Kirkland teams advance in round one of Hopelink Can Madness

Published 12:43 pm Monday, March 10, 2014

The 32 teams competing in round one of Hopelink Can Madness collected a total of 3,892 pounds of food and more than $800 during the first week of tournament ending March 7.

The contest is aimed at stocking the agency’s five food banks. Kirkland teams moving on to round two are: Ben & Jerry’s, Lake Washington Physical Therapy, Merrill Gardens, MTI Physical Therapy, Touch of Class Barbers, LLC, Washington Federal of Kirkland and Xtreme Consulting.

The drive is patterned after the famous national spring college basketball tournament, matching businesses in weekly competitions to see which one can bring in the most food. Each week, the winning business in every bracket will advance to the following week.

To ensure that businesses of all sizes are able to compete on a level playing field, the competition uses a unique scoring system that divides the number of pounds of food collected each Friday by a denominator that reflects the size of the business.

Teams are bracketed together in pairs and one winner from each two-member bracket advances to the following week.