Gamenight: How To Gamble On Hockey

For those who don't have Home Ice, Versus is actually showing a decent game: Thank God.It's usually Boston/Philadelphia or Detroit/crap.Because we like to gamble and because we get bored,we figured we'd try and handicap this game.Dicks.For those familiar with throwing cash money around on football point spreads,hockey is a little bit different.All spreads are 1.5, plus or minus.So, for example, here is the line on tonight's Wild/Blackhawks game:Too much info is sometimes the best, even at the risk of insulting some people's intelligence that we know you have.Whichever team is minus ( - ) is favored.Therefore, the Wild are favored to win the game tonight by 1.5 goals.The Blackhawks are the underdog.If you bet on the Hawks, and they lose 2-1, you win, since they lost by less than 1.5.If they lose 3-1, you're taking out a mortgage.If they win, you win. Obviously.Conversely, if you take the Wild, you need them to win by two or more.The money line, which is the second column, is just like football betting.You're just picking a team to win the game, straight up.If you put $5 on Chicago at +145, you would get you $7.25 for the win.If you put $5 on the Wild to win, you get $3.03.The last column is the over/under: another familiar line to football gamblers.This one is easy.You bet on whether the teams will score more or less than 5 goals combined.Now, you can do several things.You can make a straight bet on any of these wagers, or you can parlay them.For example, you can take the Wild to win or cover, and the under.The more you parlay, the more you can win. You can even do multiple games in a night.::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::True hockey gambling storyBill Simmons once quoted someone who said:"A good bet is like a good women, you only meet a few, and you remember them all."Back in our college days, we threw some money around from time to time, never really touching hockey because it is tough to pick a winner every night.Well, we had a solid weekend, making 150 bucks, and we were feeling lucky.But after Monday went by, we had nothing to put any action on.The year was 2005, and the Pens were awful in October.It was on Tuesday, October 25, that we bet our first hockey game.The Penguins had to win sometime, and they were playing the Panthers at home.We put $30 on the Penguins to win.The recap is still archived of the [4-3 ot] loss. Sickening.So yeah, that sucked.Fast-forward to the end of October.The 27th, (three-year anniversay today), and the Penguins were hosting the Atlanta Thrashers.The Penguins hadn't even won a game yet.All the hype surrounding Crosby entering the.nhl and big free-agency signings was just about gone.But they had to win, right? And the Thrashers were never good.We put $120 on the Penguins to cover the spread. They had to win by two goals.The game started at 7:30 PM.And like so many games that year, it was essentially over by about 8:00 PM.The Thrashers went off.They were up 4-0 early, and it was vomit city.$120 ain't no joke when you're in college and you've overdrafted your bank account more times than you care to remember.But as usual, #66 bailed us out. He went off.Scored two straight goals in the first period. Assisted on three more.And as Ric Jackman made it 6-4, we were stunned. Big John Leclair added a huge insurance goal to make it 7-4, and life had meaning again. But, of course Caron had to give up a goal to make it 7-5 late in third. Thrashers could not score again. And thankfully they didn't.We won something like $280.Unreal.Somehow this game is still on the internet: And here is the [recap]This scoresheet might need to be framed:How Lasse Pirjeta was seeing more ice time than Talbot is a sad commentary on Eddie O's coaching career.:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::So anyway, we are going to try and get back into gambling on hockey on these game nights.We welcome all of you to join in. We'll try to keep our record.Our pick of the night:Minnesota to win and the over of 5.We'd take the under, but we don't trust the Blackhawks goalie situation.Good luck.Go PensSource