The Welsh Junior "B" Division Semi-Finals

So here is what I see for this hockey pool thing:

• AHL regular season ends April 17 2005
• Memorial Cup 21 May to 29 May 2005
• NCAA Frozen Four April 7 to 9 2005
• British League playoffs end 20 March 2005

Any other easily followed leagues? I just cannot figure out the Swiss or Swedish playoffs and how they work. Google fails me. I think that we could still have our combination of skill testing questions as we have had and discussed at inordinate length in the past but distribute them among various leagues. Who knows? Maybe we will attract the attention of the British Ice Hockey Writer's Association...and perhaps his pal, Fred. In recent years, the rules have stabilized somewhat to the following:

• Pick ten scorers, one goon, one goalie, eight teams and a dark horse.
• A point for a goal by a scorer
• A point for an assist by a scorer
• A point for a penalty minute by a goon. If your goon is kicked out of the pool you double the penalty minutes he has achieved to that point. The logic here is that the goon is a nut-bar. The later that he freaks and gets tossed for the balance of the playoffs, the more nut-bar like he is, the more he is the essential goon.
• A point for each thousandth save percentage over .900 (Goalies must play at least 5 games to qualify.)5 points for picking each of the teams in the second, third and fourth rounds.
• 25 bonus points for picking the dark horse - the team with the lowest regular season points to go the farthest in the playoffs. The dark horse must be seeded in the lower half of their conference.

Given that I am at the mercy of others for the software that runs the stats, it may be that such an idea of an eccumenical global playoff is too much for these times we live in, too much for today's flimsy technology. Perhaps we will need to cryogenically freeze the concept.

But that all sounds like quittin' to me...