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Hello, all members of the ECL Community! We have had a long ongoing discussion about the X-Factors and Abilities and whether they should be allowed in a competitive environment or not. It has been enlightening to see and hear all the different opinions on this matter on the public forums, party chats, and private messages. We thank you all for taking part in this discussion! Looking closely at the situation, all the abilities have a way to make or break the game - in one way or another - and those effects can go both ways, whether you are or aren't allowed to use them. Abilities allow you to do things that you wouldn't or perhaps even shouldn't be able to do in certain situations, but they also reward you for making good plays, good passes, and timing your actions correctly. Playing without abilities can take away a lot of those rewards and may leave you frustrated because of that. One of the big concerns about banning all the abilities is that it could lead to a much more passive playstyle on defense. Of course, you are still able to score in many different ways, but it is a fact that some things in this game are built around the abilities and the animations they allow you to trigger. Abilities at their best can create these "wow!" moments for both the players and the viewers. It's worth mentioning that the discussion has mostly been around the gameplay experience, but we also want to take the viewers into account, even though currently most of them are you, the players. It is also to be stated that we want to keep the same ruleset for all the ECL divisions. While we see that the opinions are heavily divided between the players from different skill levels, the structure has always aimed to make it possible for teams to climb the division ladder all the way from the bottom to the top. Different rulesets could create a huge barrier between the divisions, which would be against our core values. We don't think either end of the extremes would necessarily result in a bad gameplay experience, but there are a lot of players on each side of the conversation and a compromise between the main two parties feels like the best way to go forward. Based on the community feedback and after an internal discussion we have decided on the following ability restrictions for the ECL '25: Spring season: All Gold X-Factors will be banned for both skaters and goaltenders Activating the Gold X-Factors doesn't require you to spend any XP points for certain traits and it allows you to have the abilities of a superstar even if your actual ability stats e.g. on a shooting skill would say otherwise. This change also brings the number of usable abilities down from 3 to 2. When you need the skill points to use the Superstar abilities, it will require you to carefully think about where to place those scarcely available skill points, and whether you want to focus on offense, defense, or somewhere between. With the removal of the Gold X-Factors, the balance between offense, defense, and goaltending should also stay similar to what we're already used to. The following X-Factors and Superstar abilities will be completely banned The following X-Factors are deemed too powerful even in their silver state and will be banned completely. Big Tipper This ability helps players in front of the net to deflect pucks with ultimate precision. This is the one ability almost everyone seems to agree doesn't belong in a competitive environment, due to the usage requiring little to no skill and being so efficient. Truculence This ability gives you exceptional stability and assists on shoulder checks and greatly increases the chance of knocking over the opponent and sapping their energy. Truculence breaks the game in a few different ways. It slows down the game due to the energy loss and long animations to get back up. It enables you to hit from too far away and from impossible angles, no matter which size player build is being used. You can still hit without truculence but without it, a better understanding of when a hit should be made will be required. Stick 'em up This ability gives you phenomenal defensive stick speed and exceptional accuracy when poke-checking against momentum or at speed while also lowering the chance of a penalty. The game already has a very strong auto-aim built into poke-checking whether you use this ability or not. The ability allows you to spam the stick check without much worry of getting penalized for it. It also allows you to reach the puck from too far away and from impossible angles. Why are the Regional Leagues played without abilities? There was a large group of players who made their voices heard with the so-called "#BanThemAll" messages that were going around after the announcement of the ability bans for the ECL '25: Winter season. As there was no conversation indicating a change in opinion around this subject, we wanted to give the players a chance to try it out in a competitive environment the regional tournaments that were next on the schedule felt like the be the best place to do that. We understand that the timing of this "test period" was far from ideal, especially with the biggest league FCL starting later than we were originally aiming for. We decided to have the same ruleset for all the Regional Leagues, because we wanted all teams and regions to have an equal chance to experience the gameplay without abilities and prepare for the upcoming ECL Season. Our communication of this should have been clearer, but ultimately it was a timing issue with the leagues running at different times. Why was there no community vote? While we understand that there is a big argument to have a vote for this decision, we believe in practice it would not be the best way to go. If we look at some of the unofficial polling results that have been circulating, they show that most people voting were against any kind of change compared to the ECL '25: Winter season. In one specific poll around 130-140 players out of around 650 people on the server voted, even though the server could be considered to consist of some of the most active members in the community. The ongoing public discussions have been very "top-heavy" regarding what division the players play in and this was also reflected in the polling. The higher up you go in divisions, the players tend to be more active and we expect that would also be reflected in a community vote. To actually reach the whole community would be a huge task on its own, and there would still be a big majority of players that the possible vote would not reach, especially given the often narrow time frame. The flip side of the coin is, that even if we would reach all players and have them vote anonymously, we have no way to verify if they have actually looked into all the intricacies of the matter or if they're just casting their vote based on what someone else told them to vote for. This is why we prefer to have an open and constructive dialogue where we collaboratively try to get into the details and thoughts behind the opinions and experiences within our community. What to expect from future decisions? We understand from the feedback that we've been lacking in communication regarding this issue. Communication is our main goal to improve along with reacting quicker to possible changes and make the process smoother overall. Whether it is at the start of the game cycle when something has radically changed, or in the middle of the year when some issue has been raised, we want to react quicker and give the players enough time to adjust for the tournaments. We're very thankful for all the feedback we've received and we warmly welcome any future feedback or suggestions! Best regards, League Administration

