Part II of revealing everyone’s answers to the prop pool and possibly doxxing some people. Ok, just for the last couple questions.
ICYMI, Part I results here.
Comments: The public is on Sonj, but not by as much as I would think considering that she’s been the top goalie chosen (or at worst top 3) in most drafts she’s been in while no one’s seen Tyler play a D5 game yet. Is that more a commentary on what people suspect will be the quality of the defenses in front of them, worry about Sonj’s injury, hype on Tyler or just good old fashioned sexism?
My Pick: I traded up in the draft to take Tyler and am obviously throwing my support behind him and his beautiful defense. Vezina campaign incoming.
Comments: Glatts’ goalie last season vs their goalie this season. Max usually gets drafted first but is starting this GAA race in the hole having let up 14 goals in two games to start the season in week one. Does he have enough time to make it back?
My Pick: I love Max as you can see in the below photo but starting out with a 7.00 GAA is very difficult to overcome. Cam’s probably winning this.
Comments: There is a lot of love for Carl after one of the best playoff runs we’ve ever seen and also a lot of uncertainty surrounding Jeff Green considering he’s traveling for at least 3 weeks of the season, if not more. Add it all up and it leads to a somewhat surprising but maybe not entirely so margin of victory for Carl that’s one of the biggest in this entire poll.
My Pick: I expected Jeff Green to be the contrarian option but I never expected him to only get 16.1% of the vote. Even if I have some concerns about the orange defense, it’s an incredible value. Sign me up.
Comments: Small goalies who pack a major punch in the net and at the bar. And both on teams that will have some uncertainty defensively. I expected the public to be on Sophia and they did not disappoint.
My Pick: Sorry Ziss but even at reduced ownership, I’m taking Sophia, Pink’s defense was historically bad last season but they are going to be much, much better with the Simon/Pete Tandem anchoring this season. And while Craig is a two time Leetch Award winner, he’s much more of an offensive scoring threat from the blue line than a true shut down option. I should note this pick was made before black gave up more goals in a single game than pink gave up in two on Tuesday night, but I don’t expect anyone to believe me.
Comments: Two goalies looking to rebound as Corey’s coming off a season marred by injury and a last place finish while Doug looked great in limited action for Street Meat at the end of last season but struggled a bit the last time he was a full time goalie for Cup Size / MilkMob (there was a midseason trade).
My Pick: I think both of these goalies are going to have strong bounceback seasons behind what are likely to be two of the top teams in the league. But if I have to pick one, it’s going to be Corey. This pick definitely looks worse after a Tuesday night where yellow gave up six goals and camo only gave up one but I’m riding with Blay the sex machine. I’m not sure if anyone else calls him that but they should definitely start. Doug I’m sure has sex too. Not at the same level though.
Comments: Despite what happened in week one, the public is all over Shake n’ Bake to close the gap and surpass the Pranksters. Whether that’s based on roster construction or bias from the body of work from previous seasons, it’s a somewhat surprising development as the Pranksters beat Shake n’ Bake 5-3 in a game that wasn’t really as close as the score indicates.
My Pick: Count me among the sickos who took Shake n’ Bake. I think they have the potential to be a top team this season.
Comments: Public is split among two of the middle teams in the initial power rankings. Both of these teams drafted better than I expected this season and I think they’re likely to battle it out for top four seeding right up until the final week.
My Pick: Camo for me. They benefitted from some really beneficial draft slottings because I assumed as new captains they would draft rather poorly but they actually drafted quite well. 48.4% might honestly be a bargain.
Comments: The two bottom teams in the power rankings and a sneaky rivalry at that as the last time these teams met in the Fall of 2025, pink won 13-2 and in Yehuda’s opinion ended the black franchise. Well, they’re back now and with probably a stronger roster than they had last time around.
My Pick: I didn’t think pink would be great but I also didn’t think they’d be quite as bad as people predicted. They made that look good lsat week in winning two games in a row which I certainly did not expect but for the purposes of this bet will certainly take.
Comments: Public’s on red and with good reason as they have the Weaver Bros back and usually finish pretty highly in the regular season. Of course, orange is the team which has never missed the final four and that does usually come with a fairly high standings placement; 2nd, 6th, 2nd and 1st in their four seasons.
My Pick: Red for me considering all the uncertainty behind orange and their roster of first time ball hockey players. I might regret this pick in a month’s time if they’re able to put it together quickly, but I think red has a much higher floor, if potentially a lower ceiling.
