Winter Olympics Hockey Pool Tips

My friends and I just held our 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics hockey pool draft and the preparation for the draft got me considering the various drafting strategies one could employ in a unique tournament such as this.  In my pool there were 9 poolies, each of whom drafted 7 forwards and 4 defensemen.  We decided to leave out the goalies because there weren't enough soild choices to go around.  This article will explain what took place in our draft, followed by tips on how to draft the best team possible and how to not get stuck in NHL season or even playoff style pool thinking.

The draft started off as you would expect.  Oveckin going first overall.  The second pick was rather peculiar, with Dany Heatley being chosen.  A few poolies congratulated the second overall drafter on their choice saying that was who they would have chosen as well.  I was thinking to myself are these people crazy.  Everyone was blinded by the fact that Heatley has had great success in international tournaments.  However, these are World Championships, which in my books are quite different than the Olympics.  First of all Heatley would certainly be on the top line of a Canadian World Championship team, but he will not be on this Olympic team.  Secondly, the competition is much weaker at the World Championships, which allows Canada to jack up the scores.  This will be much more difficult at the Olympics.  On my ranking sheet, Heatley would have been a second round draft choice, but I guess my views differed from others.

Anyways, moving on from Heatley, the remaining picks were solid.  The round went as follows:
Oveckin - Heatley - Crosby - Kovalchuk - Malkin - Zetterberg - Gabroik - Iginla - Datsyuk

I chose Gaborik with the 7th overall choice and followed this up with Hossa 12th overall.  These two players are the key to Slovakia's offense.  They will be played in every situation and will be counted on to produce for their country.  I also expect Slovakia to play in a pre-quarterfinal qualification game against a weak opponent which should allow them to pad their stats and gain an extra game.  I decided to take a chance on the Slovaks and hope that they can win a Quarterfinal game.  This would allow them to play 2 more games for a total of 7 tournament games, which is the maximum.  The other team that I think has a good chance to play 7 games is the Czech Republic.

No Dmen were taken in the first two rounds.  In the third most of the marquee defensemen were chosen and then the rest were left alone to the later rounds.  I agree with this strategy by our poolies because in such a short tourney the depth defensemen will not make or break your team.

Surprisingly enough the later rounds did become difficult.  The entire Canadian team was taken including all 13 forwards and all 7 defensemen.  I took zero Canadians.  I thought it was silly to take players from such a stacked team.  Sure the players are good but only 5 players can be on the ice at a time.  I'm sure some Canadian players will finish with zero points.  I wasn't going to get sucked into the Canadian team and I think it will pay off in the end.

Now, to conclude this article I'm going to put a few bulleted tips on how to win your Winter Olympics hockey pool:

• Do not pick Heatley in the first round
• Let the other poolies go wild for Team Canada
• Pick players who will play a big part on their team. (At least top 2 lines and powerplay)
• Pick players from teams you think will make the semifinals (The difference between the winning the quarters and losing the quarters is two games.  That means 6 or 7 games instead of 4 or 5)

The Winter Olympics is sure to be a lot of fun and betting on the Winter Olympics in hockey pool form or any other form you can find at your online bookie definitely makes the Olympic Games that much more exciting.  If you do decide to place some other wagers on the Olympics I would suggest betting at BetCris.com.  BetCRIS is a great online bookmaker that offers a sign up bonus up to $500 with the use of a solid BetCRIS bonus code.  I wish you good luck in your Winter Olympics betting endevours and hope you enjoy the experience.  I know I will.

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