Joined The Hockey News Playoff Pool | April 20, 2007 |
Anyone else? I did it for a competitor comparison more than anything. The Hockey News operated a regular season pool but the only thing viewable to the public is the rules. The playoff pool was going to be the same, so I signed up to see what it was like.
Rules are basic pick a player at each of 20 positions/groups and score points based on their goals, assists, wins for goalies, etc. The pool allows users to edit their team for each round of the playoffs. Very simple setup.
One thing I don’t like is even after I signed up, it gave me no idea how many people were in the pool. Then after the games started, even then it leaves me in the dark as it only shows the top 50, plus my rank. My lowest was after the first day ~ 585th, and since then I went up to mid-200s, and after last night fell back to about 335th.
Lets say I was last at 585, which I’m sure I wasn’t. That is $24.95 per entry * 585 = $14,595, and the cash and prizes total $10,000. A payout % of 68%, and you can bet it is a lot lower. That is absolutely brutal odds for the consumer.
If I hadn’t picked Zach Parise in the first round I would consider tanking this thing just to see how low I can fall, and get a better idea how many people are in this pool. And this isn’t unique to The Hockey News pool, as CDM Sports run very similar – fixed payout, sell as many entries as possible.
Now I just need to figure out how to get people signing up for those pools over to this website. It might be time to add some fantasy pools to the mix at MyOfficePool.ca.
National publications and advertising wouldn’t be a bad idea either 