Kenu

Hey NHL Gamers, We hope you're as excited as we are about talking about the plans for divisions, which will be introduced in ECL Season 4. We will be releasing a news story tomorrow - Monday the 5th of December, at 21 CET - where we cover our proposed division system in as much detail and covering as many of the frequently asked questions as possible. Can't wait to let the cat out of the bag and get your feedback about our future plans. Until then - good luck on the ice! On behalf of the NHLGamer.com staff,

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: Teams that have left the league 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 Walkover requests a. Mpire - Silver Sword Griffins b. Murohoki - Terrific Tigers 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,

Exciting news NHL Gamers, EA Sports has released, what they describe as Patch 2.0 or Content Update #2 for NHL 17. It includes another impressive list of fixes for this year's title. Especially goalies should be excited, as it seem like quite an extensive amount of the fixes has been put into issues that revolve around goaltending. Be sure to leave your comments about your experiences in the comments for us non-goalies to read! You will be happy to read that the issue with the ceiling ornaments blocking the view in some camera angles. One of the more surprising additions is the addition of 11 new goal celebrations, which we're sure will bring some more variety into the highlight reels. For the full list of changes in the patch, please see below: Sources: https://forums.ea.com/en/nhl/discussion/81396/nhl-17-patch-tuner-notes-updated-nov-21-2016 https://www.easports.com/nhl/news/2016/content-update-2-notes https://www.easports.com/nhl/news/2016/content-update-2

