Hockey Talk, Playoff Predictions and More

While cruising the Internet yesterday and trying to drum up more interest in the Hockey Playoffs Pool (tick, tick, tick…), I came across a website with links to many different hockey blogs and links.

There is some great stuff here, so I figure it is a good time to share. The website I came to is Spector’s Hockey run by Lyle Richardson from Prince Edward Island. Click on “hockey links” in the navigation bar and you’ll find 70+ links to other hockey sites. These range from James Mirtle’s Blog, who writes for the Globe and Mail and hence has a professional look and feel, to Jes and Greg’s Blog with entertaining commentary and blog tagline “This isn’t your gramma’s Hockey Blog, son!”. I haven’t even scratched the surface here, but if you want to read hockey opinions, Lyle’s links are as good a place as any to start. Lyle also has his own blog.

Now, more relevant to our current circumstance, with the playoffs starting tomorrow night, we need some opinions on who advances through this first round. Let’s go with Lyle’s predictions and my comments. This way you get 2 opinions for the price of 1.

Western Conference

Detroit in 6 over Calgary – Agree. The times I watched Calgary the last few months the defensive play in their own end was poor. It improved as the playoffs approached, and as Colorado challenged them for that final playoff spot, but I still come away skeptical of what looked to me like a team making too many critical errors that will get them killed in the playoffs.

Minnesota in 7 over Anaheim – Disagree. As much as I don’t care for the guy, Chris Pronger was a force for Edmonton last year and should be a big difference maker for the Ducks. Potentially tough series but Anaheim is one of my favourites to go deep in the playoffs.

Vancouver in 6 over Dallas – Agree. I give a significant edge to Roberto Luongo over Marty Turco.

Nashville in 6 over San Jose – Disagree. San Jose is one of those teams with seemingly higher expectations every year (that’s not just me, is it?) than what they are able to accomplish. Ah, I’m sticking with them again this year, at least through this round.

Eastern Conference

Buffalo in 5 over NY Islanders – Agree. Sabres are just too strong. Now if this could get decided in a shootout with poke checking phenom Wade Dubielewicz, then I might have to go the other way.

New Jersey in 6 over Tampa Bay – Agree, in fewer games. Weak goaltending on the Lightning side vs. Martin Brodeur. The Devils are my Eastern Conference Survivor Pick.

NY Rangers in 5 over Atlanta – Agree. Honestly these are two teams I don’t know much about at all, so really I have a “no opinion” on this one. Jagr? Shanahan? Sure, looks good.

Pittsburgh in 6 over Ottawa – Agree. This pick for me is more who I want to win than who I think will win. The Pens don’t have much playoff experience and Marc-Andre Fleury may not be up to the task, but I have no love for Ottawa. Let’s see if Gary Roberts can focus the energy of these young guys to propel them past the Sens.

Overall, great job Lyle. We only disagree on 2 of your picks.

Hmm… I did say “more” in the title of this post. What more can I say? Two small things on the playoff pools.

1. My buddy Dmitry questioned why I was charging GST on Canadian entries in the pool. As I told him, unfortunately, I have no choice in the matter. The pools are legally structured so what people are paying for is access to the website, ability to change their picks and make picks each round, etc. Therefore, this is a service taxable by the federal government. Trust me, I don’t like it myself, but it has to be done if MyOfficePool.ca, Inc. is going to operate as a legitimate business, which is what the goal is. If you have any questions about it please email me to discuss further.

2. I am disappointed in the number of entries to date after a pretty significant investment in advertising. Hopefully more people sign up between now and 7:00pm Wednesday. One thing I’ve noticed is there are so many options for hockey pools that the competition is tough.

That said, when I consider entering a pool I’m all about checking the odds of winning to see if they are fair and reasonable. I figure if I offer a pool with a cap on entries, which leads to a much higher payout percentage, then you are way better off entering this one than bigger contests like at the Hockey News or CDM Sports which set the grand prize but take in as many entries as they can… in the thousands. The odds of winning those are miniscule by comparison and once you add it up they pay out in the 50% range.

As for free sponsored contests like Kia Motors/CBC/Hockey Night in Canada, or Boston Pizza/Office Pools.com, they are likely taking in tens of thousands of free entries (or more?). The odds of winning are very small.

What I’m getting at is I think we offer a good deal here on the sports pools. I hope you see it that way too, and again, if you don’t or want to discuss, then let me know. Cheers.