Calgary Flames March Madness: Intro

Last season I debuted a Calgary Flames version of the March Madness bracket. It got some pretty good reception so I thought I’d give it another shot this season.

This gives fans the opportunity to follow a bracket format to vote for their favorite Calgary Flames with 2-3 matchups per day until the end. Last year’s winner was Sean Monahan with Matthew Tkachuk as the runner-up.

Every second day, I’ll be putting up a piece with a certain number of matchups, and like the NCAA tournament it will be heavy with three or four the first few days, then taper off to quarters, semis, and the final on their own days.

All you need to do is vote in each poll for your favorite Flame of the two players in each matchup. For those interested, I chose the cut-off for making this bracket as having 10 games played for skaters, then included all three goaltenders currently on the roster.

Here’s a look at the randomly generated bracket for the tournament:

Schedule:

March 10: Andrew Mangiapane vs Matt Stajan, Troy Brouwer vs Michael Frolik, Jon Gillies vs Micheal Ferland

March 12: Matthew Tkachuk vs Michael Stone, Garnet Hathaway vs Mark Jankowski, T.J. Brodie vs Matt Bartkowski

March 14: Curtis Lazar vs Sam Bennett, Brett Kulak vs Mark Giordano, Sean Monahan vs Mangiapane/Stajan Winner

March 16: Dougie Hamilton vs Brouwer/Frolik Winner, Kris Versteeg vs Gillies/Ferland Winner, Travis Hamonic vs Tkachuk/Stone Winner

March 18: Johnny Gaudreau vs Hathaway/Jankowski Winner, Mike Smith vs Brodie/Bartkowski Winner

March 20: Mikael Backlund vs Lazar/Bennett Winner, David Rittich vs Kulak/Giordano Winner

March 22: Quarterfinals A + B

March 24: Quarterfinals C + D

March 26: Semi-Final A

March 28: Semi-Final B

March 30: Final

Again, it’s a pretty simple idea, we’ll post the matchups each day along with some brief facts of each player, and you vote in the individualized poll for each matchup.

Each poll’s results will be taken the following day at 7:00PM MT ie) March 10 matchups are finished at March 11 at 7:00pm.

This is just for fun the rest of the way, and feel free to vote early and and as often as you want! Remember to pass this along to your other friends that are Flames fans too!