Everybody Into the Pool

It's a rite of autumn, back after last year's hiatus. Last night we held the draft for our annual NHL pool at work. And amid all the trash talking and preening and mocking of the way people mangled the pronunciations of some Eastern European names, all sixteen participants were in the same boat: We were totally winging it. I mean, after a year layoff and all the rule changes, who really knows what players will be the top performers this year? And just for added pressure, I drew the number 1 pick, which means that I had to essentially pick the year's scoring champion. Because our draft order reverses every other round, I wouldn't get my second pick until the 32nd overall, so drafting first isn't the best position to be in. I went for a safe pick, a proven performer who doesn't have a history of being prone to injury. Vancouver's Markus Naslund should be good for well over 100 points this year.

Everybody needed to draft nine forwards, three defencemen and two goalies (who get points for wins, OT/shootout losses and shutouts, as well as goals and assists). I'm California Dreamin' with my two goalies, Evgeni Nabokov in the Shark Tank and J-S Giguere on the Duck Pond.

I made an effort to avoid older players. Some of them might rack up a lot of points, but the risk of injury is too big. Plus, with the rule changes and tighter enforcement of hooking and holding, speed will be allowed to shine in the league once again. So I picked several rookies: Chicago's Pavel Vorobiev, Colorado's Marek Svatos, and New Jersey's Zach Parise, as well as Boston's sophomore star Patrice Bergeron. My oldest players are Naslund and the Islanders' Alexei Yahin and Jason Blake at 32, Nabokov and Nashville defenseman Kimmo Timonen at 30. I bet the guy who picked Brett Hull feels like a fool now. (He announced his retirement tonight.)

Rounding out my forwards are Daniel Briere (Buffalo) and Brian Gionta (New Jersey). My remaining defencemen are Zdeno Chara (Ottawa) and Ric Jackman (Pittsburgh). Heading into tonight's action I am in second place. Obviously there's a really long way to go (and my players aren't doing so well tonight from what I see), but it's nice to be off to a good start. Last time I was almost 100 points behind at Christmas, made a steady charge in the second half to briefly take the lead, and ended up in third place - which means I won my $40 back. It'll be $400 for the winner, and $180 for second place - with $20 going to Officepools.com for administration.

This is probably an extremely dull blog entry for most people, but I'm pretty excited about this NHL season. From what I've seen, the game looks great. They needed to do something about the clutching and hooking and open up the game, and that has certainly happened. If you haven't checked out a game in a few years, have another look. And Go Sharks! Go Ducks!