Sons of Manitoba Pool history

NOTE: UPDATED FOR 2009!

I might as well start this hockey pool blog with a piece of meaningless trivia. Did you know that this year marks the fifth time in this pool's proud history that a Conservative Prime Minister has been power during the playoffs. That's right folks this pool dates back to the days that Mr. Mulroney was living in 24 Sussex Drive (OK, so Mulroney was PC PM, but let's not split hairs).


The predecessor to the Sons of Manitoba pool has much less sexy name. For the first 10 years of its existence it was known simply as the annual Peter James Hockey Pool. As you can see I've always been known for my ability to turn a phrase — it's why I'm such a skilled headline writer.


The pool got its start back in 1992. It was 75th year of the national hockey league and the Winnipeg Jets were showing some promise. A young Winnipegger had dreams of a Stanley Cup parade down Portage Avenue dancing through his head. True to form, the Jets snuck into the playoffs only to lose a heartbreaking first round series. They actually had a 3-1 series lead over the Vancouver Canucks, but managed to lose the last three games by a combined total of 23-5. Uggh.


Anyway the pool got its start in the playground behind River West Park school where I was a student. I believe it was free that year to enter, but when I tried to charge people the next year my mother got phone calls from concerned parents. They didn't like the idea of a gambling racket taking place during recess. Anyway pool results from that era are sketchy at best, but records indicate that one of my teachers, Kendra Gardiner won that year so I'll stick with that story.


The next year, after assuring my friends' parents that nothing untoward was going on, my mum became the first member of the James family to win this thing. She has never let me, or anyone else forget it. These were the days before e-mail (or at least before I knew about e-mail) and I used to print out results — using a dot matrix printer no less — after each round and physically hand them out to everyone in the pool. Entries totalled around a dozen people during the early years and everyone lived in the same neighbourhood.


In 1994 I moved onto Westdale Junior High (who have changed their nickname and logo since I was there, apparently). Not only was I transitioning to a new school, the NHL was trying out a new playoff format. No longer would the first two rounds be played solely within the division, now teams would be seeded one through eight in the conference. It was the same number of teams making the playoffs, but organizing a pool suddenly became more difficult because the brackets were no longer consistent. I adopted a time consuming format that saw people make new picks every round. The challenge was collecting those picks before each new round was set to begin. I often found myself on the phone frantically trying to reach poolies before the puck dropped in the first game of each series. A guy by the name of Cory Sanders won that year, in what was considered a bit of an upset at the time. In fact, it was the third straight year that someone unexpected brought home the top prize.


Frustrated by all the phone calls in 1994 I adopted a totally different format a year later. Poolies were asked to pick five teams and they got points for wins, series sweeps, shutouts and the like. I can't recall the exact scoring system, all I know is it was very complicated and my sleeper pick was the New Jersey Devils. For one brief period in my life I actually cheered for Claude Lemieux and it led me to my first championship.


I moved onto St. Paul's High School in 1996, which was a bittersweet year for the pool. I managed to win my second straight title, but it was also the last year of the Jets in Winnipeg (may they rest in peace). I also had to fight off a classmate's attempt to start a competing pool that year, but I survived without losing too many customers. I changed formats for the third year in a row, adopting something very close to what we're using this year. I was victorious for the second year in a row — which led to a lot of speculation about the honesty of yours truly.


One of my best friends in high school, Cale Tanguay, was the big winner in 1997. I still remember going to his house to give him his winnings. In those days I charged $2 to enter with 70 per cent of the money going to the winner, 20 per cent to second place and 10 per cent to third. I was getting about 40 or so entries a year back then, so we're not talking big bucks.


The big breakthrough for the pool came in 1998. St. Paul's always hosted an official school charity hockey pool, with 50 per cent of the money collected going to the Mission Fund and the other half going to the winners. I approached Mr. Klopak, a teacher who ran the pool, and offered to take it over. He agreed and suddenly entries numbered in the hundreds. They were heady days for the pool and have never been matched since. Nick Wansbutter, a Grade 12 student and a fellow linebacker on the Crusader football team, was the winner.


