Hello,
I hope I am not too late to discuss divisions. I spent some time reading all the comments here and think about this, these are my toughts. First division 3 amateur:
I don't think 3 divisions will stop teams falling apart, drama is always there in this league as in life. And it does not stop teams from quitting before the tournament ends. It might even engourage to that in div3. All of the teams aim to go in div2? Think about teams that have worked for months to get in div2 from div3 and if they think in the middle of the tournament they won't make it. So much furstration, try next time in 3 months to play in the division they want to play? Why even try to finish? What they have to lose in div3 they dont even want to play in? I think there will be highest amount of quits in div3 that has ever been in a tournament. Who wants that? Let's be honest here, nobody wants to play in div3 and I think that is a huge problem as we can't stop the drama in teams. New teams will always come and go. Why punish them? Why is a new team so bad thing, if they want to make a new team let them. Why kill their ECL dreams by putting them in div3, where nobody wants. It will be really hard to create a new team if you have to start from div3, who wants to go play there if you have option to go in higher div as free agent. Divisions will create more drama in teams because now when some teams players want to go different ways, there will be fights who keeps the team in higher div, who has to go free agency and who has to create new team in div3, which might mean quitting ECL rather than playing in div3. I think every team who wants to play ECL wants to play competitive and play against better teams. If not I think EASHL is the right place for them, not ECL. We should not change ECL to be more pleasant for teams that do not want to play against the best teams.
Division 2 pro:
I think divisions 2 and 3 should be combined as div2. New teams start always from div2. Teams would be in groups, every season groups would be divided evenly by last season standings. There would be as many groups as needed. For example 30 teams in div2 = 2 groups, 45 teams = 3 groups. Total of 16 best teams from groups would go in the playoffs. After playoffs #1 goes to div1 elite and #16 of elite relegation to div2. #2-4 of div2 would play best of 7 series against elite #13-15 for elite spots for next season.
Division 1 elite:
It's good to have division 1. #16 straight relegation and #13-15 has to play best of 7 against relegation.
I personally play for Kattiautomaatti and we have to play in div2 in next ECL and I think we deserved it. We did not play as good as we should or as good as we can play. We will try to get back in div1 elite playoffs. So I am not playing in div1 and I am not against divisions. I am not playing in div3 amateur but I am still strongly against div3. I only see more cons than pros in it. We can't stop players making new teams and we should not punish players for that. I think it is only bad for this community. Feel free to comment this post.