With the conference post-season tournaments over and the NCAA tournament (hopefully?) almost upon us, it's time to announce the winners of the Pick the Post-Season Tournament contests. For Contest #1, in which the later rounds were weighted more than the earlier ones, the overall winner is... Nathan Hampton who successfully defended his crown with a total of 140 points, four better than runners-up Tony Buffa and Scott Kaplan. Congratulations again, Nathan! Although it's a bit intriguing to note that, even with several tourney upsets, simply picking the higher seed in each game/series would have won this year's contest. As for the individual conference winners... The ECAC "race" ended in a five-way tie among Sean Keller, Nathan Hampton, John Edwards, Tony Buffa, and Richard Vehlow, with 8 points each. Sean took the tiebreaker as his predicted score was only one point off the actual result. William Sangrey took the top spot in Hockey East with 36 points. The WCHA crown went to Jim Dixon with 18 points. Tony Buffa's 44 points topped the NCHC. Atlantic Hockey was won by Nathan Hampton with 41 points. The Big Ten came down to a three-way tie among Scott Kaplan, Nathan Hampton, and Tony Buffa, with 38 points each. Scott took the crown on the first tie-breaker. Complete scoring results are below. Congratulations to all the winners, and thanks again to all those who participated. Tiebreaker notes: The first tiebreaker was the difference between your predicted championship-game score and the actual score. Thus, if you picked the score of the ECAC championship game (actually 3-2) to be 5-2, you would get two points; if you picked 4-0, you would get three points; and if you picked 6-1, you would get four points. Obviously, the lower the point score the better. The second tiebreaker was the difference between your predicted total of goals scored in the entire tournament and the actual number. Again, the lower the point total the better. As far as tiebreakers that were actually needed: For the ECAC, the championship game score was 3-2. For the Big Ten, the championship game score was 6-4. The USCHO prognosticators' numbers are included below, as are the "Higher Seed" picks showing what would have happened if the higher seed for each game had been picked to win. It should be noted that the USCHO staff did not pick the games all at once, the way the rest of us did, which in some cases was especially advantageous. OVERALL NAME TOTAL Nathan Hampton 140 Tony Buffa 136 Sean Keller 136 Scott Kaplan 127 William Sangrey 120 Jim Dixon 103 Bill Fenwick 100 Mark Lewin 100 * John Edwards 76 * Richard Vehlow 8 USCHO 141 Higher Seed 142 * Did not submit picks for all conferences ECAC Tiebreaker 1 Hockey East NAME TOTAL Score Pts NAME TOTAL Sean Keller 8 4-2 1 William Sangrey 36 Nathan Hampton 8 4-3 2 John Edwards 33 John Edwards 8 3-0 2 Sean Keller 33 Tony Buffa 8 5-3 3 Scott Kaplan 23 Richard Vehlow 8 5 Tony Buffa 20 Scott Kaplan 0 Bill Fenwick 12 Jim Dixon 0 Jim Dixon 12 William Sangrey 0 Mark Lewin 12 Bill Fenwick 0 Nathan Hampton 9 Mark Lewin 0 USCHO 17 USCHO 8 Higher Seed 9 Higher Seed 8 WCHA NCHC NAME TOTAL NAME TOTAL Jim Dixon 18 Tony Buffa 44 Bill Fenwick 12 William Sangrey 36 Mark Lewin 12 Sean Keller 36 Nathan Hampton 11 Nathan Hampton 33 Scott Kaplan 11 Scott Kaplan 33 William Sangrey 10 Mark Lewin 33 Sean Keller 8 Jim Dixon 30 Tony Buffa 8 Bill Fenwick 30 USCHO 20 USCHO 36 Higher Seed 20 Higher Seed 41 Atlantic Hockey Big Ten Tiebreaker 1 NAME TOTAL NAME TOTAL Score Pts Nathan Hampton 41 Scott Kaplan 38 4-2 4 John Edwards 35 Nathan Hampton 38 3-2 5 Mark Lewin 34 Tony Buffa 38 2-1 7 Sean Keller 34 Bill Fenwick 22 Bill Fenwick 24 Jim Dixon 22 Scott Kaplan 22 William Sangrey 17 William Sangrey 21 Sean Keller 17 Jim Dixon 21 Mark Lewin 9 Tony Buffa 8 USCHO 38 USCHO 22 Higher Seed 22 Higher Seed 42 -- Bill Fenwick DJF 5/27/94 Cornell '86 and '95 JCF 12/2/97 LET'S GO RED!!