Staff Rulings, Part 4

Hey NHL Gamers,

The playoffs are here! It’s time to look at our last batch of rulings during the end of the regular season.

Again, we do apologise for taking more than a week to process some of the decisions. As mentioned previously, 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. Walkover requests
   a.     HC Checkmate – Silver Sword Griffins
   b.     Fat Cats – Silver Sword Griffins
   c.     No Guts No Glory – Nordic Blizzard
   d.     AK47 – Nordic Nosebleeds
   e.     Nordic Nosebleeds – Bare Knuckles Hockey
   f.      No Guts No Glory – La Suède
   g.     Northern Ascendancy – Terrific Tigers
   h.     Nordic Blizzard – HC Soittorasia
    
2. The case of the glitched player: Silver Sword Griffins – Finnish Roosters
3. Missing game stats

1.     Walkover requests

Boy, oh boy did we have a lot of walkover requests. I will mention that the below cases have been simplified for the reading (and writing) pleasure and may give more of a black and white picture of the case than the reality of things.
 

1a.     Northern Ascendancy – Terrific Tigers

Terrific Tigers weren’t responding to communication from Northern Ascendancy and even staff thought the Terrific Tigers had left the league, until we got a response at the last minute.

Northern Ascendancy was awarded the walkover wins.

1b.     Nordic Blizzard – HC Soittorasia

The teams were communicating actively in order to get the games going, but as HC Soittorasia failed to get their full 6 on ice despite several attempts, they eventually decided to hand out the walkovers to Nordic Blizzard.

1c.     No Guts No Glory – Nordic Blizzard

No Guts No Glory asked about the possibility to get walk over wins due to issues with agreeing on a functional date to play vs Nordic Blizzard. Both teams were communicating actively, but what worked for the other, didn’t work for the other team.

The NHLGamer staff didn’t see a reason to award either team with WO’s, as both have been active and Nordic Blizzard had been available to play on the default date. Instead, we gave the teams an extra day to play the games. Sadly, No Guts No Glory was unable to play on that day and decided to give walkover wins to Nordic Blizzard.

1d.     AK47 – Nordic Nosebleeds

A member of Nordic Nosebleeds was having problems with his internet connection during the last day of regular season and despite several attempts they weren’t able to get the full 6 men on ice. Nordic Nosebleeds suggested playing with 5 against AK47’s 6, but AK47 refused, as it is against the rules. Nordic Nosebleeds handed AK47 the walkover wins.
 

1e.     Nordic Nosebleeds – Bare Knuckles Hockey

This one is pretty much a carbon copy for what we have ruled on before. Neither team had communicated with each other before the default game date and time and 9 minutes before the default game time Nordic Nosebleeds approached Bare Knuckles Hockey asking if they are ready to play.

See "On the matter of the games that were scheduled between Rusty Blades and Refuse To Lose (October 27th)" in Staff Rulings, Part 2 for the previous ruling:

While we do agree that Bare Knuckles Hockey didn’t do their part, we want to remind everyone, that we will not accept walk over requests of game times that are simply based on assumption. That is not to say that the schedule isn’t to be honored, but if you plan to play on the scheduled day and time, please let your opponent know. If not, also let them know.

After their mistake, Bare Knuckles Hockey asked Nordic Nosebleeds to play on another day, but according to BKH, they were told they can’t play for two weeks.

Due to these circumstances, we allowed the teams the extra day to battle it off on the ice. Nordic Nosebleeds immediately refused this decision, so we had no other option than to give the walkover wins to Bare Knuckles Hockey.

1f.      No Guts No Glory – La Suède

We were told that La Suède can’t play and they will give the walk overs to No Guts No Glory. We approached La Suède to confirm and made sure both teams understood a) what an important matchup this is for the overall standings and b) that we can allow them one extra day to finish this matchup. La Suède informed us that they can’t play, so we had no other option but to honor the walkover requests.

1g.     HC Checkmate – Silver Sword Griffins

These two teams had been trying to find a matching game time for quite a while (with HC Checkmate being more available) and they finally did. Sadly, about an hour before the first match was supposed to take place, the Silver Sword Griffins informed HC Checkmate that one of their players had been banned from PSN and that they are looking for a solution. Despite their best efforts, and after confirming that this was a console ban and not a profile ban, SSG was unable to get 6 men on the ice.

