A hockey pool is a variant of ice hockey

Ice hockey

Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...

 in which the participants (called "owners") each draft or acquire a team of real-life NHL

National Hockey League

The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...

 players and then score points based on those players' statistical

Statistics

Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....

 performance on the ice. It is a simpler and less involved version of fantasy hockey

Fantasy hockey

Fantasy hockey is a form of fantasy sport where players build a team that competes with other players who do the same, based on the statistics generated by professional hockey players or teams...

.

How to Play

While each pool generally maintains its own rules and regulations, usually defined by the contestants themselves, there are a few constants. Generally, each participant in a pool selects a team of players drawn from current pros. Throughout the season, their statistics are tracked, and the pool winner is the person whose team has the most points at the end of the season.

Scoring

The most common scoring scheme is simply:

• 1 point per goal
  Goal (ice hockey)
  In ice hockey, a goal is scored when the puck completely crosses the goal line between the two goal posts and below the goal crossbar. A goal awards one point to the team attacking the goal scored upon, regardless of which team the player who actually deflected the puck into the goal belongs to...
  
  
• 1 point per assist
  Assist (ice hockey)
  In ice hockey, an assist is attributed to up to two players of the scoring team who shot, passed or deflected the puck towards the scoring teammate, or touched it in any other way which enabled the goal, meaning that they were "assisting" in the goal. There can be a maximum of two assists per goal...
  
  

Some pools offer additional scoring based on the player's position (such as points for a goaltender

Goaltender

In ice hockey, the goaltender is the player who defends his team's goal net by stopping shots of the puck from entering his team's net, thus preventing the opposing team from scoring...

 victory) or skill level (such as points for penalties

Penalty (ice hockey)

A penalty in ice hockey is a punishment for inappropriate behavior. Most penalties are enforced by detaining the offending player within a penalty box for a set number of minutes, during which, the player can not participate in play. The offending team usually may not replace the player on the ice,...

 earned by an enforcer

Enforcer (hockey)

Enforcer is an unofficial role in ice hockey. The term is sometimes used synonymously with "fighter", "tough guy", or "goon". NHL players regarded as enforcers include Tiger Williams, Tony Twist, Bob Probert, Dave Semenko, Dave Schultz, Tie Domi, Dave Brown, Joey Kocur, Clark Gillies, Stu Grimson,...

). Other pools have much higher levels of complexity, taking into account defensive statistics and +/-. When management of the participant's roster is required (i.e., activating certain players), this type of pool is often referred to as fantasy hockey

Fantasy hockey

Fantasy hockey is a form of fantasy sport where players build a team that competes with other players who do the same, based on the statistics generated by professional hockey players or teams...

.

Types of Games

There are two basic kinds of hockey pools: draft and non-draft. In a draft pool, no player can be held by more than one participant. All of the pool participants take turns drafting their players. (The drafts are usually held in serpentine fashion; that is, the team picking first in the odd rounds will pick last in the even rounds.) This type of pool requires considerable in-depth knowledge of players beyond the top tier of NHL stars.

In a non-draft pool, everyone simply picks a set number of players. Thus, multiple participants can have the same player among their set roster.

One variant of a non-draft pool is a "box-style" pool, where players of a similar caliber (i.e., forwards

Forward (ice hockey)

In ice hockey, a forward is a player position on the ice whose primary responsibility is to score goals. Generally, the forwards try to stay in three different lanes, also known as thirds, of the ice going from goal to goal. It is not mandatory however, to stay in a lane. Staying in a lane aids in...

, defencemen

Defenceman (ice hockey)

Defence in ice hockey is a player position whose primary responsibility is to prevent the opposing team from scoring...

, superstars, rookie

Rookie

Rookie is a term for a person who is in his or her first year of play of their sport or has little or no professional experience. The term also has the more general meaning of anyone new to a profession, training or activity Rookie is a term for a person who is in his or her first year of play of...

s) are grouped together and a fixed number of players are selected from each group or box.

A hockey pool can also be played using the NHL playoffs, Olympics

Olympic Games

The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...

, World Cup

World Cup of Hockey

The World Cup of Hockey is an international ice hockey tournament. Inaugurated in 1996, it is the successor to the previous Canada Cup, which ran from 1976 to 1991...

 or World Championship

Ice Hockey World Championships

The Ice Hockey World Championships are an annual ice hockey tournament organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation . First officially held at the 1920 Summer Olympics, it is the sport's highest profile annual international tournament. The IIHF was created in 1908 while the European...

tournaments. These pools are extremely popular as they are much shorter in length.

Running a Hockey Pool

For a typical hockey pool, there are hundreds of statistical updates occurring every night. Updating statistics accurately and on a timely basis is usually handled by hockey pool software or via an online hockey pool manager.

An example of an online hockey pool manager can be found at http://www.PickupHockey.com