Hey NHL Gamers, What a great start to the season it has been! Almost all the registered teams are active and playing and we’ve had well over 300 games reported already. This is without a doubt our biggest, most intense tournament yet. Sadly, no tournament is perfect and we’ve already had a few disciplinary cases. In the interest of transparency, here are our rulings on the matters we’ve dealt with so far. On the matter of the only team yet to participate in the tournament, Ice K1ngs - As the staff has not received any form of communication from the Ice K1ngs team and they have not played any games or responded to requests for games – they are hereby to be considered disqualified from ECL 3. This means the tournament now have 58 teams – 29 for each group. On the matter of incorrect arena configuration for Warriors of Kongo vs. HC Checkmate (Scheduled for October 13th) The staff was made aware by representatives of HC Checkmate that they experienced visual impairment during their away game vs. Warriors of Kongo. Kongo had not removed their home arena ”intro gate” which is currently something that is causing difficulties seeing part of the defensive zone for the opposing team from certain visual settings, like ”Classic” for example. Rule #7 of the NHLGamer rulebook stats that: ”The home team is responsible for making sure that no intro ceremony gates or other unlockable rooftop elements are blocking the away team's camera view. We recommend to turn off any of these items completely. If the away team can prove blocked sight in form of screenshots or video, the home team will receive an automatic walkover loss for said game.” Warriors of Kongo did not comply with this rule, as it was written in the rulebook. HC Checkmate made the decision to quit the game at the score of 2-2, as soon as they noticed the visual impairment. After collecting information from HC Checkmate (in the form of pictures of the intro gate) the staff have come to the following conclusions: - - The amount of visual impairment in this case is minor, less so then expected by the staff when writing this rule. Therefore, it will be modified. It is important to note however, that these intro gates and other ”start of the game”-presentations that are then hung from the rafters has no place in the ECL and we remind all teams yet again to REMOVE all of these arena settings. - - Warriors of Kongo showed negligence in not being aware of this new addition to the rulebook. - - HC Checkmate made the right decision to quit the game. The staff rules that Warriors of Kongo are to be considered warned. Any further indication of an intro gate being used by Kongo will result in more severe punishment (walkover losses) and repeated offenses are grounds for a tournament ban. Furthermore, the ruling is that the game in question will have to be played again, from scratch, starting at a score of 0-0. The staff applauds HC Checkmate for following the staff suggestion of replaying the game instead of demanding a WO. As mentioned above, the rule will be modified to reflect the actual effect the intro gate has on the game. It does impair the vision and is a distraction for the opposing team, but not neccessarily to the degree that immediate walkover losses are a reasonable consequence. Therefore, the modified rule will most likely feature some form of wording that gives the exposed team (the team that experiences the visual impairment) a right to replay the game from scratch if communicated immediately when the obstruction is noticed. On the matter of incorrect roster for Falun Coal Miners in the games vs. Elämäm Kiekko (Scheduled for October 13th) It was brought to the staffs attention by the captain of Elämäm Kiekko that, when trying to report the teams completed games against Falun Coal Miners, some of that teams players who participated in the game were missing from the official website roster. Therefore, Elämäm were unable to report the games. Rule #5 of the NHLGamer rulebook states that ”Teams are only allowed to use players listed in their roster on NHLGamer.com”. Falun did not comply with this rule, as it was intended in the rulebook. When asked about the situation, the Coal Miner captain stated that it was his belief that the rule in question was referring to the roster listed in the ECL Roster Registration thread and that, since both players missing from the intended game report was indeed listed on the registration roster since September, the team was in full compliance with the rules. The players in question were both on the official website roster within 24 hours of the games. After collecting information from both teams (the images provided by Elämäm combined with statements from Falun representatives) the staff have come to the following conclusions: - - The rule was always intended to refer to the Official website roster (wherein the players accept invites to their teams from the captains) and not the registration roster. The rule isn’t as clearly worded as it could be and does invite a certain confusion about which roster is referred to. This is something that will be corrected on our side moving forward, with this case serving as the catalyst for the change. - - It is the judgement of the staff that the captain of the Coal Miners acted without ill intent and did not seek to gain any advantages to his team by not having the players on the official website roster on time. Nevertheless, he is to be considered neglient for not applying ”common sense” and having his teams players on the reportable roster on time. - - The situation that occured did not have any effect on the outcome of the teams actual games Therefore, the staff rules that the results of both games will stand (the teams are now free to upload their stats) but the captain of the Falun Coal Miners – The_Alpha_Furyan – will receive an individual punishment for neglient behaviour in regards to rule #5. This punishment will consist of a 1-game suspension wherein the captain is forced to miss his teams next game during the regular season. Furthermore, the rule in question will be re-written to more emphatically state that the roster intended in Rule #5 is indeed the official website roster to avoid any confusion. On the matter of Ice Bros not showing up for the games vs. Nordic Nosebleed (Scheduled for October 19th) The staff was contacted by the captain of Nordic Nosebleed who reported that Ice Bros had not shown up at all for their scheduled games. These games had been scheduled and confirmed by both teams. Rule #6 of the NHLGamer rulebook states that: ”If a team is more than 15 minutes late to a game, the opposing team has the