Let the Games Begin!

Welcome to Wockey Pool 2012!  We take pride in the Wockey Pool being a place where all of your dreams can come true, your hopes can be realized, and your time can be wasted.  And if none of the above occur, there is a strict no-money-back policy.

We just keep smashing records here at the Wockey Pool!  By this morning, we had already pummeled our previous record of 147 brackets.  By early afternoon, due to no one deciding to leave the pool, the record had still been broken.  And as of 2:00 CT when the brackets were officially closed, we had....drum roll please.....a new Wockey Pool-record 203 brackets!  Thank you.  Thank you very much!

This year is THE most exciting year yet of the Wockey Pool.  The prizes are the strangest.  The bracket numbers are the greatest.  But most of all, we finally, FINALLY have our website!  I need to send a large, huge, gigantic, humongous shout out and thank you to Nate Tkach who has been working since January on creating WockeyPool.Com--pro bono.  For transparency's sake, part of the pool money will go to pay for web hosting and the domain, and I'm going to take a small chunk out to give to Nate as a thank you, but this year's pot will still be the biggest we've ever had!  While we'll continue working to make it better, I couldn't be happier with how the website has turned out.  If you have any suggestions for the site, please feel free to pass them along.

A few quick reminders--the prizes this year are enough to make you want to take a bath with a homeless person.  And while I don't know that that analogy works, I do know that the payouts will look like this:

1st Place/Wockey Champion - 50% of the pot, this outstanding barbecue set, and their name etched on the Jewett Trophy.
2nd Place - 20% of the pot
3rd place - 15%
4th place - 10%
5th place - 5%
Wockey Puckhead (last place) - This lovely piece of wall art.  It's okay if you tear up a little just looking at it.

In the event of a tie, we will go to the first tiebreaker (Frozen Four goals scored--whoever is closest wins).  In the event of a tie in the tiebreaker, we will go to the second tiebreaker (total goals scored in the tournament).  In the event of a tie there, we will go to an old-fashioned duel.  Or we'll split the winnings of that place and the place below the tie.  You can decide.

Since the website is still fresh as a new baby, there are some kinks we're working through.  You might not be able to see the full picks sheet tonight, but I assure you I have the best and brightest free help I could find working semi-diligently on the issue.  If nothing else, I will post the top 10 picks on the site each night and e-mail out a crude spreadsheet to you all later on.

If you're interested in watching the regional action--and I do hope you are--you can catch the games on ESPNU, ESPN3.com (if you're ISP gets it), or in the case of the UMD, Minnesota, and North Dakota games, you can catch them on Fox Sports North or FSN+.

Finally, due to the incredible invention of internet web pages, I will no longer be sending these massive updates via e-mail and will instead be posting them as blogs on the site.  I'll send small, cute, fluffy (yet strangely dirty) e-mails to you when a new post has been written, but that will be all.

Enjoy this new world of online Wockey!  I am so happy it's here!

Your Delighted, Delusional, Deloused Wockey Wonk,

Alex