Why Are You Not in a Hockey Pool?

'What’s a Hockey Pool?', I hear you ask.

Thanks for asking!

It’s fantasy teams for hockey. At the start of each season, you and your friends take turns picking players from the various NHL teams and assemble your own individual teams, just as if you were a real General Manager. When those players score, you get points.

It makes every single game important to you, and it makes every game more fun to watch.

Even more so during the playoffs.

If you enjoy hockey, and especially if you are a rapid fan, you need to be in a Fantasy Hockey Pool.

If you've never done it before and would like to start one with your friends, here's how to go about it. (If any of this is unclear or you want more details or help, we are more than happy to help. Shoot us a note using the BLOG FEEDBACK link over on the left there.

Getting Started Setting up a HockeyPool

• Gather about 6 to 20 of your friends. We call each of your friends a 'Poolie'. Basically, they're the general managers of their Fantasy Hockey Team.
• Decide if you're going to do a Regular Draft (like the NHL enttry draft where you each take a turn drafting a unique player) or a Box Draft (where the same NHL player can be on different teams).
• Decide on your rules;
  • What is the $ buy-in for the pool?
  • What prizes are awarded for first-place, second-, etc? Is there an award or penalty for last place?
  • Will you have a prize awarded at the All-Star, or 4 Nations, or half-way mark of the season?
  • How many players are you each drafting?
  • Are you drafting goalies? If so, is it specific goalies, or do you want to draft goaltending teams (i.e. take the Leafs goaltending team and get points regardless of who plays net?)
  • What scoring will you use? The NHL awards points based on goals and assists. TheHockeyPool.com enables you to score on over 56 stats categories, including some that the NHL doesn't such Empty Net plus/minus, Shoot Out Shots Missed, Series Winning Goals, and more.
  • Are you going to have some wild-card player types like players that only score based on Penalty Minutes or get points for games they play in but don't score?
  • Are trades allowed, and if so what rules? Leftwing for Leftwing only? Poolie-to-poolie trades, or free-agent (undrafted players) only?
  • Do you want to have a Handicap Draft at some point in the season to help increase the winning pot and add some more competition?
  • Do you want to do a Keeper League where you keep your selections from year to year and hold entry-drafts and trades for new players?
  • Or are you looking to track a Rotisserie League, or a Head-to-Head League?
• Register a pool with TheHockeyPool.com. (Okay, not strickly necessary, but hey, we're writing this blog, so c'mon, give us some love!).
• Get everyone together either virtually or in-person, and have them bring a laptop or tablet.
• Login as Administrator to your TheHockeyPool and start a LiveDraft.
• Use playing cards or some other random number generator to select your draft order.
• Fill in the names and begin drafting!
• Check your stats daily.

Pool Type	Average Number of Poolies	Average Number of NHL Players Drafted
Regular Season	10.66	14.75
Playoff	10.52	12.35
Box Regular Season	28.70	20.93
Box Playoff	27.01	18.14

Table 1. Average numbers for Pools on TheHockeyPool.com since 2011/2012.

What are your thoughts? I'd love to hear from you about this topic or about others you'd like me to cover in future blogs! Please let us know using the BLOG FEEDBACK link on the left side of page.