9/17/2007 - A long, long summer comes to an end...
Now I remember why I hate moving. It's stressful, physically exhuasting, expensive and I always pack away something that I need the very next day and then forget where I put it.

This summer, I moved and I apparently packed away my responsibility to keep the Ultimate Sports Pool updated on a somewhat regular basis. I've only discovered it recently, in a forgotten box in the the back room, packed amongst my winter clothes, a DVD board game (Sports SceneIT!) and a bunch of old CDs. (That's right, CDs... remember those?) In all seriousness, the lack of updates is most likely due to the fact that I don't have cable. It's hard to bring myself to pay for cable when I got it for free at my old place for the past 3 years. But with the Premiership back in full swing, I just may have to give in and concede my cash to the Rogers empire.

So, three golf majors and three Grand Slam events have come and gone since the last update. Not to mention another NBA championship for the most boring team in the NBA, the Spurs. Baseball is wrapping up and the NFL and its bucktoothed, dumpy, less fashionable younger sister, the CFL, are back, officially signalling the beginning of autumn. (Incidentally, autumn also brings yet another season of false hope from those perenially underachieving boys in blue, the Leafs. I couldn't believe my eyes last week when the Toronto Star ran a picture of Vesa Toskala at an informal on-ice workout conducted 3 hours outside of the city on the FRONT PAGE.)

Over the summer, Benedict made the most impressive gains, adding 15 points, mostly on the back of Venus Williams and her performances at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. Dan Sr. also made some considerable strides, with Tiger Woods finishing strong at the British Open and then taking the PGA Championship for his 13th major championship. But what is perhaps more interesting, are the poor picks in both men's and women's tennis and golf. In those three categories, there were a total of 14 picks that didn't manage to earn a single point. Dave's pick of Amelie Mauresmo, formally the number 2 ranked female tennis player in the world, was probably the worst pick of them all. Somehow, she managed to avoid getting a single point at the French Open and Wimbledon and then pulled out of the U.S. Open because of lack of fitness! Zut Alors!

So... with the pool now up to date and a plethora of cable packages to choose from, I'll do my best to stay on top of the updates...

6/7/2007 - Kings of the (Duck) Pond
I'm sorry. I can't help it. I can't help the fact that I was happy, (yes, that's right, happy) to see the Senators lose. And not only lose, but get whooped.

All these psuedo-Leaf fans cheering for Ottawa was simply too much. I don't care if Ottawa is a Canadian team. There's nothing that could ever make me cheer for those sorry excuses for hockey players. Everything I dislike about the Senators was summed up at the end of the second period in Game 4 when that wanker, Alfredsson, fired the puck at Scott Niedermeyer. It was so much nicer to see Selanne, the definition of a classy veteran, hoist the cup.

Venting aside, my life has gone from busy to insane, hence the lack of updates. But I've managed to find a sliver of spare time to update the pool.

The biggest surprise is Travis, who gained 27 points with his lightning round Champions League pick of Milan.

3/26/2007 - Now presenting the Final Four...
Did anyone watch that Georgetown/UNC game? Wow. Talk about "Choke City"! UNC gives up the 10-point lead with 6 minutes left and goes 1 for 23 over a 15 minute span, including overtime. Yikes. This, of course, all to Dan Sr.'s dismay.

However, UNC wasn't the only #1 seed to fail to reach the Final Four. Scott's pick of Kansas does what Kansas seemingly does every year... that is, disappoint its fans. The poolie most likely to benefit from all this is Dan Jr., who could end up with two of his picks, UCLA and OSU, vying for the National Championship.

The Madness isn't quite over yet, but that won't prevent me from looking ahead, especially considering my Oregon Ducks are now out of the tourney... Just around the corner are the Champions League quarter-finals and the NHL playoffs! Stay tuned!

3/19/2007 - Another update!?!?
Duke, Notre Dame, Texas, Washington State, and Wisconsin... OUT! That leaves UNLV as the lowest seeded team in the Sweet Sixteen. What does this mean for the pool? Well... all four number one seeded teams (which all happen to be x1 picks) have come out of the first weekend on top. Three x2 picks are still in it... Texas A&M, Pitt, and Oregon, owned by Patrick, Andrew and Dave, respectively. And outside of the draft picks that didn't even qualify for the tournament, the worst NCAA basketball picks in this year's Ultimate Sports Pool go to Dan Jr's pick of Duke and Geoff's pick of Marquette, both of which failed to get out of the first round. This fact especially does not bode well with Geoff who now has 3 picks which have failed to generate any points. Ouch. I'm starting to think that picking Scott to finish last this year may have been an oversight on my part...

