A couple weeks ago I was approached by Wanye. He did his usual naked flashing routine form of greeting and afterwards asked me if I could help out with the Nation. I first asked him to close his trench coat and then proceeded to inquire what exactly he had in mind.

I don’t know if many of you are aware, but there has been battle brewing within the inner bowels of the internets. A war has been waging for a couple of weeks now, pitting men against children, wives against husbands and Robin Brownlee against everyone else. The war is being fought in the battle arena that is the NationDrafts.com Team 1260 hockey draft.

Which brings me to the point here: Those who can’t do, report on it. Wanye asked me to be the embedded reporter in the field and give a run down on the movers and shakers in the Nationdraft.com Team 1260 draft. Each week I’ll try and summarize who’s rocking and who apparently let me chose their picks. This gig even comes with a sweet title: The Minister of Draft. I like it. Not only will I do my best to report on the goings on in the Nationdraft, but I’ll also do my part to ensure the quality and drinkability of the finest ales in our fair land. Mmmmmm beeeer.

I will let you all in on a little secret: I suck at hockey pools. I start looking through all of the available players and I overthink the hell out of my selections. I end up trying to look for those sleeper players. The ones that nobody else would pick because, well, they mostly suck. "But this is the year!" I say to myself. I’m usually wrong. There is nothing better than picking that sleeper player and having him perform well above his abilities. You swell up with pride knowing that you were the one that believed in him. YOU plucked him right out the the pile of the Ovechkins, the Malkins, the Crosbys and the Heatleys. You just knew what you were doing. For some reason, it rarely works out for me.

We currently have a three way tie for the lead in the Team 1260 NationDraft.

"Carlo Gambino", "Sage11" and "Wiltonclan" are all showing us how it’s done by racking up 193 points so far. I suspect some sort of performance-enhancing drugs to be the reason for their hot start. All I have to say to those top three is "Keep your head up." because "Tony Tanti’s" is only 1 point back. What a race!

(Note: I don’t know if Willis or Amber have teams… if they do I can’t find ’em.)

771. Christ Punchers: 154 points back, -39 points back
Hahaha. The only thing I have to say about this team is "good lord."

799. 20 Cent Kanes: 152 points, -41points back
Oh, Patrick Kane jokes will never get old. Is P.K. gonna give use something to make fun of him for every season? Last season he was bawling his eyes out over a coaching change and this season…well…yeah.

877. Zack Stortini’s Left Nut: 136 points, points back -57
I searched but couldn’t find Zack Stortini’s Right Nut in the team list. So I think we can all breathe a little easier knowing both of Zack Stortini’s balls aren’t playing the NationDraft.

Well so far the money players in our Team 1260 NationDraft have been Ovechkin and Kopitar, racking up 19 and 21 pts respectively. It’s no surprise that the top three in our draft have those two in their lineup.

Those of you who picked Ilya Kovalchuk were probably punching things and ripping tags off of mattresses and stuff this week when we learned that Ilya broke his foot. He’ll be shelved on the IR until late Novemeber. Yeesh. The top five in the NationDraft all chose Zach Parise over Kovalchuk, so they should be safe for now.

How about Crosby with the hatty the other night?!? Not many of you have the Croz in your lineups. In fact…I’m pretty sure an overwhelming majority of you picked Ovechkin or Malkin over Sid the Kid. Why am I mentioning this then? Not sure, but perhaps "ilikesoup" will rocket up the standings from 687th to the top ten because he’s one of the handful of you that picked Crosby. Talk about your sleeper picks!

That’s TB’s rundown of the Team 1260 NationDraft for the week ending October 28th.

Stay hydrated,
Minister Towel Boy