This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and
its advertiser. All opinions are completely my own. #GreatTasteTourney #CollectiveBias
I grew up in a household with three sisters and, not to play
the gender card, I do feel like there are some things I missed out on from
having grown up with a strongly female household. One of those areas where I
feel like I’m lacking is my sports knowledge. I mean, I ran track and cross
country in junior high and the rules are pretty simple. You run until you get
to the end and stop. Then I swam in high school and again the rules are pretty
simple; you swim to the end and stop. Lastly, I rowed on the Crew team in
college; the rules to that are also fairly straightforward—row to the end and
stop.
I’ve never really followed sports all that closely and a lot
of the rules and terminology are over my head. Now that I have a little man of
my own (and a sports-loving husband) I decided that I had to change things, and, with The Big Tournament
coming up, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to expand my sports
knowledge. With the help of my husband, as well as OREO cookies and Coca-Cola Zero™, I had
a little primer lesson in sports brackets, and I’d like to share my new-found knowledge
with you!
We went to our local Safeway store to pick out our
contenders for our sweet treats bracket. It was easy to locate the OREO cookies
and Coke Zero because at my Safeway location their aisles are right next to
each other. The hard part was trying to narrow it down to just eight flavors of
OREO cookies –there were probably at least double that available! Then it was a
tough call between glass bottles, 2-liters, or cans of Coke Zero; I find making
decisions difficult. Then we found some Coke Zero cans that have basketballs on
them—perfect for our bracket!
Once we got home from Safeway the bracket education started. By the way, you can get your own sweet treats bracket //
here//. I wasn’t sure how we should decide on the flavor match-ups so my sweet husband taught me all about seeding.
- Seed= how well a competitor is expected to perform.
We talked about the different flavors of OREO cookies and various drink mix-ins we had gotten and decided how we thought they would place. Of course there was some contention over this because my husband doesn’t share the same love of chocolate soda that I do… apparently there isn’t really a scientific method to a sweet treats bracket. Eventually we came up with our order and Mike showed me the proper places for your first seed, second seed, etc.
Then, all that was left was the very arduous task of picking the winner of each round. ;) First up for Team OREO was Golden OREO and Red Velvet OREO. For Team Coke Zero it was a match-up between cherry and chocolate; and so we continued through all the rounds until it was down to our final competitors: Red Velvet OREO against Mint OREO, and Coke Zero with Cherry mix-in against Coke Zero with Raspberry mix-in.
Who were our winners?...
…you’ll have to make your own sweet treats bracket and determine
that for yourself. I will say that we definitely had some upsets along the way that
made it a fun and interesting learning experience; as well as a delicious one. ;)
- Upset= when the competitor highly expected to win (the
favorite) loses to an underdog.
In case you are curious about our chosen flavors for our
sweet treats bracket, here they are in order of seeding:
- Team OREO: Red Velvet, Mint,
Filled Cupcake, Peanut Butter, Original, Lemon, Cinnamon Bun, and Golden.
- Mix-Ins for Team Coke Zero: Cherry,
Vanilla, Lemon, Original (no mix-in flavor), Lime, Raspberry, Coconut, and
Chocolate.
With my new-found knowledge I am feeling pumped for The Big
Tournament! You can get your hands on a sweet treats bracket //
here// or a blank copy //
here//. This would be such a fun activity to do while you watch with your friends
and family, and don’t forget to visit
cokeplaytowin.com/tastethemadness for a
chance to win NCAA prizes. How do you prepare for The Big Tournament?
- Mondelēz International and
Coca-Cola are Corporate Champion and Partners of the NCAA.
- NCAA and Taste the Madness are
trademarks of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
- © Mondelēz International group ©
Coca-Cola Zero is a registered trademark of the Coca-Cola Company.
Labels: food & drink, printables, sponsored