Thursday, June 04, 2015

Pool Report: The Props

The guys with the junk truck arrive today, meaning the reno is over –- mostly on time and mostly on budget, but mostly signifying that this season’s continuously botched pool reports have come to an end.

And just in time because…

THE PROPS CONTEST IS BACK!!!

wayne gambles

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, a little history.

Betting on sports has been around as long as there have been guys who needed to pump up their self-esteem by proving they were right about something.

And for centuries money changed hands based on who won or lost a contest.

Then Las Vegas and the Super Bowl were invented. Pretty soon the guys who ran the Casinos realized that while they could make millions on who won a football game, they could make BILLIONS with side wagers.

So Proposition Betting was created to give us sports gambling degenerates an opportunity to blow our money on outcomes nobody in their right mind can confidently predict.

You might be wagering on the coin toss (Janet Gretzky's favorite -- seen above at Caesar's Palace with absolutely non-betting husband and Hockey Great One Wayne) or if a touchdown is made by a player whose jersey number is over 30.

Props are also not one bet options. You need to pick at least a half dozen. The odds of collecting are infinitesimal. But then, you can't put a price on a good time, can you?

So here's how the "Infamous Writers Pool Hockey Props"  works…

There are six bets. All are related to the Stanley Cup Finals. Some require sports knowledge. Some only require guts!

The player with the most correct answers wins. And a special piece of Canadian Hockey memorabilia (currently treasured by Yours Truly) will be awarded to the winner.

Should there be a tie -- uh -- we'll figure that out if there's a tie.

But this contest will definitely not be decided until well after the final game!

Entry is open to all current pool players, everybody who’s been kicking themselves for not getting in on the original action and anybody who thought Montreal had this thing sewn up when the season ended.

Entries must be sent to seraphic77@gmail.com anytime between now and the 7:15 pm Eastern faceoff for Game Two on Saturday June 7th in Tampa Bay.

Your six Hockey Propositions are:

1. The 2015 Stanley Cup winner will be decided in:

     a) Four Games

     b) Five Games

     c) Six Games

     d) Seven Games

2. The total number of goals scored in the Final series will be:

    a) Less than 20

    b) 20 to 30

    c) More than 30

3. Tampa Bay Goalie Ben Bishop enters the final round with a .919 Save Percentage. Chicago’s Corey Crawford’s is .921. At the end of the final series, the Highest Goalie Save Percentage will belong to:

a) Bishop

b) Crawford

c) Neither

4. "Hockey Night in Canada"  icon Don Cherry always confidently predicts the winner of each game prior to the opening faceoff. For the FOURTH game of the series, he will be:

a) Correct

b) Incorrect

For non-Canadian players -- CBC's "Hockey Night in Canada" is streaming all games at http://www.cbc.ca/sports, usually in more languages than English.

Unless Bob Cole is calling the game, in which case your guess is as good as mine as to what language that is.

5. The Leading Goal Scorer in the final series will be:

a) Tyler Johnson (TB)

b) Nikita Kucherov (TB)

c) Jonathan Towes (CHI)

d) Patrick Kane (CHI)

e) Other

6. The Captain of the winning team is the first player to hoist the Stanley Cup and skate a victory lap. The Cup is then passed to each member of his team. And it's usually passed to someone the player holding the Cup feels is especially deserving. The Goalie of the winning team will be:

a) One of the first six players to hoist the Cup

b) The Seventh to Twelfth player to hoist the Cup

c) One of the remaining players to hoist the Cup

Tough enough? C'mon, suck it up! How often do you get a chance like this?

As for the standings in the Big Show after last night’s unbelievably exciting first game…

Will Dixon continues to own us all with Chris Sheasgreen and Wil Zmak continuing to chase and Barry Kiefl coming up through the pack.

pool

Barry has pretty much everybody in a red sweater who can score on his roster, meaning he still has a shot of taking this unless we see a few more more incredible Tampa moments like this…

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