL.com prediction | Jagr returns
Switzerland - Official Roster | NHL.com prediction
Canada - Official Roster | NHL.com prediction | What it takes to win
Finland - Official Roster | NHL.com prediction | Kipper and Selanne highlight
USA - Official Roster | NHL.com prediction | Kane and Johnson highlight

Am I the only one who has taken a bigger interest in Norwegian hockey?

And how do I draft them in my Olympic hockey pool?

Go Norway.