The Bruins Quarter Quell, Part One (A Hunger Games Sim)

Well, Hockey Twitter sort of discovered this, the other day (@atrodorsus, to be specific), and people have been having a field day with it. Essentially, it takes the characters from the popular Hunger Games books (and movies now, of course) by Suzanne Collins and generates random events for all of the characters. Sounds fun, of course, but the kicker is that using the personal tab, you can modify the pictures and names used.

If you need the background, the Hunger Games centers around the concept of a fight to the death taking place between young people, referred to as "tributes," from 12 different "districts" (Battle Royale is often mentioned as a predecessor in this genre, though I'm not a fan of the movie at all). The combatants fight until only one is left alive, who is declared the winner. They fight for the amusement of the upper classes (The Capitol, the Jacobs Family, etc.) and so that their Districts remember their place as subservient to the lea--er, government.

But just because it's a horribly dark concept and the Bruins are falling towards an early Summer break doesn't mean we can't have fun with the idea!

And thus, @DOYBree (of Days of Y'Orr) and I had basically the same idea, which was originally inspired by @atrodorsus's rather brilliant dismantling of the San Jose Sharks (well, you know, what Doug Wilson hasn't already destroyed). DOY has their own Bruins Hunger Games post up, which is recommended reading, and I did a test run with brief highlights on twitter this morning. For this post, however, I wanted to change it up. This is the Bruins Quarter Quell, as seen in the second Hunger Games movie. It's not just the Bruins players, though they're all here, it's a variety of participants.

The Method:

First of all, I've expanded the field. Each of the 12 Districts (it's a Hunger Games thing) is represented by three people. In this case, it's three Bruins (or villains, as the case may be, though for some people they're both). This gives us 36 contestants total, as you will see. Since that's on the high end--the real Hunger Games only has 24 "tributes" who compete--I've set the fatalities to "high."

You should probably know that the Hunger Games concept is basically "last one alive wins." Our contestants will go into the arena, some working with their District partners, some forming alliances along the way, some going it alone, but all of them are limited by the fact there can only actually be one winner.

You'll note that when we meet our contests, there are a couple key rules I followed:

• With each district having three representatives, this made it easy to keep frequent linemates together. District 1 and District 2 are represented by the Bruins current first and second lines. These are the career tributes, who're the best trained. It's a stretch with District 2 but let's just go with it since it's our second best line at the moment.
• Injuries played a factor, but I did not leave anyone who's been active this season and is still on Bruins payroll out. Dougie Hamilton, Brett Connolly, and Kevan Miller are all here, though they may find it slightly difficult to compete (though not as hard as Lucic will find it without Krejci).
• Since I see the goalies as the good guys on this team, what with them saving the Bruins so much this season, they took the good guy District, which is 12.
• District 3 and 4 are Carl Soderberg's line and Merlot.
• Obviously the pairings of three don't really work for D-Pairings, so I put the Puck Movers in District 5 (Chara and Hamilton count as those even if they're pretty good at defense), and the Stay At Homers in District 6.
• Since the idea of the Quarter Quell is to bring back former winners who've already competed, District 10 includes Claude Julien, Cam Neely Peter Chiarelli!
• District 7 is a mix of the injured (Connolly, Krejci), and the somewhat random-seening call-up (Ferlin), but they may be an underrated bet here (I'm not saying Ferlin has played badly, mind you, just that not many expected him up.
• District 8 are the reserve DMen who've been pressed into service at some point, including David Warsofsky, Joe Morrow, and Zach Trotman.
• For those asking where Matt Bartkowski is, to maintain as much realism as possible here, he has been healthy-scratched.
• District 9 are the betrayed--recent former Bruins. Well, two of them are; Craig Cunningham and Matt Fraser. Mecha-Seguin is just a robot that Tyler Seguin sent after his old teammates to win victory in his name in the arena.
• District 11 are your true villains here: Michel Therrien and Dale Weise. Weise HAD to be here for potential hilarity between him and Lucic. Therrien because he's obviously Claude's nemesis. And since no one wanted to stand with them, especially not P.K. Subban...oh wait, Alexei Emelin? Step right up. After all, we want Milan Lucic to have his chance at ultimate revenge. Don't vote for District 11.
• I'll be starting the sim and faithfully recording the highlights for you in Part Two. If you want to figure out the thing works, it's, again, located here. Get to voting (and/or trying it out)!

The Madness:

Step right up! Which group of tributes will have one man make it through to the end?!

May the odds be ever in your favor