The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year....

The NHL season starts today (it now being Thursday morning). Two hockey pools this year; the one I ran as comissioner of the When Saturday Comes Forum which I ran on Sunday lunchtime, and the one I entered at my now former place of work this evening. Tonight was the first one I have ever done in auction style; I had an imaginary $200 to spend and allocate as I saw fit. Here's what I saw fit to spend (see below left). I had a plan to fairly evenly allocate my $200 among my 18 players but it became fairly clear fairy early that I would have to abandon that, given the amount of money that went on the first six or seven picks. $60 for Corey Perry? Seriously? After watching some people blow half their budget on their first two players (the Bangkok Chuzillas went for the Sedin Twins at ruinous cost),  I played my way in and I can honestly say that of the 18 picks above left there is only one I'm unsure about. For the record, here's the money spent on each: Iginla $40, Rinne $15, Zetterberg $26, Getzlaf $32, Kovalchuk $11, Lecavalier $5, Backes $6, Thornton $12, Visnovsky $8, Pavelski $5, Kessel $5, Lidstrom $9, Burns $6, Crawford $3, Subban $2, Hossa $5, Grabovski $5, Selanne $5. PK SUBBAN FOR TWO DOLLARS? SELANNE FOR FIVE? I'LL HAVE TWO!

Sunday saw my debut as commissioner. I think the When Saturday Comes forum is brilliant; a rare island of thought and knowledge in a vast ocean of complete nonsense. Given the number of fantasy sports there are on that forum, I though a fantasy hockey pool was in order and so I volunteered to take the reins. Nine entrants were interested and Sunday saw a traditional 'snake' draft, in which the order of picking is constantly reversed (i.e. 1st through 9th then 9th through 1st and so on). Here's how I did:

Pretty darned good, I think, on both counts. My plan was 'forwards forwards forwards' and so ignored some of the shiny defencemen on offer. Certainly more in the latter pool than the former, though. That's where I fell down last year, so hopefully I've learned my lesson. In the auction, I'll have to hope that going for depth was worth foregoing most of the star forwards, who were well out of reach very early.

Tomorrow: also on a hockey bent,  the return of the Winnipeg Jets.