Around three weeks ago LA received a report that @Keuschemisch was adding additional points to game reports that were not present in-game. After investigation, here are the findings: In order to carry out the investigation we cross-referenced SportsGamer match results with EA API metadata from seven tournaments stretching across two EA NHL titles. By comparing what we have on record vs. what EA says happened we can see if the stats line up. For instance, in the screenshot below we can see what it looks like when the stats between the two sources line up. All of the players listed have the same number of goals and assists on both the EA API, as well as what has been reported on the SportsGamer site after the games were finished. Generally speaking, people seem to be doing a pretty good job at maintaining the balance between accuracy and speed at which the reports are completed – so to the captains of the SportsGamer community, good work! That said, mistakes do happen and there are times when an extra assist gets added to one player that should have gone to someone else, however as shown in the screenshot below Keuschemisch is a major outlier. No other player across the seven tournaments worth of data is even close. To make matters worse, those 25 points came over the course of only four of those said seven tournaments. For completeness here is the list of players who have had points deducted by accident over those same seven tournaments. Furthermore, as seen in the overview below, a number of Keuschmisch’s additional points come by way of assists being granted when the EA API does not note one being recorded. In order for this to occur when reporting, the individual must edit the EA readout at the bottom of the page before then going back up to the dropdown box to select their name as one of the assisters on a goal. This means that it changes from a potential ‘misclick’ to a two-step process as seen below. Finally, when a game report is completed, it saves the username of the individual who did it, and in these games Keuschemisch was the user who completed the game reports. Therefore, we believe with the evidence listed above that the increase in stats seen on Keuschemisch is not by chance or an error and is in fact a conscious effort to boost their point totals artificially. Keuschemisch claims that the reason for this stats increase is a box score glitch. It is worth noting, that we have also seen video evidence of games where the alleged assists have taken place and been able to confirm that the player in question was nowhere near to getting an assist. Due to the scale of the stats manipulation across multiple tournaments and EA NHL titles, we have decided to suspend Keuschemisch from all SportsGamer tournaments from today’s date (10/01/2025) up to and including 28/02/2026, furthermore, Keuschemisch will receive a captaincy suspension that will run from today’s date (10/01/2025) up to and including 10/01/2030. Finally, for full disclosure, LA received the original report regarding this on the 20th of December 2024. To facilitate this investigation we had to create from scratch a tool to ingest and transform the data from EA’s API into a viewable account of all games from any tournament played on the SportsGamer platform, which we will now be using going forward to proactively scan for players manipulating statistics in a competitive environment. (Update: It should also be noted that from this investigation and the evidence gathered, LA is confident in saying that captains @Toneee9, and @Timasy were not aware of the stats manipulation that was going on, and as such should not face any public (or private) backlash.) League Administration

League Administrative Announcement: Disqualification of Unwanted from ECL Elite SportsGamer has recently become aware of a publicly posted image originating from Unwanted’s team WhatsApp group. The image contained racist content. Following a thorough investigation, we confirmed that the content was authentic (i.e., not altered) and found that several players from Unwanted attempted to deceive and obstruct the League Administration (LA) during this process. Members of the team even went so far as to create fake screenshots, falsely claiming these were the original conversations that had been Photoshopped. Such behavior carries significant penalties. Decision and Implications Given these findings, and after thorough deliberation among LA members, we have decided to disqualify Unwanted from the ongoing ECL Elite season. For the purposes of relegation and standings, the season will proceed as though it was played with 16 teams, with Unwanted finishing in 16th place. Player Suspensions In addition to the team disqualification, individual players from Unwanted have received suspensions. These suspensions, effective immediately, will apply to all SportsGamer tournaments as follows: @Snus97_: Suspended until December 2nd, 2025 @Suth98_: Suspended until June 17th, 2025. Cover Gamer status has been revoked. @bystrom___ & @LaxenHD: Suspended until the April 5th, 2025 @Johansson-37: Suspended until the February 21st, 2025 The remaining roster is allowed to go, join, and play for another team this season (providing the usual transfer rules are satisfied, of course). Resetting Community Standards LA has previously received feedback that our responses to similar incidents were insufficient. Moving forward, we are resetting the standard for player conduct. Any player found engaging in racist behavior will face strict disciplinary action, including severe bans. This decision reflects our intent to provide an opportunity for players to learn and improve. We also discourage witch hunts targeting historical incidents, such as old screenshots or videos, as this detracts from fostering a positive and forward-looking community. Supporting Positive Growth To support this vision, SportsGamer will establish an initiative providing a safe and supportive space where players can seek advice from vetted peers (players). This effort aims to reduce the toxicity currently pervasive in the community. Players should be able to grow both on and off the ice without being subjected to insults or bullying from more established players. While details are still being finalized, we are committed to creating a more inclusive, welcoming environment for all participants.