Staff Rulings, Part 3

Hey NHL Gamers,

It’s once again time to take a look at some of the discliplinary actions and requests that have been sitting on the staff’s table for a while. Apologies to the parties that have had to wait for a ruling for a while – we aim to streamline this process to be more efficient in the future. In fact, we are looking for more staff members that are able to contribute to our website. If you feel you have what it takes to bring some value to our website – feel free to send me a PM and tell me what you bring to the table.

This installment of NHL Gamer Staff rulings covers the following topics:

1. Teams that have left the league
2. Trades
   • a. Trade deadline
   • b. The requests for captains to be allowed to be traded
   • c. Trading of players that have already been on two teams this season
3. Walkover requests
   • a. Mpire - Silver Sword Griffins
   • b. Murohoki - Terrific Tigers
4. Amount of games played
   • a. Too many games played
   • b. Too few games played

1. Teams that have left the league

Sadly, we have to add to the list of teams that have decided to leave the league. At least four new teams have decided to leave and that brings our total up to seven. It is important to remember, that in order to keep the league active and all teams active despite their success, we need to discipline the teams that decide to leave.

That being said, we’re always interested in hearing why a team choses to leave, so we can – if within our power – do something to prevent this from happening in the future.

The below team have decided to leave ECL Season 3:

• Ganja Bonanzas (Group 1)
  • We’ve been unable to get a confirmation from the captains, but this seems to be the case. We will edit and take action once we get the confirmation.
     
• Rising Phantoms (Group 1)
  • Among other issues, the team has been suffering from connection problems, making the gaming experience far from enjoyable and this is why the team has decided to leave.
     
• BraZZers (Group 2)
  • We’ve just received news that the ”team broke and cannot play anymore”.
    
• HC Solhem (Group 2)
  • The short explanation that we’ve received is that players have left and the team can’t continue in the league.
     
• VC Hockey (Group 2)
  • This is a team that has had its issues throughout the season, but the captains worked hard to keep things going and it was looking like they would pull through. The final blow was, though, when an unknown team (outside the ECL, apparently) recruited two of the VC Hockey players, leaving the team below an active roster of eight players.

2. Trades
a. Trade deadline

The trade deadline is Wednesday the 7th of December and we will allow trades to be done until 23:59 GMT on the 7th. Please remember that the standard rules for trades apply (including the ones discussed below). The trade deadline is also the deadline for aquiring free agents – in other words, no player movement is allowed after the deadline.

b. The requests for captains to be allowed to be traded

There has been a handful of questions and requests about being allowed to being traded as a captain (this includes assistant captains as well). The rules are very clear about this, but as always, we took the time to look at the raised question together with the staff, as there were some valid points brought up by the players in question that escalated the issue.

The reasoning behind this rule is to make sure the players that take the captain role of a team are committed enough to finish the season with the team, as the captains are often the driving force of a functioning team and making everything click. Even an active group of people can struggle, if you remove the person in charge of organizing the schedules.

The NHL Gamer staff stands behind this rule and its core idea, which is why we have decided to make no exception to it.

One of the issues brought up is the ability to make a team member a captain or assistant captain on the website without this being accepted by the user. While we strongly believe that every user should be informed about the rules and therefore aware of the captains’ responsibilities, we see this as an opportunity to improve our website and you can look forward to users being prompted to accept the captain position in the coming seasons.

c. Trading of players that have already been on two teams during season

This is a very rare issue, but we’ve had a case where an active player has changed teams at an early stage during the ECL 3 season and wishes to be traded again. As the above discussed case, this is also something that is clearly defined in the rules.

While we symphathize with the player in question, the rule is in place to prevent team hopping during a season. We do not suggest that there is anything fishy with the players request, but we want to underline that we wish for players not to switch teams lightly and this is why we are sticking with the rulebook on this.

3. Walkover requests

This is an area where we want to thank the majority of teams for excellent communication – both when communicating their possible issues with agreeing on scheduled games and with negotiating with the fellow captains. There has been some true sportsmanship there – thank you!

However, there will always be some cases that don’t go as smoothly for one reason or another. I’m happy to say that one of the problems that was supposed to be listed below was actually solved by the teams on their own and the games have now been played.
 

a. Mpire - Silver Sword Griffins
In this matchup, it’s Mpire who have requested the walkover wins. The reason is that SSG has asked to reschedule the default date and then rescheduled that date as well.

SSG offered a good explanation for why the rescheduled date didn’t end up working. SSG has also been very active at offering new dates and based on their explanation, Mpire has been slow to reply to these and eventually came to request WO’s instead of agreeing on a new date. SSG has in fact offered to play the games against Mpire on any date they wish to play. We think this is more than a reasonable offer and ask for the teams to finish the battle on the ice.
 

b. Murohoki - Terrific Tigers

Terrific Tigers were unable to get their goalie online and had other games (in another league) scheduled for later. They offered the WO’s themselves, so in this case the staff has chosen not to interfere, while we of course prefer to see the games played.

4. Amount of games played

a. Too many games played

In order to keep the league as even and interesting as possible, we have added restrictions to the re-scheduling of games in the rulebook. We have noticed that not all teams have followed this rule as strictly as others and in the process has slightly more played games than other teams. As a benchmark, we used 36-38 games at this stage.

That being said, the total amount of  played games for each team that is over is still reasonably even – with game amounts that can be expected to be played within a week. At this stage, we will not punish teams that have played some extra games, as the outcome at this stage is within the parameters that we designed the rule for in the first place.

While it’s of course important to follow the rules under all circumstances, the staff would prefer too many games played opposed to too few. However, we ask teams to still respect this rule and the below listed mentality:

o   Prioritize the default scheduled games first.

o   Don’t race to finish the regular season just because you have nothing better to do. If half of your team is unavailable for the upcoming week – that is a better excuse.

o   When playing games earlier than your default schedule, always target the nearest opponents – we want the majority of teams to finish the regular season on the same date.

b. Too few games played

On the other side of the spectrum, are teams that are behind on their schedule. We want to give the teams a chance to redeem themselves and catch up, as I’m sure we can all agree we don’t want any more teams dropping out.

We kindly ask that the below listed teams contact the NHL Gamer Staff with an update on their situation; are there any problems? Do you need help? Are you committed to finishing the season? Please send a PM here on the community forums to @Kenu, @Lurkins, @The_Alpha_Furyan, @gzell60 and @Ranksu. Thank you.

Bone Breakers – Group 2 – 25 games played

Free From Rodents – Group 2 – 29 games played

ICE BROS – Group 2 – 28 games played

EN HUND – Group 2 – 28 games played

(The teams leaving and thus having their games nullified might be the reason for the low amount of games played, and if that is the case, that is a valid excuse,)

So there you have it! A whole lot of things have been on the staff desk and honestly, the above is just the tip of the ice berg. We’d like to reiterate that we’re very happy about the initiative that many teams have taken in the past few weeks to handle issues on their own. This is much appreciated and the way we want the community to develop.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Hopefully we can make it shorter next time.

On behalf of the NHL Gamer staff,