The contest results for the Regional Contests will be sent out later tonight.

Before the season comes to an end in just over a week and people are still paying attention, I wanted to solicit opinions about this contest (or contests) to decide what to do next.

As you know, I've been running 3 contests since 1998, one based on picking winners, a second based on winners plus goal differential and a third based on winners plus how close you can pick the winners and losers scores.  During the intervening years, I had three more contests which mimicked contest 1,2 and 3 (and imaginatively named contests 4,5 and 6) and were scored as 1,2 and 3 except for no weighting of winning picks in later rounds.

This year, I introduced a total of 12 new contests, which consisted of contests 1,2 and 3 for each of the 4 regionals.

I started this  more than 20 years ago when my (then) boss became enamored with spreadsheets and decided that all data communication in our department should be done via spreadsheets.  I learned the basics of Lotus 1-2-3 but decided I needed a project to motivate me to learn more than just the bare basics of spreadsheets.  I have now learned all I need to know about spreadsheets. And besides, I've been retired for 14 years so delving deeper into MS Excel is no longer required.

 When this first started in 1998, I would get 50-60 contestants.  For the past few years, its been about 20.  

So, what is it that you, as contestants want to see for the future? Shall I continue with just contest 1,2 and 3?  Shall I bring back 4,5 and 6? What do people think about the separate contests for the regionals?  Or, is it time to retire the whole thing?

Please pipe up and let me know your opinion.  You can reply via Hockey-L if you're interested in starting a public conversation. Feel free to email me privately if you want ([log in to unmask])