RANKIN INLET - Every year, hundreds of thousands of puck fanatics across Canada gather at a friend's house for an annual Canadian rite of passage – the hockey pool!

Jack Hedley goes over his pick list before the annual Northern Hockey Pool in Rankin Inlet this past week as Kevin Kent looks on from the background. - Darrell Greer/NNSL photo

One by one they call out the names of players they believe will rack up the most points during the NHL season.

And the pools can be as different as the people who attend them.

Some give points for goals and assists, and others for goalie wins and shutouts.

There are even pools strictly for goon lovers, where players with high penalty minutes are prized picks.

But, no matter what the scoring system, they all share one thing in common: to the winners go bragging rights.

Ron Roach has been involved with hockey pools for many a year in Rankin Inlet.

During the early days of his pools, everything was done by hand.

Roach said he and co-worker Terry Kent had to manually tally the points every week before a local gathering most of the poolies attended.

"Every Wednesday afternoon we'd go in my office, lock the door and put up a do-not-disturb sign while we sat down and added up everyone's points," said Roach.

"We had to make sure they were done on Wednesday so we could take the updated results to the darts game that evening.

"Hockey pools have come a long way since then."

Things had become a lot easier by the time Warren Kusugak caught the hockey pool bug.

With the advances on the Internet, poolies now show up on draft night, select their players and, the following day, a league name and password are e-mailed to them.

From that point on, a few clicks of a mouse logs them onto the website hosting their pool and every stat is there in front of their eyes.

Kusugak said he enjoys hockey pools because they make the hockey season even more enjoyable.

"It's nice to get together with your friends for the draft and then follow your pool all year," said Kusugak.

"It's all about fun, but we're all pretty competitive and everyone wants to win.

"I'll never cheer against my Pittsburgh Penguins, though, even if I have two or three players on a team playing against them.

"Although some nights I hope Pittsburgh wins 7-6 and my guys get all the goals for the other team."