Comments: Public has blue as a top 3 team which is kind of surprising as this was the first season blue was not ranked #1 in the preseason power rankings. Then again, they did rank blue 3rd which I suppose is literally top 3.
My Pick: There is no universe that exists where I wouldn’t rank my own team as a top 3 squad.
Comments: Must be noted once again that answers were submitted before purple dropped two decisions on Tuesday night without Jo and Milstein. Still, I think this split is about right. Purple is likely to be fighting for top four seeding and despite two losses this week I think the increased parity leaguewide is going to leave the door open for them to make a run at top 3 if they can get hot.
My Pick: The door will be open and they’ll have a shot…but I don’t quite think they’ll make it. 4th or lower is the pick for me.
Comments: Public is split on this one as well which tells me this is a well-made line but slightly leans in favor of top 4, presumably after watching them destroy a shorthanded red in week one. Of course, the last team to pound a shorthanded red squad early in the season had to disband just weeks later. Hopefully that doesn’t happen to this franchise because I kinda like them.
My Pick: Once again, made before a 6-1 beatdown of Show Bobs (although doesn’t mean much because that was somewhat predictable), but I have Doug Fish as a top four team. Through two weeks of play they might honestly have put together the most impressive game tape of any team. Going to be absolutely fascinating to see where they land in the next round of power rankings.
Comments: As you could see from the answer to the head-to-head vs Pranksters, public doesnt put much stock in their season opening loss and still ranks this as an elite team. Over half of poll respondents have this as a top four team despite the fact that they lost their first game and have only finished top 4 once in the past four seasons.
My Pick: Count me among the believers. They may struggle in playoffs when certain players that they got bargains on because they are missing playoffs are out (namely Amit and Mitch), but for regular season at least they are going to be quite good.
Comments: A shocking opening night where Glatt’s lost their first two games since September of last year has done little to really dissuade the public. Over 83% of people still see this as a top five team. I guess I should have made this top four to make it more interesting.
My Pick: Contrarian again but I have 6th or lower. I think this is going to come right down to the wire but my personal prediction is a 6th seed on the dot. At 0-2 and giving up a ton of goals (the 5th tiebreaker), they will likely have to go 6-2 in their remaining 8 games to finish top 5. Can they do it? For sure considering they were undefeated just last season, but in a summer with more parity than I’ve seen in years, I think getting contrarian pricing on 6th or lower which is most likely a coinflip is great value. Don’t count this team out by any means but they will really miss Sanchick and Dax, two of their sneakiest play-drivers last season. This one is going to be extremely close imo.
Comments: The public similarly is not at all concerned about the Jeffrey’s crew needing to acclimate to ball hockey and rates this as a top 6 squad. Early returns on Tuesday were promising even if it didn’t quite lead to a win and pink’s subsequent domination of a 1-0 Pranksters squad give orange some hope that they ran into a hot teamand will be ok in the long run.
My Pick: I think there will be some growing pains and the parity among teams this season is really really impressive. 8th is my prediction.
Comments: They were ranked last in the preseason power rankings but over half of respondents think this team is going to finish top 8. I’m not sure how that works logically but the point is taken. Rankers like their core and clearly see the Craig/Hicks connection working this season, at least enough to keep this team out of the play-ins.
My Pick: I like a lot of the players on this team and it’s not like they’re going to go winless or anything, but this is one of my most confident predictions in this entire pool. 9th or lower.
Comments: 71% of people have this team rated as a bottom three squad. This pick looks really bad after they beat Pie Pie and then smoked the Pranksters the other night.
My Pick: I have said on record that this pink team will not be as bad as people think, but I still picked 9th or lower because I can’t really name three teams that I think they’re definitively better than. Considering they’re 2-0 and currently 2nd in the standings, I may need to rethink this one.
Comments: 80.6% of people think it’s going to be Hootie or Bramson and only 19.4% took the field. A fairly shocking result as I expected most people would be on Lucas, Ken or Brooke, all of whom were drafted ahead of the captains of this team.
My Pick: The chemistry between these two has been something to behold thus far. I thought I was going to get a contrarian pricing on this but I’ll Hootie & Bramson either way.
Comments: Chad absolutely dominates the polling in one of the most lopsided questions in this entire pool. It probably looks even more lopsided when you realize the raw vote totals were 29 in favor of Chad and only 2 for anyone else on the team.
