Parts Unknown (DP--Disassociated Press): This year's Turkey Shoot extravaganza lived up to its yearly billing as the most pivotal weekend of a Bookie Challenge's regular season and one with the most potential to ressurect a downtrodden handicapper's season. But this year's dual-outing of this year's Turkey Shoot weekend turned out to be the most suspenseful and most enthralling Turkey Shoots in quite sometime, as it was spearheaded by some astonishing handicapping performances that shook the Bookie Challenge field to its core, especially the outings by the only two rookie entrants of this year's competition--Vikings17 and Hall-of-Fame City Kid. The two rookies each had such scintillating and breathtaking outings on Thanksgiving Day, the likes of which were never seen before by rookies handicapping their first-ever Turkey Shoot weekends, that this past Thanksgiving Day should have been renamed as Greenhorn Day in their honor. To begin with, the previous all-time scoring high by a rookie for a Thanksgiving day outing was eight points, of whom DIRTYBIRDS accomplished the rookie feat on the Thanksgiving Day outing of Challenge year #11 after he connected on a Thanksgiving Day PERFECTA. But both the HOF City Kid and Vikings17 obliterated the Birdman's previous record after the City Kid tallied 14 overall points and Vikings17 registered 13 overall points on this year's Thanksgiving Day. In fact, the City Kid's 14 overall points scored tied the highest Thanksgiving Day scoring outputs that were shared by moemonie (Challenge yr#12), Driveline (yr#12), Mort2112 (yr#8), and dbucc (yr#6). Moreover, as it concerned the all-time rookie record for scoring the most points for the two outings of a Turkey Shoot weekend, Vikings17 scored an overall 15 points that bettered the previous rookie-high of 11 points which was set by DIRTYBIRDS in Challenge year #11.

Both rookies also set new all-time rookie records for scoring the most propositional points for a Thanksgiving Day outing, with the HOF City Kid registering 12 prop points and Vikings17 registering 11 total prop points. But in the case of the City Kid, his 12 propositional points tied the all-time records that were co-shared by moemonie (12 prop pts/Challenge yr#12) and by jcvike28 (12 prop pts/yr#9). What was amazing about the HOF City Kid's 12 prop points he scored on Thanksgiving day was that five of those propositional points included five bonus points for the City Kid having predicted the exact yardage and the correct team of the longest TD scored in the game between San Francisco and Seattle (the City Kid was awarded 8 total pts for the prop pick--3 for coming closest to predicting the longest scoring play in the SF/Sea game and the 5 bonus pts for predicting the exact yardage of the game's longest scoring play--28 yds). The only other handicapper to have predicted the exact yardage and correct team of a game's longest scoring play was DawgPound, who in last year's Super Bowl round correctly predicted Philly to score a 45-yard TD. But the most sensational results to come from the two rookie's combined outings were that they both concluded their respective weekends with the divisional leads of their respective divisions. Not only that, but both handicappers ended their outings with the league's highest point totals on the year, with Vikings17 finishing the weekend as the league's top scorer with 36 overall points accumulated on the season and with the Hall-of-Fame City Kid concluding his outing with the second-best point total in the league of 32 points on the season. Of greater importance for the two rookie handicappers, Vikings17's 15-point Turkey Shoot weekend turned his third-place 6-point deficit to divisional leader DawgPound into a stunning 7-point divisional lead over the Dawg in the Run-&-Shoot division, while the City Kid flipped a fourth-place 10-point deficit to 7mick7 into a just-as-stunning divisional lead over 7mick7 in the Red Zone division, albeit that it is just a 2-point divisional lead. Also worth noting is that the Purple People Eater (aka Vikings17) edged out both the Biased Nihilist and the Hall-of-Fame City Kid for an important Week-Won, but only did as much by the slim point totals of 15 points versus the Nihilist's and City Kid's 14 points.

