NHLGamers,
It is with great joy that we announce today the latest addition to our variety of regional leagues, the Western European Championship League.
Besides being our official league for the countries of France, Spain and the UK, the WECL is for us the opportunity to cover a lot more countries under the NHLGamer umbrella and allow them to compete on the excellent standards of our leagues. In the WECL, we also invite a multitude of other smaller European virtual hockey markets and allow them to grow in our league framework. Without further delay, we will start going over a few important details on when and how the inaugural season will happen, and we encourage all the players that want to take part to review our specific rulebook.
Season start
At the moment of this announcement, our newly-created sub-forum has also gone live, you can find this on the community page where all the leagues are already represented. This also opens the sign-ups period, that will be open until the 17th of February at 23:59 CET. After this, the teams will be grouped and posted for a regular season scheduled to start on Monday, February 22nd.
As a league that hopefully sees new teams that have not competed in the ECL before, we wanted to make sure not to overwhelm anyone with the pace of gamedays, and maintained a similar pace to the one in ECL Neo - two matchups per week for each team. The league will be concluding mid-April, naturally depending on how far your team progresses.
Top Team status
For competitive reasons, Grenoble BDL Esport and Remparts de Tours Esport have been granted top team status as the highest ranked teams in the ECL structure eligible for participation, and they will be drawn into separate groups to start the season if the number of teams allows for a two group format. This of course, should they choose to sign up.
Regional scope of the WECL
As a regional league, the WECL has three officially recognized countries (ES, FR and UK). However, teams based in countries that are not already represented in the current (ongoing or not) NHLGamer regional leagues (CSCL, GCL, RCL, FCL and SCL) are also eligible to take part.
Teams from the following countries are eligible for the WECL and their players don’t count against the foreign player cap:
Albania
Andorra
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Belarus
Belgium
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bulgaria
Croatia
Cyprus
Denmark
Estonia
France
Georgia
Greece
Hungary
Iceland
Ireland
Italy
Kazakhstan
Kosovo
Latvia
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Macedonia
Malta
Moldova
Monaco
Montenegro
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Romania
San Marino
Serbia
Slovenia
Spain
Turkey
Ukraine
UK
Vatican City
Teams from the following countries are already eligible for another regional league and cannot sign teams up, players will also count against the foreign player cap:
Czech Republic
Slovakia
Germany
Austria
Switzerland
Russia
Finland
Sweden
Players from these countries are counted against a limit of 2 foreign players on the roster.
English is considered the only official language of the WECL and all communications sent out regarding the Championship, or exchanged with the LA will be in this language. Users are free, however, to use English, French or Spanish in the league’s own sub-forum.
Skill cap
As stated, teams are allowed 2 foreign players in the roster. This is to help teams that are possibly struggling to find enough players to complete their roster otherwise. In addition to that, we will also add a skill cap for the foreign players, meaning that any player counting against the foreign player cap cannot have played in either ECL Elite or Pro within the past two competitive seasons. (Ex. A player that has played in ECL Pro in season 10, but in Lite in season 11 is not eligible, whereas if they would have player in Pro in season 9 and in Lite in season 10 and 11, they would be eligible for participation.)
To make it short: up to two foreign players having played in Neo, Lite or no divisions of the ECL over the past two seasons are eligible to be registered.
Exceptions
Teams can be granted an exceptional status for example if half of their roster is from a foreign country by nature and it is clear that the team has competed in the same formation for an extended period of time. For example a team that is half French and half Swiss could apply for such an exception if they can prove that they have stuck with the formation in question for a longer time. An exception can be handed out in such situation if explained properly to the LA beforehand. Additionally, teams from regions not covered can also contact the LA for an exception (IE, teams from North Africa). We will not be shy about granting exceptions to teams unable to compete in other regional leagues, so please reach out to our support if you might have any questions. As stated in the beginning, please familiarize yourself with our rulebook as the above fragments are only a tiny part of the entire ruleset. Hoping for an enjoyable tournament for everyone involved, I invite you to participate in the inaugural season of the WECL!
Many thanks and see you on the ice!
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