Terms

The short version

This is a hobby hockey pool. Play it in good faith, one account per person, and do not try to break it. If you do, your account can be closed.

Accounts

Accounts are created by redeeming an invite code from someone who runs a pool. One account per person. You are responsible for what happens under yours, so pick a password you do not use elsewhere.

Sharing an account, or holding several to enter a pool more than once, is the one thing that spoils this format for everyone else in the pool. It is grounds for removal.

How a week is decided

Lineups lock at the first puck drop of the week, to the minute. After that nothing changes: a player who is scratched, injured or traded after the lock scores whatever he scores, which is often nothing. There are no replacements and no appeals on that point.

Every change you make in the picker is saved as you make it; there is no Save button. At the lock, whatever is in your lineup plays, even if it is not complete: an empty slot scores nothing.

Scoring runs off the NHL's published game data. If that source corrects a stat after the fact, a week can be re-scored to match it. If it is wrong and never corrected, the pool is wrong too — this site does not adjudicate what happened on the ice.

Whoever creates a pool chooses its budget. The slots and the scoring are the site's: every pool plays the scoring published here, and each week is frozen on its pool's budget and slots when it opens. A commissioner can reopen a week that locked early, but never one whose lock time has passed.

Goal	3
Assist	2
Goalie win	4
Goalie overtime or shootout loss	2
Shutout bonus	2
Goalie game, never below	0

Goalies also score as skaters on the rare night they put up a point.

The rules above are the ones in force. They can change during a season: when they do, this table changes with them. A change applies from the week its pool switches: weeks already scored keep the rules they were scored under, and a week not yet final may be scored under the new ones. The published values are the ones used: if the site ever calculates with anything different, the calculation is corrected to match them. A correction like that is not a change to the rules.

★ Stars. In a pool that plays stars, each week you may star one forward and one defenceman in your lineup, and their points count double for that week. Starring is optional: no star, no bonus. Goalies cannot be starred. You can change your stars until the lineup locks, and they lock with it; a starred player you take out of your lineup loses the star. A pool plays stars from a set week on; a week already open keeps the rules it opened with. The picker says when a week has stars.

Stakes

This site does not handle money, take entry fees, or pay prizes. Whatever your pool does among yourselves is between you and is not operated, escrowed or guaranteed here. Check your local law before attaching money to anything.

Availability

This runs on a single machine as a side project. It will occasionally be down, and a sync can fail. Reasonable effort goes into scoring correctly and on time; there is no guarantee, and no liability for a missed lineup, a late score or a lost week.

Accounts and pools can be closed at any time for the reasons above. You can leave a pool whenever you like.

Not the NHL

HockeyPickem is independent. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by the National Hockey League, the NHL Players' Association, or any club. Team and player names are used to describe real games; the marks belong to their owners.