Both teams were actively communicating in this case and SSG was trying their best to offer alternative game times for the match, but they did not work for HC Checkmate. Also, the fact that HC Checkmate had cancelled job shifts and important hobbies to be available for this game time made the cancellation extra hard for them.

As both teams were active and the cancellation of the games last minute was unintentional, we wanted to offer the teams the possibility to play on the extra day. Sadly, HC Checkmate couldn’t make it at such short notice. The staff, however, had to rule in HC Checkmates favour in this case, as they had been the more available team and were not responsible for the original games not being played, so the walkover wins were given to HC Checkmate.

1h.     Fat Cats – Silver Sword Griffins

The games between Fat Cats and Silver Sword Griffins were to take place after the above game. These games were cancelled due to the same circumstances as that game. This game was even more late due to problems agreeing on scheduling and Fat Cats had been the more available party.
As with the above case, we tried giving the teams the option of settling the games on the ice, but Fat Cats were unable to make it on such short notice. Again, as in the above case, Fat Cats had been the more active and available team, so we awarded them with the walkover wins.
 

2.     The case of the glitched player: Silver Sword Griffins – Finnish Roosters

This case has been discussed widely throughout the community in the last few days and as far as we know, the teams have put this behind them, so please feel free to comment your opinion on the matter itself, but let's not attack either team over it.

As this case is quite extensive and @ProMinx24 from Silver Sword Grinnis wrote his thoughts about the case in quite a well formulated manner (including also one of the Finnish Roosters in the PM thread), I have decided to embed his view of the case, the opponents reply and our verdict.
 

Please note that the quotes are released as both teams were ok with this being public. PM's in general are treated as personal communication and are not shared under normal circumstances.

Let's start off with the quote from SSG:

Quote

Hello,

Before I start my dispute, I want to mention that the purpose of this matter isn't about who's getting the damn points, but rather about enforcing a thing called "fairplay" and "sportsmanship-like" behavior in this community, which I though it had... and I was wrong. Now, let me fill you in on what exactly happened and then I'll say what I have to say about this. So it was last 6 minutes in the 3rd, score was 2:2 and we were killing a penalty and what happened was as soon as the puck was dropped, our LW (as seen in the captured footage linked bellow) got stuck in a single animation (skating forward along the boards frozen, leaving him completely paralyzed)... where FR then did proceed to ignore the fact we're made to play by EA with 2-man short and scored a goal that put them ahead with 4:37 left on the clock. Afterwards the game froze (most likely due to our LW) and we quit the match.

Now, before anything I say, obviously we understand that there isn't such a rule when it comes to "in-game sportsmanship", but then again I would understand why it isn't there - because it's a must-have feature that should be required upon joining the league, not needing for "ruled enforcement". What is seen from the footage is pure unsportsmanlike behavior, with complete evidence of unfair game's bug/glitch abuse to gain advantage.

Now as evidently as it is, their cover up is 'we didn't notice'... excuse me but they must be blind then! Jesus, 10.3 seconds were the time after the face-off when we managed to clear the puck out behind their goal, and note that LW's just right there skating into the boards right bloody next to them... 25.8 seconds was the full time since when the issue happened to their scored goal! And you tell me, they didn't notice. Unbelievable! We offered them nicely to respectfully cancel their goal and play remaining 5 minutes with them having full 2 minute power-play to play. They said that the goal must stand.

After all, this whole competition is about fair, competitive 6 vs 6 gameplay and we feel that it's against these principles as we are punished unfairly due to an in-game bug. We understand that if this was a random match-made game - water under the bridge. But this is a competitive tournament where actual people can have the final say on these issues and something like this can be fixed and is preventable. We feel that this falls under the "Code of conduct" article of the rules as sportsmanship is part of "treating each other with respect". As such, based on the rule "Members are free to question rules and appeal decisions made by NHL Gamer staff, but are required to do so in a constructive and respectful manner.", we'd like for you to look into this matter. Such game exploitation shouldn't be allowed.

