{"id":102771,"date":"2017-03-17T00:00:31","date_gmt":"2017-03-17T05:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/?p=102771"},"modified":"2017-03-17T00:00:31","modified_gmt":"2017-03-17T05:00:31","slug":"march-madness-2017-edition-coming-soon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2017\/03\/17\/102771-march-madness-2017-edition-coming-soon\/","title":{"rendered":"March Madness 2017 edition – coming soon!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"March_Madness_Soon_Generic\"<\/a>Spring is in the air, and it’s finally that time of year when\u00a0fans get to\u00a0vote on their favorite Tolkien characters. Yes, Middle-earth March Madness<\/strong>\u00a0is back for 2017! If you are new to TheOneRing.net, Middle-earth March Madness is our adaptation\u00a0on the popular NCAA Basketball tournament that takes place every March\/April in the United States. It’s our chance to have some fun matching up middle-earth power players against each other. Past winners include Samwise Gamgee,<\/a>\u00a0Gandalf, \u00a0who won in both 2013<\/a> and 2015<\/a>, Thranduil<\/a>, and last year’s winner Galadriel<\/a>, who defeated the mighty Morgoth in the final round.<\/p>\n

To\u00a0mix things up a bit and give some\u00a0other, very\u00a0deserving characters a chance, the past winners mentioned above will sit this year out in the esteemed ‘Champion’s Hall of Fame.’ As for this year’s\u00a0brackets, the four divisions will pit characters against each other based on the following criteria:<\/p>\n

Movies Only – characters who appeared only in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings and\/or The Hobbit movies
\nBooks Only – characters who didn’t make the final cut for the movies
\nMovies and Books – characters who graced both the written page and the silver screen
\nWider Mythos – Middle-earth characters not in the movies from Tolkien’s works outside of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.<\/p>\n

Our staff are sorting out the field of 64 initial combatants now, and we\u2019ll be posting the first bracket and polls this Monday, March 20<\/strong>. Stay tuned to the front-page of TORn for the announcement to start voting, and follow along on Twitter and FB with #middleearthmarchmadness @theoneringnet<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spring is in the air, and it’s finally that time of year when\u00a0fans get to\u00a0vote on their favorite…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14,197,36,7,4,35,5,29,31,30,74,38,148,1636,2497,1911,149,37],"tags":[792,165,221,3066,2898,2915,2909,2014,3050,2620,2760,2759],"class_list":["post-102771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","category-fans","category-fotr-book","category-hobbit-book","category-hobbit-movie","category-lotr-books","category-lotr-movies","category-fotr-movie","category-rotk-movie","category-ttt-movie","category-jackson","category-rotk-book","category-hobbit","category-the-hobbit-an-unexpected-journey","category-the-hobbit-the-battle-of-the-five-armies","category-the-hobbit-the-desolation-of-smaug","category-lotr","category-ttt-book","tag-jrr-tolkien","tag-peter-jackson","tag-the-hobbit","tag-the-hobbit-films","tag-the-hobbit-an-unexpected-journey","tag-the-hobbit-the-battle-of-the-five-armies","tag-the-hobbit-the-desolation-of-smaug","tag-the-lord-of-the-rings","tag-the-lord-of-the-rings-films","tag-the-lord-of-the-rings-the-fellowship-of-the-ring","tag-the-lord-of-the-rings-the-return-of-the-king","tag-the-lord-of-the-rings-the-two-towers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t