Ladies and gentlemen,
Welcome to the IIHF Under 20 2013 pool. This is the six year that pool has been run here.
PAST WINNERS:
First off, credit to the past winners.
2008: miked (out of 8 or 9 entries - it was a last minute thing)
2009: ultrawhiteness (out of 28 entries)
2010: watchingthegame (out of 28 entries)
2011: metaldude26 (out of 20 entries)
2012: vandalay (out of 29 entries)
I also want to credit dobber user ‘nights’ for helping with the in tournament stat tracking last year. There is no Yahoo or ESPN pool so to update stats requires good old fashion manual entry. Nights has offered again this year so thanks again.
SCORING:
Points only for skaters
Goalies Wins = 2, OLT = 1, SO = +2
The only points that count are those in games that lead to a medal (round robin and playoffs). This does include the bronze medal game. Relegation round or 5th-6th seeding games are NOT included.
ROSTER
12 forwards, 6 d-men, 2 goalies + 1 captain (total 21 players)
Only 5 players from any one nation (including all positions and captain) so you can’t load up on one or two nations.
The position of 'Captain' was introduced a few year ago to further enhance the diversity of the picks. So I have selected six highly regarded players in tournament and you can only pick one (they are not available for the other forwards positions). This year the 6 captain are:
Alex Galchenyuk USA
Jonathan Huberdeau CAN
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins CAN
Mikhail Grigorenko RUS
Nail Yakupov RUS
Filip Forsberg SWE
PRIZE
Respect and bragging rights. Other participants might give you reputation points or write a song in your honour.
HOW TO ENTER
In the attached in the next post is a .zip file in which I have put a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. From here you can use the pull-down menus to pick you team. The spreadsheet counts the number of players from each nation. Once you have selected your 21 players save the excel file with your username and email it to me. My email is reeveta at gmail dot com. Please put 'World Junior Pool' in the title so it will be easy to spot in case your email gets caught as spam.
If you don't have Microsoft Excel your other option is to email me with the names (firstname lastname) of you entry in a list. The names must be spelled exactly as found on the roster from http://www.tsn.ca/world_jrs/ . This make it possible for me to cut and paste into excel. Be sure to count the number of players you have from each nation.
If you don’t have email and want to PM me please also make sure the full name is spelled correctly. Names I don’t understand may be mistake for depth players on Team Latvia.
The deadline is before the drop of the puck for the first game (December 26, 2:30am Eastern time – so get them in before you go to bed on the 25th).
CHANGES
Last year a few people wanted to change their entries after they made them but before the deadline. This is not a big deal but it is something I would like to minimize because it is work for me and opens it up for me to make a mistake. The best plan is to wait until closer to the start of the tournament to make your entry. However, if you HAVE to change it I will accept it up until the deadline.
NOTES AND DISCLAIMER
I have done the best I can to get the up-to-date rosters but these rosters are pre-cuts for some teams and there may be errors. I take no responsibility for you picking players that don't play. TSN is also not as good as the IIHF site but I am having an issues cutting and pasting from them this year.
If player is not on the pull down list but should be, add him in the 'write in' section. There shouldn't be many but if there are I am sorry.
I am posting this December20 at 8:30 pm pacific time so it couldn't hurt to check back in a day or two in case someone finds a mistake. Updates will be posted here.
SPREAD THE WORD
Please feel free to spread the word around the format about this free challenge. I know I often don’t look down here so if it is mentioned in other sections more people may find it.
*****UPDATE - Spreadsheet fixed to have full goalie list. Some goalies were missing.