The House of Wockey Welcomes You!

This is your official invitation to Wockey Pool XII, the fiercest competition this side of the World Poohsticks Championships!  Last year’s pool saw a staggering 413 entries, which smashed our previous record by more than 50!  Can we beat that this year? I don’t know -- does grass scream when it’s cut?  The answer is yes.  To both obviously. Shame on you for having to even ask those questions!

 

Last year’s competition saw Ron Goodman restore his family’s name after son Chris was Puckhead in 2016.  Ron only missed one pick on his way to becoming the 10th champion in Wockey history. On the other end of the bracket, Wockey experienced its first-ever “first to worst” collapse as 2013 Champion Jason Kuss discovered life at the bottom of the bracket.  Kuss as Puckhead provided a gift for the rest of us though as it gives me yet another excuse to share this (as if I really needed one).

 

Wockey Pool XI was also a special one for your humble commish as I was able to spend my 40th birthday at the Frozen Four in Chicago.  Between the drunken Facebook live updates and the...well pretty much just the drunken Facebook live updates, Wockey Chicago was one which brought every Wockeyite the feeling of being there themselves so long as they could lower themselves to experience such an event as an aging, inebriated buffoon, which not surprisingly makes up about 78% of the Wockey community anyway.

 

As we prepare for Wockey XII, the thick oozing drama of college hockey has already spilled over much of Wockey’s primary geographical region, the Midwest, with what occurred in Saturday’s conference tournament championships.  For those who aren’t familiar with the machinations of how the NCAA Tournament field is selected, a brief primer:

 

-16 teams make the tournament.  These teams are comprised of 6 conference tournament champions (automatic bids) and 10 at-large selections.

 

-The at-large selections are determined by a mathematical formula called the Pairwise that compares and ranks teams.  The top 16 teams in the Pairwise -- in theory -- make the tournament, except that generally one or two of the automatic bids come from outside the top 16 knocking teams near the 16th position out of the tournament.

 

It is with complete and utter irony that I write this to you from Mariucci Arena, home of the Minnesota Golden Gophers who were knocked out of the tournament yesterday by the most unluckiest of circumstances.

 

The Gophers lost their final four games of the year to Penn State and didn’t play this past weekend during the conference championships.  Regardless, they had a 98.2% chance of making the tournament heading into last night’s six conference championship games. They literally needed just ONE of the following six games to go their way and they would be in the tournament.  They either needed:

 

-Robert Morris to beat Air Force in the Atlantic Hockey Championship

-Clarkson to beat Princeton in the ECAC Championship

-Northern Michigan (coached by former Gopher player and coach Grant Potulny) to beat Michigan Tech in the WCHA Championship

-Providence to beat Boston University in the Hockey East Championship

-St. Cloud State to beat Denver in the NCHC Championship

-Ohio State to beat Notre Dame in the Big Ten Championship

Between all those games there were 64 potential outcomes.  63 scenarios had the Gophers making the tournament. But one didn’t...

As the day went on, every outcome that could went against the Gophers.  After Princeton beat Clarkson in overtime (after blowing the lead with 6.4 seconds left in the third giving the Gophers an oh-so-brief glimmer of hope), it was confirmed that four automatic bids would take the final four spots in the tournament -- the first time that has happened since the NCAA’s expanded to 16 teams in 2003 -- meaning either the Gophers or UMD would finish 12th in the Pairwise while the other would end up 13th thereby missing the tournament.  It all came down the the Big Ten final between Ohio State and Notre Dame. If Ohio State won, the Gophers were in. If Notre Dame won, UMD made it, and the improbable sextet of outcomes would be complete.

 

Who do you think won?

 

Of course, Notre Dame did.  In overtime no less.

 

I write this not to rub it in to my rival Gophers fans (I already did a fair amount of that on the Wockey Facebook and Twitter feeds).  I actually feel for you a bit.  I can’t imagine watching this collapse unfold in such a devastating way to my team.  Rather, I write it to further illustrate what beautiful drama NCAA hockey provides.  I write it from the women’s Frozen Four where all three games went to overtime a year after I was at the men’s regional in Fargo where every game went to overtime.  I write it because of incredible games past such as 2009 UMD-Princeton, 2009 Miami-BU, and 2011 UMD-Michigan. I write it because after Notre Dame won, the Pairwise -- which compares teams on a mathematical formula that stretches to the ten thousandths -- moved UMD ahead of Minnesota by .0001 points.  That was the difference between making the tournament and staying home.  It sucks for Minnesota. But it’s incredible drama for the rest of us.

 

And the NCAA Tournament hasn’t even started yet.

 

So let’s get to Wockeying!  Once again, I invite you to visit the Wockey website to register your bracket(s).  As always, it’s $10 per entry and you can submit unlimited entries.  In addition to the cash, we have as always our separate Champion and Puckhead prizes to give out.  For a chance to honor past Champions and cultivate contempt for our former Puckheads, visit our Wockey history page.  And finally...share, Share, SHARE!!!  We’ve grown from an itty bitty baby pool of 16 entries 12 years ago to a bloated, grotesque, unhealthy adult pool of 413 brackets last year because of YOU.  So keep bringing more degenerates into Wockey, and we’ll keep rewarding you and them with news of the world’s most important scientific discoveries.

 

You have until 2:00 CT on Friday to enter your brackets.  Once the puck drops on the first game of the tournament between Notre Dame and Michigan Tech, entry will be closed.  As an additional incentive, everyone who enters a bracket this year will receive a free primitive pregnancy test!  So get your brackets in!  Get your friends in! It’s time once again to Wockey!!!

 

Your Fledgling, Flavorful, Flammably Flatulent Commish

 

Alex

 

P.S.  This.