Brace yourselves hockey fans. A bracket is heating up. No, I am not talking about March Madness, I am talking about EA Sports’ fan vote for the NHL ’13 cover. This is the first year fans will be able to vote for who they think should be on the cover of the much awaited game. In the past, cover-players have been announced as a surprise to NHL fans. Previous cover-players include: Alexander Ovechkin (’07), Eric Staal (’08), Dion Phaneuf (’09), Pat Kane (’10), Jonathan Toews (’11), and Steven Stamkos (’12). At http://www.nhl.com/covervote, fans are able to choose between two candidates given for each team. The two candidates from each team are pre-selected. Fans are allowed to vote up to 10 times a day for either every teams’ players or just one player if they so choose. After April 11th, players will re-enter a new bracket of choices based on who ‘won’ their category. Most of the selections of players seem fairly obvious, highlighting the key players from this year’s season.

Here are photos of the first round choices:

Twitter is taking a big role in the NHL ’13 cover discussion. Using the hashtag #NHL13Cover, the NHL is maintaining an active conversation about who should win. Players are tweeting and asking fans and followers to vote for them. Some of the players are joking around about making the decision about which teammate to vote for. See NY Rangers’ Brad Prust’s tweets from this morning: 

Is there anyone you think deserves the cover the most? Any teams that have the wrong players as choices? Do you think players tweets that ask for votes will actually make a difference?