My friend Pat has about two years of life on me, which has given him and his college group a 24-month head start in finding new, innovative ways to waste time and gamble on sports. One of their greatest inventions is a yearlong pool that they’ve named Champions League.
The concept of Champions League is pretty simple. Eight players collectively agree on 20 categories, each of which is an event that will/can occur over the course of a full calendar year. Categories can range from something as straightforward as the Super Bowl or WNBA champion to something as unpredictable as the home country of the winner of Miss Universe. The world is truly your oyster.
At some point in August, the eight participants are randomly assigned a draft order, and then a snake draft proceeds over the course of several days/weeks until all players have picked a “champion” in all 20 categories. Each time a chosen champion is crowned, all other members send the winning contestant a predetermined prize. If no champion is crowned, which happens more frequently than you’d think (e.g. Joe Burrow going No. 1 in the NFL Draft), nobody wins.
Below is a look at my league’s matrix for 2020-21:
Names blacked out in order to preserve anonymity for the person who picked Shea Patterson for Heisman and No. 1 pick (it was me).
The timing of our inaugural Champions League was not ideal, as this concept typically works better in years without global pandemic and mass cancellations, but we still managed to have a few exhilarating matchups. The first non-weather caution flag at the Daytona 500 was delayed more than 24 hours because of rain. I invested 45 minutes in August researching races of the past 30 years before settling on laps 1-25 with my No. 1 overall pick. The first caution didn’t occur until the 51-75 lap group. A colossal upset.
The Women’s US Open came down to a final between Serena Williams, one of the first picks off the board, and 19-year-old Bianca Andreescu, who none of us had ever heard of but ended up supporting like she was a relative.
But nothing got us going like the most contentious showdown of the year: the Westminster Dog Show.
What I watched today on YouTube
Let’s get a few things out of the way. I am not a dog show judge. I have no idea how the rib cage of a prototypical Great Pyrenees should feel. I can’t tell you the first thing to examine when it comes to the gait of a Yorkshire Terrier. I did, however, have plenty of opinions.
{Not Shown) The head judge gets the festivities going with a tearful thank you to the true, forgotten heroes of America: breeders. I politely ask this question as the proud owner of a rescue dog: what?
(0:12) Stella the boxer, one of X Champions League finalists and the winner of the working dog group, gracefully does her lap. In my mind, the prototypical boxer is the one that chased me on my bike when I was a kid, and Stella seems a lot nicer than that boxer. The biggest issue is her handler’s bright purple socks. This moment isn’t about you, buddy.
(0:25) Fan favorite Daniel the golden retriever is up next. Knicks’ fans finally get the star in Madison Square Garden that they deserve. Trevor Lawrence is the Daniel of quarterbacks.