All in all, the four handicappers who benefitted the most from this year's Turkey Shoot, apart from the obvious two handicappers, meaning the two rookies, were the Biased Nihilist and Driveline. The two handicappers each made significant headway within their respective divisions. However, their respective gains within their respective divisional point standings materialized in totally different ways, but nonetheless they each had huge outings that elevated them into serious contention for respective divisional championships. In the case of the Nihilist, he nailed a best-bet winner on Thanksgiving Day, but more remarkable was that he complemented his best-winner on Thanksgiving Day with an improbable 5-point exact-score hit after he correctly predicted the 49ers to defeat the Seahawks by a 31-13 tally. The 5-point exact-score hit not only extended the Bookie Challenge's streak of at least registering one 5-point exact-score hit in each competition ever since exact-score predictions were incorporated into the competition back in Challenge year #5. Additionally, after connecting on the 5-point exact-score prediction on the first leg of this year's Turkey Shoot, the Nihilist became the first handicapper in the history of the competition to register a 5-point exact-score hit on not only a Thanksgiving Day outing but also for a Turkey Shoot weekend. The Nihilist then proceeded to land a PERFECTA outing on the tail end of the Turkey Shoot weekend to finish his holiday outing with 14 total points, and they were a very crucial 14 points because it allowed the Nihilist to not only snap his parlay drought that dated back from the start of last year's Turkey Shoot, but also it allowed the Nihilist to sky rocket back into contention for this year's Corozal divisional championship. After this past weekend, the Nihilist sliced his third-place deficit to Blitzkrieg to just three points (26pts vs 23pts) and also chopped his deficit to divisional leader Theopholis to just eight points (31pts vs 23pts), of which is a deficit that's equalivant to only a PERFECTA outing. What's more, the 6-point parlay hit the Nihilist landed over the past weekend made him the undisputed all-time leader for knocking down the most regular-season 6-point parlay hits, which his all-time leading tally is now at 31 career 6-point parlay winners for regular-season handicapping. Additionally, the Nihilist is presently the all-time leader for the most 6-point parlay hits in the history of the Bookie Challenge's postseasons (6 hits in all), of which after adding his six postseason 6-point parlay hits and his 31 regular-season 6-point parlay winners, he is presently and easily the competition's all-time leader with 37 overall 6-point parlay hits.

In the case of Driveline, this year's defending Bookie Challenge champion, he was able to accrue seven total points for his Turkey Shoot outing after he won three best bets over the span of this past weekend and also won four prop points on Thanksgiving Day for exactly predicting the total combined points (55pts) in the game between Washington and Dallas. The seven total points that Driveline accrued for the Turkey Shoot weekend doesn't seem like enough points to significantly reduce his Hail Mary divisional deficits to first-place jcvike and second-place catman, but when the two front-runners failed to show up for a highly critical Thanksgiving Day outing--the seven points Driveline scored over the weekend became huge points. Specifically, after the scoring totals for the Turkey Shoot weekend went into the books, Driveline cut catman's previous 12-point lead to just five points (25pts vs 20pts) and jcvike's previous divisional lead of 16 points to 11 points. To say the least, the Thanksgiving Day disappearing acts by both jcvike and catman allowed Driveline to get one foot in the door, and to take Driveline for granted by failing to show up on Thanksgiving Day, is something that could come back and bite both jcvike and catman on their collective asses. It's just beyond the pale that two front-runners of a divisional race would allow a defending champion to gain on them both with impunity, meaning they both did't even put up a fight because they were both negligently consumed by other matters. Not for nothing, but both jcvike and catman had better not underestimate the "Fisher of Winners", especially when knowing that Driveline has won two out of the last four Bookie Challenge championships.

