We want more voters!

If you want to be an official voter this year, let us know. We have space for a few people, so don't hesitate to sign up if you want to vote.

I'm opening the official vote early this year to allow for vacation schedules, so the voting can take place from this Friday to the Sunday of the August holiday weekend, August 4.

If you've never done this before, this is easy. All you have to do is fill in a spreadsheet with the numbers 1 through 25 for your rankings. The names are all there for you along with the basics about the player.

There are no rules about how you decide to rank, so you get to use your own views on current value vs future worth. You can decide if future worth just to the Leafs matters more than their ultimate playing ability on some other team. Or if you just want to rank them as players without thought to where they might play. You get to decide how uncertainty about the player's future affects your vote now.

All of that sounds wonderful – total freedom – but it is that individual freedom that actually makes doing the list hard. You have to come up with your own methods.

Some people make tiers of players and then sort them out into a list after they're in a tier. Some just start and the top and go down. Some start at the bottom. Whatever works for you is what you get to do.

If you want to be a voter, send me an email with the name you want to use to vote. This does not have to be your PPP username if you don't want it to be. But I need an email to invite you to use the voting spreadsheet. So to vote you need to be at least a little comfortable putting numbers in a google sheet.

The really important thing, though, is the voter blurbs in the articles. This is what makes the T25 a truly group event and not just a few people saying predictable things about the Leafs prospects. You don't have to write up blurbs to vote, but it makes the whole summer much more fun. This is pretty painless – you just get to write a paragraph or two on a google doc for each player voted onto the list.

And that brings me to the other thing you have to do: not talk about the order of the final vote or who is or is not on the list before its revealed.

All-in, you're looking at a time commitment of an hour or two spread over a couple of weeks.

Email PPP to Apply to Vote

Also, bear in mind I'm on summer time, so I might not respond immediately to emails. Expect me to do that before Friday, though!

And in hockey news, er... you likely noticed on the main page that Leafs signed Connor Dewar.

Breaking the Ice: Inside the Kondos Ice Hockey League
The Origins of Kondos Ice Hockey League 15 years ago Chris Kondos started running his own scrimmages and as a bit of fun called it the Kondos Hockey League. We started by scrimmaging and giving young kids somewhere to go on a Friday night rather than going out drinking and taking drugs.
Hooked On Hockey MagazineIgor Burdetskiy
Former Harvard Women’s Ice Hockey Coach Katey Stone Sues University, Alleges Gender Discrimination | News | The Harvard Crimson
The former coach of the Harvard women’s ice hockey team filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against the University on Tuesday, accusing top administration officials of forcing her to retire over false misconduct allegations.
The Harvard Crimson
Wakely selected by Edmonton Oilers in National Hockey League’s Entry Draft – Anishinabek News

Note: I haven't read this since I'm not a subscriber, but if you approach this topic assuming as one of the inherent laws of the universe that paying less tax is inherently good, you should stop and think that over first. Promoting the idea that wealth accumulation is in and of itself the principle business of life while viewing this issue through the narrow focus of hockey teams in a trans-national league is maybe not what people intend, but it is often where they end up.

Also, I've long since vowed to never write a headline containing the word could or might, and I'm renewing that vow today.

And the Victory Press, who have covered Women's Hockey for years is going into archive mode.

And that's all for today, the slowest July for news in recent memory. The eligibility list for the T25 will go up soon and I'll get the Community Vote setup for next week.

From The Branches