Well, last weekend, this photo somehow got posted on Twitter:
Were the 40% correct? Let’s see!
Here’s the graph of everyone’s points from the start of the season until the end of last week, i.e. not including the final week’s points:
The pool separated into two main groups quite early on, with Modscientist, Lavaland, Ricardipus and me fighting it out for the top spot. Having more players this year definitely made things more exciting, as the lead changed hands many times and it was any of the top three’s game right until the final week.
Gerty spent a good few weeks well clear in fifth place, but a strong challenge from ScientistMother in the last few weeks sent her down into sixth. Chall had an excellent week 25, but could she catch Gerty and SM?
Meanwhile, at the bottom, Bob, Beth and Mr E Man stopped changing their picks. At least one of them had excellent reasons for this failure of pool maintenance; at least one of them said “it’s just too much work!”. I don’t know about Bob 🙂
I decided two days into the final week to record everyone’s points daily, but then promptly forgot the next day, which is why there’s a day on the graph below where it looks like no-one got any points. I pulled it together for the last few days though, even as I despaired at my picks and spent a lot of time swearing quietly under my breath as I refreshed the nhl.com scores page (especially last night). I’d taken some variables into account – the number of games each team was playing, which goalies were facing which other goalies, who was still fighting for a playoff spot and who was just trying to get through the last few games without anyone getting injured – but forgot about others, such as teams resting their star players (or at least giving them reduced ice time) ahead of the playoffs. And, unfortunately, it showed:
40% of #vwxpool members clearly had no idea what they were talking about!
Many congratulations to Ricardipus, who was at or near the top of the pool almost all the way through. Well played, sir, and enjoy those bragging rights! Modscientist also played a stormer, as my Dad would say, and her last minute surge into second place spot is well deserved.
THANK YOU to everyone who played, trash talked on blogs and/or on twitter, and especially those who have their own blogs and helped with the hosting duties. It’s been a blast, and we will definitely be doing this again next year!
BUT FIRST, there’s the small matter of the playoffs! I’ll be cheering on the Canucks – President’s Trophy winners AGAIN, doncha know (not that it did us any good last year) – as they take on the LA Kings (hooray for opponents in the same time zone! I hate weekday 4pm starts against allegedly “Western” teams who play in the Eastern time zone).
Thanks to Lavaland, we also have a playoff pool! It’s on the same platform as the regular season pool we’ve just wrapped up, and all players should have already received an email from the CBC with details of how to join the pool – the private group is called vwxpool, password vwxpool.
GO CANUCKS GO!
UPDATE: as well as joining the Hockey Night in Canada Playoff Pool mentioned above, a few of us are also playing in the NHL Bracket Challenge in a league set up by Modscientist. Instead of picking players you just pick the winner of each series and guess the number of games they’ll play. Join up here – group name and password are both hockeysci.
Thanks Mod!
Wooo! Kept my place at the bottom. Let’s see if I can keep it up through the play-offs. And commiserations to Ricardipus for coming top, and therefore heading for failure next year.
I’m still trying to work out who this Kia Reminder is who keeps on emailing us about our picks.
I think she’s the head of the NHL scheduling committee
…and we thank you, Cath, for once again being the Host With The Most.
Well, almost. 😉
That was really tense – 5-point margin on a total of 1,091. Quick, someone do some stats to prove my win isn’t statistically significant!
Thank you everyone, fun as always, and mod definitely had me sweating there (who gets 14 points out of a goalie in a single week?!!!!).
“Quick, someone do some stats to prove my win isn’t statistically significant!”
I actually had a dream last night that I had to figure out how to do that. Thanks.
(at least it was a break from lying awake thinking about the grant application we’ve discussed a few times recently)
woho! I fended off the “I will drag you down to the bottom of the pool” 😉 Congrats Ricaripus for winning! Well done with the Finns and all!!
I’m all in for play offs. No mercy (maybe only funny in my world?)
(as for a side kick, I’m going to be in Vancouver, the most lovely city in places, while second round of play offs happens and I will meet Dr E and Mr E (I hope) while madly cheering for the Canucks! 🙂 fun times indeed. Who knows, maybe that will tip the 40% being 50% ??? )
“the most lovely city in places…” <– I love the qualifier… having experienced one or two of Vancouver's seedy bits in the past, too. But agree 100% on the lovely bits.
Don’t worry, we will take Chall to a nice bar to watch the game!
I still can’t believe the playoffs start tomorrow. It’s really crept up on me this year.
So yeah, I suck. I was totally supposed to post last week but Storm of Swords sucked me in, as you know from txts and FB. I am still so upset by it. I’ll do the playoff pool but I’m reading Feast for Crows, so we’ll see how well I do at it.
Heh – no worries. I’m still upset about it too.
I’m happy to do all the playoff updates myself – there are only 4 of them. However, if – as happened last year – the Canucks lose in the finals, someone else will have to post the final update. I was too upset last year and then never got around to it… oops… I actually can’t even remember who won! (It wasn’t me).
I finished A Feast for Crows a couple of weeks ago, and am still upset about what happened in Storm of Swords! Mr E Man is STILL only about 3/4 of the way through the next book, so I can’t read what happens next until he’s done. He says he’s “savouring it” because who knows when the next book will come out? I say he should speed read, let me read the book after him, then read it again in savouring mode.
I have to sayy I’m not into feast for crows as much. Maybe its because so many new characters are being introduced or because I’m still upset over storm of swords. Hopefully I finish it this week so that I do my taxes. I’m such an addict when it comes to books
I thought so at the beginning too – I was emotionally drained after SoS, and keeping track of all the new and returning minor characters just seemed to arduous. I kept thinking things like “who’s this Brienne is fighting now? She’s obviously met them before. Who the hell are they?!”. I also missed some of my fave characters whose stories got pushed back to A Dance with Dragons instead of being included in FFC. But I got much more into it towards the end, and the very end? totally unputdownable, made me late for work – the first time a book had done that to me since Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire!
I finished FFC on Thursday night and haven’t decided if I want to pay $20 for a dance with dragons. I’m still upset over SoS and now annoyed with FFC. Brienne’s plot had me frustrated but I want to know what happens to Jamie and the black fish…..I guess I need to get my taxes done:-)