3/14/2007 - The first points are in...
A scant one and a half months into the Ultimate Sports Pool and I think the winner for worst first round pick has already been decided... Scott's first pick of Syracuse failed to even QUALIFY for the March Madness Tourney. That said, Scott wasn't the only poolie to select a team that didn't even make the cut. Andrew's pick of LSU failed to qualify as well. (Although, to Andrew's credit, he did take LSU with the very last pick in the draft (150th overall) rather than with the 9th overall pick of the draft!) In other NCAA basketball news, all number 1 seeds were taken in this year's draft, all in the first five rounds. However, there are still another EIGHT teams in the tourney that were picked... and it may please the owners of those picks to know that since 1979, all four number 1 seeds have never met in the Final Four. (The closest it ever came was in 1993, when three number 1s and a number 2 made it.)

We also have points in from the first round of UEFA Champions League. This is a particularly hard tournament to predict, and a few of the first knockout round results have only reinforced this notion. Travis' picks of Lyon and Inter were both taken out, with Lyon's loss to Roma being the most shocking. Both of Geoff's Champions League picks failed to make it out of the first round, with Arsenal falling to PSV and Barcelona losing to Liverpool on away goals. The quarterfinals, scheduled for the first two weeks of April, feature some interesting matchups. Travis' lightning round pick, A.C. Milan, are set to take on Patrick's lightning round pick, Bayern Munich while, unfortunately for Steve, his two picks, Valencia and Chelsea square off, with the winner going into the semifinals to face the winner of the PSV - Liverpool match.

That's it for now... let the Madness begin!

2/6/2007 - And so it begins...
So the Super Bowl came and went. To be perfectly honest, I didn't watch past Prince's halftime show. I was simply too disappointed. What was the deal with the covers? I mean... no 1999? No Little Red Corvette? Not even a single verse of When Doves Cry!?! The only thing more disappointing than the halftime show were the sorry excuse for Super Bowl commercials that we get here in Canada. (On the plus side, there was plenty of nachos, chili and beer to send me home sleepy and full.)

Complaints aside, I got around to entering everyone's picks today. Click here to view your picks. I think I've got it all right. Note the light grey coloured rows are the x2 picks and the dark grey coloured rows are the x3 picks. Let me know if I've screwed anything up.

So... great draft everyone! Good luck this year! I'm looking forward to seeing how the new points system works out! If you want to leave messages for anyone, feel free to post your thoughts on the message board, which can be found here!

1/30/2007 - The fat lady just sung.
So it's officially over. Patrick officially takes the home the Ultimate Sports Pool Championship (Trophy? Cup? Crown? Belt?) Thanks to a near perfect season for the number 1 overall draft pick, Roger Federer, who earned 15 out of a possible 16 points. In fact, in the past 13 Grand Slam tournaments that Federer has competed in, he's won 10. (The French Open is his Achilles heel.) That's simply remarkable.

So while Patrick is counting his money from this year's win, the rest of us can look forward to next year's pool. There'll be some changes in terms of the points system, so I suggest going over it before showing up to the draft. I've also included a message board/discussion thread for useful things like suggestions, and non-useful things like trash talk.

I'll see you all at the draft!

1/12/2007 - The Home Stretch
Well, it turns out that this holiday season was good to Patrick. Based on the late season performance of LSU, the Tigers were deemed to not only to be worthy of a #4 ranking going into Bowl season, but also earned an invite to the Sugar Bowl against the Fighting Irish, whom they promptly thumped. Right now, both the AP and Coaches poll have LSU sitting #3 after the bowl games, but I'm waiting for the official BCS standings before I hand out anymore NCAA Football points.

In other Ultimate Pool news, Dan had the biggest point gain since the last update, with his 15 points moving him ahead of Scott into fourth place.

So... only two more Ultimate Sports events... the Aussie Open and the NFL playoffs. It looks like it's down to a two-horse race, with Patrick and Dave duking it out for Ultimate Sports Pool supremacy. Unfortunately, with Henin-Hardenne officially withdrawing from the Aussie Open, the bookies have made Patrick the odds-on favourite to win the Ultimate Sports Pool yet again. But Dave still has a fighting chance. With some underdog magic, it could be an upset in the making.

