So as I mentioned in the final update for the regular season pool, we’re running two competitions for the NHL playoffs: a pool, in which you pick players and get points for their goals/assists/goalie wins & shutouts; and a bracket, in which you pick the winner of each series and guess how many games each match-up will run to.
The pool contains everyone from the regular season pool except Mr E Man, who got his ass kicked by a bunch of girls and non-Canadians and has gone home in a huff decided it was all too much like hard work.
Nice work by Gerty there! It’s a fairly even field so far, with the possible exception of Mod and Lava. I’m frankly astonished I came third, given that I’d picked the ill-fated Fleury and Howard as my two goalies – but when Mod shared some of her picks via Twitter, I a) guffawed and b) realised my choices weren’t quite that bad.
The bracket challenge league contains a subset of the above players plus assorted friends and family of Mod and Lava:
And Gerty wins again! VERY nicely done, Gerty!
As for the rest of us, our performaces suggested the following hypothesis:
“The ability to pick high-scoring individual hockey players is inversely correlated to the ability to predict the outcome of individual playoff match-ups”
Preliminary data: the comparative scores of six female players of assorted nationality
Trend line added by Excel. So sue me.
Being a good scientist, I obviously excluded Gerty, who is a freak clear outlier:
I shall be writing a grant forthwith to study this phenomenon further. The budget request will include playoff tickets for myself and a select group of trainees, plus copious amounts of beer to allow me to observe participants in their natural environment and state. Can’t go wrong, really.
Round 2 picks due today, folks!
WOO HOO!!! I am going to bask in my fluke win for as long as possible! 🙂
According to my model, only one of your two wins was a fluke
What’s the r value on that correlation, Cath?
Also, I was first in the points pool every single day of the playoffs until the day that it counted! Just my luck!
What’s the r value on that correlation, Cath?
“We r really bad at this”
It’s close at the top, and there are still three rounds to go!
I’m assuming the fact that I’m third from the bottom and well behind the pack, that in the first pool I’m mine own group.
I’m doing no better in the second pool, where i”m smack dab between IndyR and Cowy. What you didn’t know I was in the bracket pool?! Probably because I only just joined the group now. Which is hilarious because I only joined the bracket pool to be part of the group…….I blame the children.
ah well, you’ll make it into the next update!
See, I’m forth in one and …hmm… forth in the other one. So, that means I’m good at not getting a medal? 😉
Looking forward being in that test group for the data collection 🙂
maybe one of the top three will be disqualified and you’ll sneak a bronze 🙂
Hey, how did I get put behind Ricardipus, eh?
It’s Excel’s fault, not mine. I entered everyone’s name and score in alphabetical order, then sorted by score.
Bob – you’ll kick me in round 2. I was out at a dinner and movie with my family and missed the pick deadline. I have three players left, I think.
I honestly couldn’t figure out how to sign up for the bracket thingy – it wanted some login info that I didn’t have. Ah well. Less embarrassment that way.
hm, I’ looked at round 2 picks. Thanks for reminding me about the pick deadline Cath. Did something go amiss with your picks? From what I see there are only 4 picks…. 🙁
As for picking the brackets with teams, I completely forgot that one, which sucks a lot!
Correction – I’ve got four players. Unfortunately they’ve managed a grand total of zero (0) points so far, as compared with Cath’s mighty 5 points.
I’m doomed.
Well, I thought I’d made my picks. I even wrote them down on a post-it on my desk, with asterisks next to my starred double-points picks. But clearly I missed a step and forgot to hit submit or something. Or maybe there was a technical problem with the site. As you can tell from my most recent post, it’s all been a bit fraught and frantic around here lately, so it’s probably my fault.
I am not at all happy about this. In fact, when Beth first pointed it out on Twitter, there may have been a lot of swearing.
I’m counting on (a) lots of shutouts from Martin Brodeur, and (b) lots and lots of goals from Ovechkin.
Let’s all say it together: “I’m doomed.”
No, you’re generously giving the rest of us a chance. Almost (but not quite) as generously as Mr. E-man.
LOL. I’ll tell him that.
I’m just glad I still have Claude “here, let me score ~87% of your entire first round points for you” Giroux. But of course, I don’t have a single goalie. BOOOOOO.
Now you know how Scottish football fans feel.