Overtime Central

The NHL has become increasingly irrelevant to me.  About 20 years or so ago (was the Gretzky trade the edge of the cliff?) the NHL started its downward spiral.  This is not about the popularity of the league; it brings in more money in Canada today than 30 years ago when it had more franchises.  It is about losing the appeal of the game, the magic if you will, in attempting to mimic the three other major US sports leagues to increase revenue in the United States.

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Thanks to everyone for coming out to our award ceremony. It is nice to see everyone dressed up in their finest after a long, hard season. Enjoy the show.

The following awards were handed out in a ceremony before this broadcast.

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After 30 days of gruelling competition, the NHL Loser Challenge has come to completion and the final results are surprising.

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I’ve compiled a list of reasons why anyone can play the Overtime Central 2008 NHL Loser Challenge.

1. You don’t need to know any players or their stats. Simply pick a team to lose from the teams playing that day.
2. You don’t need to follow the NHL, the team’s records or win/loss streaks. The loser selection page shows up-to-date team standings and streaks, allowing for players without a regular NHL following to play without research.
3. NHL parity (12 points separate the middle 26 teams as of this writing) makes predicting a loser each day no better than guessing.
4. The contest rule allowing each team to be only picked once during the contest evens the playing field between knowledgeable and less knowledgeable players. No advantage to Gord, no matter how many issues of The Hockey News he reads.
5. Random picks for days that you have missed making a pick for means you don’t lose your chance when you forget to make your picks.
6. Scoring streaks and resets after incorrect predictions mean the standings can quickly change in a day and you are always in the hunt.
7. It is a short 10 week, 30 day contest following the NHL All-Star game. Get into the NHL in the last half of the season, leading to the playoffs.
8. It will be lots of fun. Get groups of people to sign up and play against each other.
9. You could win valuable prizes. Beating Gord is it’s own reward.
10. It costs about the same as a couple cups of coffee or theatre admission for one, but provides 10 times the entertainment value. That is something you can afford.

I encourage everyone to check out the full rules and sign up today. Don’t wait until the last minute. The first game day arrives Tuesday, January 29, 2008.

Overtime Central is pleased to announce a exciting new contest for hockey fans this year. The 2008 NHL Loser Challenge is now available for sign up. In this contest, you pick one team to lose from the given games on 30 days of the NHL 2008 season. If you predict correctly, you are awarded 1 point for the first correct prediction, 3 points for the second correct consecutive prediction, 5 points for the third consecutive correct prediction and so on. An incorrect prediction starts your scoring back at 1 point for the next correct prediction. Not hard enough? You also can only pick each NHL team to lose once during the length of the contest. There are 30 days and 30 teams, but each team does not play an equal number of games, nor every night. See the full rules for more details.

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