11/1/2006 - Correction
That's right... I screwed up. I forgot to add Patrick's points earned from Sharapova's U.S. Open title to his individual total. So, as it turns out, Patrick that is ahead by 3 points. And although I may have been wrong about who is currently winning, I certainly believe it's far from over. Actually, I think it'd be downright ludicrous to claim such a thing. Oh... wait... something is coming back to me...

"At this point, you are all screwed. It's over. The smartest Macmaster has once again taken the Ultimate trophy. Just give me the money now Dave, but give yourself a buck for Brazil."

Now who'd write such a silly thing?

10/30/2006 - Trick or Treat?
H-ween is upon us. (that's street slang for Hallowe'en... we drop the apostrophe and a whole bunch letters and add a dash. It's either that or Hizzleween.) And my treat to all you poolies is the rarest of rares - an Ultimate Pool update. Since the last update, we've had two golf tourneys, one tennis tourney, the World Series and the conclusion of the F1 season.

Geoff & Andrew's homey, Tiger Woods, made another bid for "most dominant pro athelete in the world" by taking both the British Open and the PGA Championship, while their pick of Sergio Garcia made some noise before suffering fourth round choke-itis in both tournaments.

In tennis, the other "most dominant pro athlete in the world", Roger Federer, cleaned up at the U.S. Open, losing only two sets during the entire tournament! With Federer winning the men's tournament without breaking a sweat, and tennis princess Maria Sharapova taking the women's tournament in her little black dress, Patrick has every reason to believe he can start buffing that Ultimate Sports Pool championship belt.

Unfortunately, with no baseball picks and a middle-of-the-road F1 pick, Patrick's position at the top of the Ultimate Sports Pool has slipped, creating a three pony race, with Dave leading the pack by the thinnest of margins.

How, may you ask, has this happened? Even though Geoff & Andrew's pick, those never-say-die Cardinals, won the World Series; Dave's pick, the New York Mets, not only finished tied for the best overall record in baseball, but managed to win their divisional series and almost take the LCS without their top two pitchers. On top of that, Dave's F1 pick of Fernando Alonso won the driver's championship despite the best efforts of Dan's pick Michael Schumacher, who retired after not being able to get used to breathing in Alonso's exhaust all year. With a measley 4 points separating the top three poolies, it may just come down to the final events of the year - the Aussie Open and maybe even the Super Bowl.

7/9/2006 - Forza Azzurri! Bravo Italia!
Love 'em or hate 'em, you have to admit that the Italians played in one of the most entertaining games of the World Cup in their match versus the host team, Germany, in the semi-finals. Think what you will of the Azzurri and their "theatrical" play, but having intensely watched almost every game of this World Cup finals, I think it's fair to say that the Portuguese have solidified themselves as the most despicable bunch of whiny, cheating fakers to have ever disgraced a football pitch with their presence. I don't know what's more infuriating - watching Hélder Postiga throw himself to the ground inside the 18-yard box for no apparent reason or seeing the entire Portuguese team led by C.Ronaldo bitch and moan to the ref. If you think that's too harsh, check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QSHB-AQZ1E.

So, while the world turned it's eyes onto Germany for the past month, we had a whole lot of results from the rest of the world of sports. In the NBA, D.Wade single-handedly led Patrick's pick, the Miami Heat, from what seemed like an impossible 2-0 series deficit against the Mavs... much to the chagrin of Scott. I have to admit that I felt no sympathy for Scott, seeing as he didn't even really make that pick himself, but I did feel a twinge of anger watching Alonzo "I won't play for the Raptors" Mourning hold that NBA Championship trophy over his head. In what other world than the zany land known as the NBA can someone get paid millions of dollars to go to another team and win a championship? Want more proof of how out-of-touch-with-the-real-world basketball players are? Read this.

So while D.Wade won a championship for Miami, in the NHL, a rookie goalie by the name of Cam Ward stole a Stanley Cup for Carolina. Is the world coming to an end? It must be if the Hurricanes won a Stanley Cup. When I went to Carolina a few years ago to watch the Leafs play in the Eastern Conference finals against the Canes, we had to stop SIX times before we could even find someone who knew Carolina even had a hockey team. It wasn't until the tenth person we talked to that we found someone who knew where the arena was. (And that person was a fellow from North York who was also in town to watch the Leafs!) Still, with Carolina winning the Cup, one thing is proven. Making picks by committee works well if you don't want to make the picks yourself (right Scott?)

