Participants,

Last night I received a message from Ben the Butler that he will not be competing in this year’s HSBT competition due to a severe injury.  He has “a torn ICL” that will require immediate surgery and he faces an extensive recovery and rehab process.  The ICL, similar to the more commonly heard ACL, is the Interior Cranial Ligament.  The injury occured during a training session for this year’s competition, and Ben the Butler said he was in “excellent condition, both mentally and physically” as he prepared to capture his 1st Hewes Super Bowl Trophy.   Our wishes for a speedy recovery to Ben the Butler and we look forward to his return next year.

In other HSBT news, the Wild Card games and times have been officially announced for this coming weekend.  With kickoff of the 1st game at 4:30pm Eastern time on Saturday, January 5 please be sure to submit your picks for all 4 games no later than 4:25pm.  A few other important reminders:

• Your picks for all 4 Wild Card games this weekend are due by the above-mentioned time of 4:25pm Eastern time.  This deadline allows The Commish to update the real-time score and points tracker that can found our our website.  Please be sure to use the “Submit Picks” tab at the top of the website home page, as this will provide a timestamp of your selections.  I hope we don’t have any “time submission is under review” situations.
• The Commish, as usual, will provide real-time scoring and points updates for each game during the playoffs.  You can see those scores on our website by clicking on the “Standings” tab.  The Commish, however, has a commitment the evening of Saturday, January 12 and will not be able to provide real-time updates for the part of the 1st game and all of the 2nd game.  If Greg the Great is available, he may be able to provide those updates.

Later this week The Commish will be providing his customary analysis and predictions for each Wild Card game.  To ensure you get off to a good start (Wild Card games have represented 13% of all accumulated points over the past 30 years), you will want to wait until you have read this publication before submitting your scores for the 4 weekend games.

Until then, Happy New Year!!

~~ The Commish