STATUS

I can’t believe I get to say this considering that the whole COVID19 pandemic is still hitting a lot of places really, really hard and the last thing on anybody’s mind right now is about sports and entertainment and such, but *takes a deep breath* …starting August 1st (which is on a Saturday!) - the National Hockey League is FINALLY coming back! And this time, with a really weird format to boot! As 24 teams, not 16 (like usual) are all going to do battle for Lord’s Coronas Stanley Cup. And, once again, that only means one thing around here: That’s right. kory_toombs is going to pull it out of his ass - yet again - and reclaim that title with some miraculous BS!

…Oh, and, uhhh - we’re having another pool / prediction thread again just like with years before…where you can actually win achievos (you like achievos, don’t you boy - don’t you???) for simply picking which team goes on and in how many games. Heck, you can even win an achievement for just showing up and picking nothing but duds all the way through, like I and GreatRedSpirit did last year, and STILL earn something! Isn’t that great!? I mean, what event on RMN has you participating in it, totally blowing it, and still get something for your troubles!? Nothing, that’s what.

Anyway, the point of this status is just to see who’s interested in participating this year and what not before I go ahead and waste one of my evenings making the topic for it, considering that you never know what could happen, everybody could all suffer GRAVE misfortunes and are totally not fit to pick anybody because Corona-Chan has sunk her deadly claws into you all...! (Hopefully not.)

This year’s format (which will be the fifth year that I’ve done this on Real Mayonnaise Network since 2015) will cover BOTH the best of five play-in round and the actual, regular Stanley Cup Playoff Rounds, which are still a best of seven. We won’t do the Round Robin ones with the top four teams of each conference (St. Louis, Colorado, Vegas, Dallas, Boston, Washington, Tampa Bay and Philadelphia) because those teams are just playing for seeding and are all automatically going to advance to the next round after the play-in round finishes anyway, so there’s no reason to pick that. It’s just the play-in round and the actual Stanley Cup Playoff matches, that’s it.

I’m also going to do the exact same format from last year when it comes to picks and points, where you get two points for successfully predicting which team wins what series, one point if the team that you picked ended up losing but you successfully predicted how many games that series will go to, and a perfect four points if you can manage to get both the team and the correct number of games right. We will also pick in stages instead of just picking every single series until the end at once, so we will all do the play-in series' first, and then, when that’s over, the first round, and then the second round, and then yada, yada, yada until the end.

Oh, and of course, you still get to pick who you think is going to win the Stanley Cup at the beginning and get a bonus multiplier for whatever they’re involved in. It’s basically the same thing as last year barring an extra round and two minor changes to the rules.

So lemme know in this status if any of you are all interested or not before I go ahead and make the thread. If there’s enough participants, I hope to have the thread up all ready to go with at least more than a week to go before the play-in round actually starts so it will give people lots of time to make their picks and selections, because – hoo boy – this is gonna be a total crapshoot! (Maybe kory_toombs DOES have the answer…)

(Also, for the record, if the Stanley Cup Playoffs / Pool Prediction Thread commences and COVID19 strikes the players and the league hard and ends up getting cancelled midway through, or something, before a champion is fully declared, then, for all of those participating, I have an extra special badge for everyone to hand out just in case that ends up happening...which I hope not.)

Edmonton’s actually got a good chance this year (and I can’t believe I’m saying that...) They should AT LEAST get past the Blackhawks with somewhat ease before having a real test against one of the big boys in the west. I’m actually thinking about picking them as my Stanley Cup team in the pool, but, I dunno, I’m not really sold on their goaltenders as much, though.

And, lol, yeah you watch. It will be Edmonton V.S. Pittsburgh, Game 7, and then everybody gets sick with Covid just before puck drop and they all have to cancel the whole thing. That would be both hilarious and sad.