Lastly, the US Open came and went with little fanfare and Dave earned big time points in both men's and ladies' tennis by having both winners at the French Open and both ladies' finalists at Wimbledon.

So we're getting into the dog days of summer, with nothing but CFL and MLB to keep us entertained. At least until the NFL starts up!

5/8/2006 - The New NHL
Did anyone else notice that after the first round of the NHL playoffs, the top four seeds in the East and the bottom four seeds in the West went through to the conference semis? That's just messed up. Is Carolina for real? We all know that Scott hopes so. Still, I think that Les Habitants would have upset the Canes if Koivu doesn't get have his eye surgically removed by Justin Williams. In the NBA, Nash repeats as the MVP while leading his team in a seven game series over the Lakers. Anyone else watch that series? Crazy stuff. What's with the Lakers anyhow? When did they become a team of rapists? First Kobe, now Kwame Brown? Kudos to Raja Bell for clotheslining Kobe. Someone has to put that guy in his place... I don't care if he can light up a pathetic Raptors team for 81 points. In other sports, Mickelson repeats at the Masters, much to the delight of Patrick while Geoff & Andrew's pick of Barça will look to be named Europe's top football club against Arsène Wenger, Thierry Henry and the rest of the Gunners in what should end up being an amazing game. Up next: WORLD CUP, BABY! YA!

3/27/2006 - Knock, knock...
Who's there? George Mason. George Mason, who? Exactly. Sorry fellas, none of your NCAA basketball picks made the Final Four, making life easy for me. The big winners, it turns out, are Geoff & Andrew whose last round, lightning pick of West Virginia racked up a NCAA basketball category high of 6 points. In the meantime, Scott's proxy pick of Japan went on to win the entire WBC. Next year, I'm getting you guys to pick for me... because with only 3 points, things don't look so hot and it's only been two months. Ugh.

3/18/2006 - Oh, Canada? No, Canada?!
So the Canadian Men's ice hockey team let us all down, and in particular, they let Dan down. The only explanation in my mind is the coaching (or lack thereof) of Mr. Quinn and company. Was it just me or did the Canadian team, despite all the talent, look like the Leafs out there? How is it possible that a team with Aki Berg on the blueline actually went to the gold medal game? How?! It simply boggles the mind. Of course, this all worked out for Patrick who not-so-sportingly sent me a picture of a smiling Mats Sundin holding up a gold medal shortly after the Olympics ended. And speaking of overconfident nations being embarrased at their own national sports on the international stage... the U.S. bows out of the World Baseball Classic leaving a bunch of pissed off Americans with tickets to a final that may feature Korea vs. Cuba. Riveting stuff, really. I mean, could you imagine if the only fans who showed up to a final featuring those two teams were Korean-Americans and Cuban expatriates? Make all the Kim Jong Il and Scarface jokes you want, but I think it'd be a great day in baseball to have the finals feature two teams whose countries have had a colourful political history with the U.S. And on top of all this, San Diego is also hosting NCAA basketball games. So far, the Final Four tournament has seen some big time upsets (Syracuse, Michigan State, Kansas Iowa, Nevada) and a bomb threat. The March Madness tourney has also shown all the poolies to be quite prophetic, with all four number 1 seeds being picked and moving into the second round. And lastly, Chelsea and Barcelona put on an amazing show in the first knockout round of Champions League play, with Ronaldinho scoring one of the most exciting goals I have ever seen. So... even though we're only one month in, this year looks like it's shaping up to be a close race. Next month, we have the conclusion of NCAA basketball, the World Baseball classic and the quarter/semi finals of Champions League. Oh yeah... there's also the NHL and NBA playoffs. Go Flames Go!

2/7/2006 - A clean slate.
Well, the Lombardi Trophy ended up in Steeltown in one of the most horribly officiated games I've ever seen. Patrick starts his defense of the Ultimate Pool Championship Belt this week. The first event: Olympic Men's Ice Hockey. And while we'll all be cheering for the Red & White, it'll be interesting to see who comes away with a medal. I've posted the picks, so double check both the sports and the invidual poolie picks to make sure I've got it all right. Oh. And you may noticed that I've added another poolie. Mike is considering putting together a team from the leftovers. If he gets me a pick before the first Olympic hockey game, he's in. Good luck Ultimate Poolies!