• WEEKLY TICKER.........Moemonie's bid to tie Theo's all-time, regular-season record for the most consecutive 6-pt parlay hits in a single season (3 in a row--Challenge yr #5) went down the drain after he goose-egged the first leg of this year's Turkey Shoot. He was the 3rd handicapper this season who had a shot at matching Theo's all-time record, with the other two handicappers being catman23 and Vikings17........Entering the 2nd leg of this year's Turkey Shoot, DawgPound was starting to mount a serious run to break Tony Soprano's all-time record for the most consecutive best-bet wins. Soprano's all-time best-bet scoring streak is 16 consecutive best bets that he established in Challenge year #11. Before the first leg of this year's Turkey Shoot, DawgPound had nailed down both of best bets over the span of the previous five weeks, going 10-0-0 with his combined best bets and just needed to go another three weeks with respective 2-0-0 best-bet outings to tie Soprano's all-time record. But to start the 2nd leg of this past weekend's Turkey Shoot, the Dawg saw his best-bet run of 10 best bets in a row get derailed in the most absent-minded way after he posted his selection of Miami (-9½ over the NY Jets) two hours after the posting deadline for the game had passed. He eventually went on to goose egg the 2nd leg of this year's Turkey Shoot.........THE SWAMI WATCH: Blitzkrieg went 3-1-0 with his best bets for the dual outing of this year's Turkey Shoot and remained as the league's top best-bet handicapper after finishing the Turkey Shoot weekend with a YTD best-bet tally of 18-7-1, of which the record factors out to an extraordinary .720 win percentage. Just to illustrate Blitzkrieg's best-bet dominance, DawgPound is presently the closest pursuer to Blitzkrieg's quest to nab this year's Swami award but is three games behind Blitzkrieg's red-hot best-bet numbers (18-7-1 vs Dawg's 15-10-0).........ROOKIE RACE RIVALRY: As already mentioned in this weekly review, the only two rookie entrants for this year's competition, Vikings17 and Hall-of-Fame City Kid, each had phenomenal rookie performances in this year's Turkey Shoot. They both incredibly ended their respective weekends with not only the league's top-two tallies of total points but also the divisional leads of their respective divisions. Right now, trying to decide who is having the better rookie season would be a foolish endeavor, because their rookie race to win this year's Rookie-of-the-Year award is an absolute toss up. Shoot, they way the two greenhorns are going, their handicapping duel shouldn't be coined as a race for this year's Rookie-of-the-Year award, but maybe we need to peg it as this year's battle for the league's MVP award............

Who in their right frame of mind would have thought that DawgPound was going to be the next divisional leader from this year's divisional seeding, the third one of this year's competition, to lose his divisional lead? And not Theopholis, as highly predicted? But as improbable as it is, it's Theo who is the last divisional leader standing and not DawgPound, all thanks to Vikings17. Amazingly, after the Purple People Eater became the first rookie to ever win a Turkey Shoot week-won after racking up 15 total points for his holiday outing, he was able to convincingly eradicate DawgPound from his Run-&-Shoot divisional lead, and did as much in a highly dexterous manner. As mind-blowing as it sounds, Vikings17 turned a 6-point divisional deficit to DawgPound into a commanding 7-point divisional lead, or for that matter, the largest divisional lead at the present time of all the divisional races. What's also impressive is that the Purple People Eater concluded his Turkey Shoot outing with a 4-point lead over his opposite number, the Hall-of-Fame City kid, for the battle to capture this year's regular-season championship, which is a really big deal when considering the scoring advantages a regular-season champ will have in the first-two rounds of a Bookie Challenge postseason, not to forget that a regular-season champion also stands to pocket the third-place prize of the Latinum jackpot ($40). But as every handicapper in the league already knows, winning a regular-season championship is a highly difficult feat to accomplish, and winning an overall Bookie Challenge championship is even harder to pull off. With the aforementioned in mind, Vikings17 is trying to achieve two things in his greenhorn season that no rookie has ever come close to doing: 1) win a regular-season championship, and 2) win an overall Bookie Challenge championship. But right now, as of today, Vikings17 is in good shape to possibly become the first rookie in the history of the Bookie Challenge to obtain both a regular-season championship and an overall Bookie Challenge championship.