The golden age of the pool continued as I ran the school hockey pool again in 1999 and even got to broadcast the results over the PA system during the morning announcements. A classmate of mine, and a Crusader hockey player, Tommy Sheldon was the winner.


I moved on to Carleton University in 2000 and the e-mail pool was born. The goal was to keep as many as the Winnipeg people involved at the same time bringing in a crowd from Ottawa. Because it was tough to collect entry fees from all over the place, the pool was free this year and my roommate Mike McGuire was the winner. We had so much fun watching the first round of the playoffs that year. We kept a running scoreboard on the door to the TV lounge so people walking by could check the results. I still find it hard to believe no one was checking real-time scores on the Internet back then, people were running to the TV lounge to find out what was happening. I'll never forget literally running back from an exam one night to catch an installment of the Battle of Ontario. Good times (except for the Leafs win over the Sens).


The Sons of Manitoba pool was born in 2001 when I teamed up with James Peters for the first time. The charity component came back as we collected money for a good cause, I believe it was the Children's Wish Foundation but I've been unable to confirm that. Mike Mulville, a member of the Residence Security team at Carleton was the winner in the team portion, my sister Natalie won the player portion and the combined entry of David Forbes (one of my instructors) and his friend Ron Strate won the combined pool.


Another Res Security guard won in 2002 when Gavin Morris grabbed both the team and combined sections. Colleen Turnbull, one of my former rezzies, was the winner in the player section. I travelled to Ireland, Belgium and France with my family for a couple of weeks during the second round of the playoffs and had a heck of a time trying to get results. While milling about the palace at Versailles I spotted a Red Wings fan who, it turned out, has just arrived overseas and gave me the lowdown. The trip was great, except for the flight home when the Air Canada pilot, clearly a Leafs fan was gloating about their win over the Sens. The first round was almost complete before I left for Europe, but the New York Islanders and Toronto Maple Leafs still needed to play a Game 7. I actually compiled two separate updates, one for each possible outcome, and Mr. Peters sent out the appropriate one once the results were in.


In 2003 Mike Macaraeg got his name on the winners list for the first time. A longtime entrant, dating back to the St. Paul's days, Mac had to work long and hard for his first win. My brother, Mike James, won the other section of the pool. This is also the year I graduated from university and moved to Kenora.


The Tampa Bay Lightning surprised everyone except Chris Chapman in 2004 and he took home the team pool title. Jeff Sandelli was the winner of both the player and combined titles. It was a bittersweet championship for my fellow Flames fan considering the result of the final series.

The lockout didn't stop me from running a pool in 2005. As many of you remember I did a world championship pool that year and Chris Chapman was the big winner again. It must be noted here that James Peters was last.

The NHL was back from the lockout in 2006 and this pool got into the 21st century with this fancy blog. The Sons of Manitoba were briefly united in Red Deer, before James Peters and his belle moved further west to Kamloops. The Edmonton Oilers made a Cinderella run to the finals, only to lose to Carolina. Hockey guru Rob Shaw was able to forecast the rise of the Hurricanes and took hom the top prize in the team side of the pool. My former colleague at the Miner and News, Dan Gauthier, took home the top prize on the player side.

For the third straight season in 2007 a Canadian team advanced to the Stanley Cup final, only to lose. The Ottawa Senators had the talent and the fight song but lost to the Anaheim Ducks. I actually attended the rally shown in the fight song video because 2007 brought me back to Canada's capital. Neil MacKinnon took top prize on the team side — appropriate as he shares a hometown with the most hated member of the Ducks. On the player side, long-time participant Julianna Nowaczek took home top spot. It should also be noted that Peter James took last spot on the team side.

In 2008 the James family slam was completed as my father, Terry James, won his first-ever pool title taking first place in the player side. Although all five members of my immediate family can claim titles, I'm the only one who can boast to having two titles. Brad Bouzane, a colleague at Canwest News Service took the team side title in his rookie year.

Now it's 2009. Good luck to everyone.