My Pick: Chad will have be injured or miss half the season attending midweek EDM concerts to lose this award. I have no idea how I was allowed to lead blue in scoring last season but I can assure you it’s not happening again. Chaddy for the win.
Comments: Craig dominates the polling here and it’s not tough to see why as black took him with the #1 overall pick this season after he set a league record for goals in a season with 22 last season.
My Pick: Contrarian city. I’m buying tickets for the Hicks revival and even if that doesn’t work out I have 11 other outs here. Give me the field.
Comments: Kevin Tuohy, red’s stock late 1st round pick virtually every season, gets 61.3% of the vote particularly with red’s attendance issues up and down the lineup this season. Carter, Campbell and Tarnow are all slated to miss multiple games and Kevin is usually pretty reliable. Plus some people consider him the best player in the league.
My Pick: I’m taking the field again, mostly because of Carter. If he can get 7-8 games in, I think he sneakily takes this one down.
Comments: Despite Luc scoring multiple points in week one, almost half of the respondents believe he’s going to get passed by someone on purple. The multiple points in week two certainly don’t help their cause.
My Pick: I don’t see it happening. Jo Robin, Oskar and Pigozzi are the only real contenders for this and they’re all more all-around types of players than just rack up points types. Actually kind of surprised this is only at 54.8%; should be closer to 75-25 imo.
Comments: Public is heavily on the season total goals over and it’s tough to really blame them considering what we’ve seen the past two D5 seasons and through the first two weeks of this one.
My Pick: This line assumes about 7.5 goals per game which has been about what we’re averaging. But it should also be noted that outliers up have more pull than outliers down. What I mean is that there are far more 12 goal games expected that 3 goal games, and that the lowest possible goal total is 1 but it is very possible that a game will have more than 14 (it’s already happened). I’ve bet on regression in a lot of these lines today, but the over is the play here.
Comments: The public is close to evenly split on this one, possibly because they don’t understand what the fuck is going on with this question.
My Pick: The sportsbook’s internal EVs are 11 for Pie Pie Standings points and 13 for Ladies’ Scoring Champ point total. Considering those EVs were calculated by me, I’m taking the Ladies Scoring line.
Comments: I had to get creative on this one because with 8 games remaining, my EV for the Glatt’s point line was 15-17. At the time I put this together Levine had 8 goals in 2 games and considering he rarely misses games and is involved in most of his team’s offense, my projection for his point total was around 25 which was a bit too high. But with 8 goals banked and 8 games left his goal projection was also 18-20 which a bit high. I needed to balance it out with something with an EV in the 14-17 range and Gelman picking up one point in his season debut made him the perfect candidate. Voters seemed to like this statistical grab bag as they took the Gelman/Levine average by a 71%-29% margin.
My Pick: I’m taking that line as well. Levine/Gelman both look like solid bets to overshoot their projections and could hit 20 while Glatt’s is going to have to turn around their defense immediately to hit that number. They could easily do it, but in this league it’s much easier to be on offense than defense. Ryan could honestly break the goals record at his current pace and I wouldn’t be surprised.
Comments: He may break the goals record, but can he beat Tony in this contest? Pretty much everyone believes he will. In fact, I’m just going to outright reveal that the only votes for Tony came from Joe (a rookie on blue), Carl and of course Tony himself. Is this a case of people believing that Ryan’s knowledge of the league and gambling ability far outstripes Tony’s or are they just used to seeing Tony lose after last season’s referendum ended with Brooke roasting his hockey ability and his legal acumen?
My Pick: Ryan for sure. Let’s say it’s because I think his experience in D5 (this is his 10th season) and the body of work I’ve seen from his gambling are far greater. In perusing their answers they actually disagreed on 25 questions. Maybe I’ll post those another time.
Comments: Like hammering calls after you’ve bought tons of shares in a stock, we have an even greater margin for how many people expect Ryan to garner the majority of the vote. This is partially a similar question to the previous one, but instead of being decided by actual performance it’s expected performance based on public sentiment. And wow is sentiment behind Ryan. In the 4 or 5 seasons I’ve done pools like this this question is always one of the closest and generally ends up 55/45 in favor of someone. 93.5% on how people will predict they’ll do in this pool is virtually unheard of.
My Pick: This was the easiest question in the entire pool. Faith in Tony is at an all-time low right now. On the bright side he does have five points in his first two games, although Ryan tallied 8 goals in those same two games. It’s the one question that I can already grade in this pool and since Tony was one of only two people to pick himself, he is now down a point against everyone in this pool except Jo Robin. Painful start.