Week 1: Washington at Baltimore

Week 2: Pittsburgh at Washington

Week 3: New England at Washington (national TV 8 p.m. ET FOX Aug. 28)

Week 4: Washington at Jacksonville

Geography good – competition stiff. 

I guess that’s what you want in a preseason schedule.

This year, there are an inordinate amount of games on Thursday nights. So please MAKE SURE that you know this schedule and get your picks in on time. Virtually all weeks that there is a Thursday night game, the game is at 8:15pm and you have until 6pm that day to get your picks in.

Due to the close proximity to the Thursday night game, we may not get an opportunity to post everyone’s picks into the system before the games start on Thursday.

Any picks received AFTER the cut-off point each week WILL NOT be added to the system. That isn’t to be difficult, it’s to make sure that we’re fair to everybody. I understand that people are going to want to make picks on Friday and just take Thursday as a loss, but there’s not much point in having a schedule, if you don’t hold people to it.

So without further ado, here’s the schedule:

• Week 1:  No picks played
• Week 2:  Friday, September 12th (9:00 PM)
• Week 3:  Friday, September 19th (9:00 PM)
• Week 4:  Friday, September 26th (9:00 PM)
• Week 5:  Friday, October 3rd (9:00 PM)
• Week 6:  Friday, October 10th (9:00 PM)
• Week 7:  Friday, October 17th (9:00 PM)
• Week 8:  Friday, October 24th (9:00 PM)
• Week 9:  Friday, October 31st (9:00 PM)
• Week 10: Thursday, November 6th (6:00 PM)
• Week 11: Thursday, November 13th (6:00 PM)
• Week 12: Thursday, November 20th (6:00 PM)
• Week 13: Thursday, November 27th (12:00 PM)
• Week 14: Thursday, December 4th (6:00 PM)
• Week 15: Thursday, December 11th (6:00 PM)
• Week 16: Thursday, December 18th (6:00 PM)
• Week 17: Friday December 26th (9:00 PM)

Good luck with your picks!

Here are a few simple instructions to help you accomplish the task:

1) Simply change your canvas size width (not the image size) from 1024 pixels to 1280 pixels.

2) Keep the image justified to either the left or right, you are going to paste the new file into the blank area.  

3) Paste the file into the blank area and make sure that everything lines up.

4) Save your file to a spot on your hard drive where you might keep such files.

5) Install the wallpaper into your system:

a) For Windows users: Right click your desktop and select Properties select the Desktop tab and then select the wallpaper from the menu.

b) For Mac Users:  Open “Desktop Pictures”.  Click remove picture and then click select picture.  Load the new wallpaper from your hard drive and then “position automatically” for wallpaper.

The Bears will open the campaign on Oct. 8 in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton against the Penguins, losers in last year’s Calder Cup Finals to the Chicago Wolves.

Following the opener in Wilkes/Barre-Scranton, the Bears will play their next four games on the road before finally opening up the home portion of the season on Oct. 18 at Giant Center against the Syracuse Crunch.

“Bunched” would be the best word to describe the Bears home schedule, with 30 of the 40 affairs being contested on successive nights (13 Saturday-Sunday and 2 Friday-Saturday tilts). All totaled, the home schedule breaks down as follows: 20 games on Saturdays, 13 games on Sundays, 5 games on Wednesdays and 2 games on Fridays.

Missing from the Bears home slate is a New Year’s Eve game, an annual tradition the last four years, replaced by a 1:00 P.M. affair in Springfield against the Falcons.

As usual, the Bears will see plenty of their Eastern Division rivals with 12 games against the Philadelphia Phantoms, 10 games against the WBS Penguins, and 10 games against the Norfolk Admirals.

Bob Woods, who started last season as Bruce Boudreau’s assistant and then was elevated to the role of head coach when Boudreau was promoted to Washington, returns for his first full season behind the Hershey bench. Mark French, who assumed Woods’ former assistant coach position last season on Jan. 2, also returns for his first full season in Hershey.