Hockey pool

So I had my first hockey pool the other day (my big one is next Wednesday, so it was a good tuneup).

There were seven of us, and we had to choose seven forwards, four defencemen and one goalie. You get two points for every goal, one for every assist, two points for a goalie win and five for a shutout.

By having goals worth more, it creates a different way of thinking when choosing players. Mark Savard with his 78 points isn’t as good because he had only 15 goals last season (which would count for 93 points in our pool). Brad Boyes had only 65 points last year, but 43 were goals, which would be 108 points in our pool. So you have to think strategy a little differently.

In the end, I’m pretty happy with my team.

I ended up with:

Forwards: Jarome Iginla, Ilya Kovalchuk, Marian Gaborik, Rick Nash, Joe Sakic, Simon Gagne, and Patrice Bergeron.

Defence: Sheldon Souray, Wade Redden, Joe Corvo, and Phillipe Boucher.

Goalie: Miikka Kiprusoff.

In the end, I’m pretty happy with the team. There were only three players who scored 50 goals last year, and I have two of them (Iginla and Kovalchuk). Plus Souray should lead defencemen in goals. All in all, a winning team.