We request this to be upon decision further announced to public as it is a serious matter in my opinion and must be know to everyone... which I'm sure is a good enough of a way for enforcing this issue. I will add @tbnantti here only to make this dispute in even numbers and he can say his thoughts on this.

Regardless of your decision, we're still willing to play out the remaining 5 minutes of this game.

Kind Regards,

SSG.

 

Video footage recorded by us for this matter... their angle can also be seen as one of their members streamed these games (no voice chat), both linked bellow:

https://www.twitch.tv/finnish_roosters/v/107668839

The reply from FR:

Quote

Hey!

I'll add the FR statement here as well! We're willing to play the rest of the game at 3-2 starting from the time the goal was scored. 

Thanks,

Antti

 

There was some irrelevant posts in-between, and below you have the staff verdict:
 

Quote

I'm going to keep this rather short and on point so you guys can agree on how to finalize this game.

First of all, thank you @ProMinx24 for putting in the effort of elaborating on the issue in an informative, clear and respectful way. What went on in the chat after the incident by both teams was not up to this caliber, sadly. Please think before you insult or provoke other community members on the in the future. This goes for all community members, but I'm sure we can all agree some were definitely just writing to provoke. Future communication with clear intent to only provoke can result in suspensions.

Anyways, having looked into the matter at hand, we can see that SSG suffered a clear negative effect from one of their players being frozen and skating into the FR zone and into the boards. We feel that this should have been noticed by the FR team as it was going on for quite a long time and the puck actually went near this player while it's quite obvious that player wouldn't be in that offside position under normal circumstances.

Due to one player being out of the play due to this glitch, this resulted in a 5 on 3 and eventually a goal. We understand both sides of the debate.

In the end, it is really irrelevant if FR noticed this or not. Our point: FR got the advantage from it and scored. If FR's sportsmanlike decision would've been to cause a stoppage if they've noticed this (as has been claimed) - then their decision might as well have been to agree to ignore the goal, as it was caused by this issue. This is the reason for causing the stoppage in the first place, right - not to get an unfair advantage?

 

That being said, FR are correct about the rules not really touching on issues like this, which is perhaps a bit of an oversight on our end. We will introduce a rule in the future that doesn't dictate exactly everything that can go wrong, but will allow the staff to make decisions on a case by case basis.

 

The NHLGamer Staff recommendation is for the game to continue at 2-2. Let the clock run until the last 6 minutes in the 1st period and have SSG take the penalty. Then play that period as if it was the 3rd. If no goals are scored, the 2nd period will be treated as OT.   

The current rules do give FR the right to continue the game 3-2 lead, with..let's say 5 minutes on the clock (as you don't have the full last minute) and FR may choose to do so.

From a fair play perspective, I'm sure we can all agree that SSG suffered an unfair disadvantage and the 2-2 with a full PP would be the sportsmanlike approach. So, to conclude, as you can see, this is more of a moral dilemma that we leave for FR to make their call on.

No matter the decision made by FR, we will publish the ruling with the other cases that are being decided on atm.

 

Kind regards,

Kenneth

In the end, Finnish Roosters wanted to continue the game from the 3-2 FR lead and chose not to follow our recommendation.

As far as I understood, after some debate, the teams agreed to play the entire 1st period (as the 3rd period) starting from the 3-2 lead. No further goals were scored and FR won the game.

As you can see in the quote, the staff is planning to introduce some changes to the rules. The question of course is, where do you draw the line - where should we step in and where not? There's a good discussion going on at the moment about how community users think these sort of issues should be handled:

It's a very good topic to discuss and we hope to hear as many of our members voicing their opinions about the topic.

3.     Missing game stats

There are quite an amount of games still missing stats. In some cases, it is the staff’s fault for not fixing issues that have been reported. But in cases where it hasn’t been reported and a game is missing stats, please fix it immediately. If you need assistance, please let the staff know.

Failure to comply with adding stats for every game may (after warning) lead to team diqualification.

We thank all the teams for their efforts in making the long regular season successful and wish the playoff teams good luck! 

On behalf of the NHL Gamer staff,