From The Ground Up, Part 8

A lot happening this weekend with the Icethetics fantasy hockey league — not sure if that's the name, just what I'm calling it right now. Let's outline what's what.

First, the North and Northeast Division city selection process is over. We have the five cities that will be included in each division. That will be revealed tomorrow in the post where you guys will begin submitting name nominations for those teams.

That brings is to the Pacific and Central Divisions. We are now finished with the nominations for those divisions and I've narrowed down 20 names from each city. I know this may irk some of you, but let's face it, some of those names weren't exactly spectacular to begin with. Plus, simplicity is king in my book.

The next step is you guys choosing each team's name. This will be a simple process. For each city you'll be directed to a page with all 20 name finalists. You will rate each name individually from 1 to 5 stars. The name with the highest star rating will be the team's official name. In the event of a tie, a runoff poll will be held the next week.

This process assures that you aren't forced to choose one name over another. You simply rate each name on its own merits. You like it or you don't. This should allow us to get a fair consensus of what everyone considers to be a good team name.

Here's the thing, at this point is when we start doing one division per week. It'd be an insane amount of work for me to keep up with both divisions. So this week you'll rate the names for the Pacific Division. Next week the Central. The week after that Northeast... and so on. The process of determining the names for all 30 teams will take six weeks starting today.

There are links in the Fantasy League section in the pollbar directing you to the list of names for each city in the Pacific Division. Rate as many or as few names as you want and you're done. All the results will be finalized next weekend and we'll start with the Central Division.

An important note. A few cities have the same team names available. Rush, for example, was nominated and is a finalist for both Anchorage and Los Angeles. Obviously, two teams cannot have the same name. If, by some miracle, the same name is selected for two cities, the city for which it got the higher rating gets to keep it. The other city has to give it up and go with the second place name. If there's a tie, we'll do a runoff poll.

If you guys have any other questions, feel free to ask. I'll address them as a reply to your comment or email, or make an addition to this post.