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Hey NHL Gamers, As most of you probably have noticed, there's been some controversy between the teams Synergy Hockey and Silver Sword Griffins. We will start this post off by laying down the information and staff ruling in this case and finish off with the round 2 matchups. The NHL Gamers staff was approached yesterday (3.1.) with Synergy Hockey (from here on SYN) asking what to do, when it's the last day and Silver Sword Griffins (from here on SSG) can't play. We instructed that the games need to be played yesterday. SYN was available to play, while SSG replied to them "I told you yesterday that we can't. We don't have to play with a suboptimal roster just because you couldn't play at all last two weeks" and adding "We could've finished yesterday but see Pelle I think it was who called it a night at 10pm. And now we have to adapt to that?". Here are the bullet points that we gathered from talking to both teams: The teams were supposed to play their first games on the 20th of December. SSG cancelled at the last minute due to "problems with personal relationship between our RW and G". SYN had before these games communicated to SSG that they can't play until the 2nd of January due to Christmas and New Years plans. As the games on the 20th were cancelled, SYN was able to offer another opportunity to play on the 22nd of January, where they played (according to their description) with a non-optimal line-up, in order to get the series started. SSG won both of the two games that were played. Series 0-2. The second batch of games were to be played, as agreed, on the 2nd of January. SYN asked before the games "How many games today (at most). 3?", to which SSG replied "yeah, something like that". SYN won the first game, SSG won the second game (making the series 1-3), after which SYN asked "One more?" and SSG replied "yeah". After the third game of the evening (SYN won and made the series 2-3), SSG asks "can you keep playing?", but SYN says that they can't and asks if SSG can play the next day. It is also explained that one of their players has already went to sleep. 13 minutes later, at 22:07 Swedish time, SSG says that they can't play on Wednesday, which is the last day of the first round. Neither teams are directly asking for WO's, but as time has run out and we're past the extra allocated day, we can not continue to give out more time for the series. The criteria on which we made our decision: We do not believe either team to have purposefully ended up in this situation. SYN was unavailable to play for a lot of evenings, however they did communicate this very clearly and were available to play on 4 occasions (20th, 22nd, 2nd and 3rd). SSG says they were ready to play on all default days. SSG didn't at any point contact the staff about any issues with the series. Only after being asked to play on the last day (3rd of Jan), they started communicating with the staff. Their explanation is that SYN was largely unavailable and that they are to be blamed for the situation. SSG claims they thought the 2nd of Jan was the correct date, as communicated earlier (before adding the extra day). Their point is valid about the clarity of the staff's communication and it is noted, but doesn't validate their unclear communication. As mentioned above, SSG made a comment about not agreeing to play with a "suboptimal" roster on the last day of the playoffs. They later commented to the staff that this was said out of frustration and wasn't accurate, and that they actually didn't have the appropriate amount of players to play. SSG did not communicate to SYN on time that they won't be able to continue the series on Tuesday. They only communicated this after some of SYN had left after the games on Monday. SYN asked up front how many games will be played and "one more" and not at any point was it mentioned that the series will have to be finished on Monday. After hearing both sides and investigating this case thoroughly - we have made the tough decision that Synergy Hockey advances to the second round of playoffs with WO's against the Silver Sword Griffins. We would like to remind everyone that the staff works as a team and there are votes on the difficult matters. The vote in this case was not unanimous, but this decision was supported by the majority. Walkovers at this stage are unfortunate but all teams need to be aware of the deadlines and due to the extra time already allocated, for the greater good, the NHLGamer Staff is forced to make this decision so the second round can start as promised. We've done our best to describe above, that we do believe both teams have made mistakes in this series. With better communication, these issues could've been avoided. The staff would've been happy to step in and do our best to help at an earlier stage. Bringing things up on the last possible day is not the approach that we want to encourage. Below are the second round pairings. Second round of playoffs is to be played 4. - 10.1. Laser HT - TIKI TALK Aapon Taikasauva - Fat Cats Northern Stars - Northern Ascendancy Written in the Stars - Nordic Nightmare Synergy Hockey - Mukimiehet X Factor - Dynasty SIKA - Nordic Lightning Finnish Roosters - Nordic Blizzard The schedule and playoff tree will reflect this as soon as possible. In the mean time, feel free to start playing. Respectfully, The NHLGamer Staff