right to request a walk-over win. These requests will be looked at by the NHL Gamer staff.” After being provided with screenshots of the conversation between the two teams, the staff has come to the following conclusions: - - Ice Bros did not provide any explanation for not showing up at all. If a teammate has some form of real life situation to deal with, the team is expected to have a back-up ready to step in. This is part of the reason all teams are required to have atleast 8 members. - - Ice Bros did not communicate that they would not be able to participate until less than an hour before the scheduled puck drop. Therefore, the staff rules that Nordic Nosebleed are to be given two automatic walkover wins for the games scheduled, just as Ice Bros will receive two walkover losses. On the matter of X Factor showing up late for the games vs. Origins (Scheduled for October 19th) The staff was made aware by both teams that an issue arose between X Factor and Origins when they were scheduled to play their games at 21.00 on October 19th. One player from X Factor was late and arrived at around 21.14 – 21.17 (timestamps vary in the respective teams versions of the events). Origins at this point decided to only play the second game of the two games planned and request a walkover win for the first. Rule #6 of the NHLGamer rulebook (as mentioned earlier) states that: ”If a team is more than 15 minutes late to a game, the opposing team has the right to request a walk-over win. These requests will be looked at by the NHL Gamer staff.” After several in-depth conversations with both teams and a myriad of screenshots and video evidence from both teams, the staff has come to the following conclusions. - - X Factor were late. Just because the rulebook states that there is a 15 minute grace period, does not means that teams should routinely use this to be 1-15 minutes late and not apologize to the other team. The appointed game time is the start time, anything after that is late. - - Origins were within their rights to request a walkover win, per the rules. - - X Factor did provide a reasonable explanation for their late player and did contact Origins to ask them for an additional 5 minutes to the 15 minute grace period as they knew their player could make that time. The player did show up in that 5-minute window. - - The second game scheduled was played on that same night, meaning both teams were available for a period of time that evening. The staff rules as follows: X Factor are given a warning and are to be considered on probabtion. If the team shows up late again during the tournament, the opposing team (if requested) will be given a walkover win, without exceptions. We will re-iterate what was said in the case of Ice Bros vs. Nordic Noseblees; ”if a teammate has some form of real life situation to deal with, the team is expected to have a back-up ready to step in. This is part of the reason all teams are required to have atleast 8 members.”. X Factor should have had additional players ready. That said, the game will not be ruled a walkover loss to X Factor as this was an extremely marginal case where both sides made their case through video and images that both differed by mere minutes. The first game between Origins and X Factor will be played and is to be scheduled as soon as possible between the teams respective captains. To summarize, X Factor showed poor sportsmanship by being late and Origins could have shown better sportsmanship by allowing the X Factor player the additional 5 minute grace. They were however, as stated, within their rights to request a walkover win. This will not be the case this time but as mentioned: a punishment for X Factor is doled out for being late. Summary If there is a common thread running through these rulings it is that we want the games to be decided on the ice as much as possible. The rules are extensive and do provide the backbone and structure for this entire tournament but they are not perfect or infallible. Therefore, the staff reviews each case individually – taking several long hours out of us that we would like to focus on improving the site for you guys. An additional individual warning is handed out to pulverapa, captain of HC Solhem. By continuously, and deliberately, misreporting the ”3 stars” function – you are creating a situation where these games arent being ”saved” correctly in the NHLGamer database. Refrain from doing this in the future or further discipline will be considered. Additional Info - Game Reports Finally, the following games need to be reported immediately as they are well outside of the 24-hour reporting rule. Continued neglience will result in warnings and/or possible bans. (Alliance HT) http://nhlgamer.com/match.php?matchID=1632 (October 19th) http://nhlgamer.com/match.php?matchID=1633 (October 19th) (Bone Breakers) http://nhlgamer.com/match.php?matchID=1622 (October 19th) (HC Marilyn) http://nhlgamer.com/match.php?matchID=1389 (October 10th) http://nhlgamer.com/match.php?matchID=1646 (October 19th) http://nhlgamer.com/match.php?matchID=1647 (October 19th) http://nhlgamer.com/match.php?matchID=1675 (October 20th) http://nhlgamer.com/match.php?matchID=1676 (October 20th) (HC Soittorasia) http://nhlgamer.com/match.php?matchID=1409 (October 10th) http://nhlgamer.com/match.php?matchID=1524 (October 13th) http://nhlgamer.com/match.php?matchID=1528 (October 13th) http://nhlgamer.com/match.php?matchID=1667 (October 20th) http://nhlgamer.com/match.php?matchID=1668 (October 20th) http://nhlgamer.com/match.php?matchID=1678 (October 20th) http://nhlgamer.com/match.php?matchID=1680 (October 20th) (HC Checkmate) http://nhlgamer.com/match.php?matchID=1491 (October 12th) (Infinity) http://nhlgamer.com/match.php?matchID=1670 (October 20th) http://nhlgamer.com/match.php?matchID=1672 (October 20th) (Los Bombers) http://nhlgamer.com/match.php?matchID=1534 (October 14th) http://nhlgamer.com/match.php?matchID=1535 (October 14th) (Rising Phantoms HC) http://nhlgamer.com/match.php?matchID=1594 (October 18th) (Vodoo People) http://nhlgamer.com/match.php?matchID=1667 (October 20th) (VC Hockey) http://nhlgamer.com/match.php?matchID=1598 (October 18th) Thank you for your time. Sincerely, The NHLGamer Staff

Exciting news NHL Gamers! The release of NHL 17 is less than a week away and some of us are of course already enjoying the 10 hour trial on the Xbox One with EA Access. One might think EA is relaxing at this stage, but we're happy to tell you that there is a major update coming "very soon" - just in time for the release. @EASportsNHL tweeted earlier today: The list of improvements is impressive - in fact, it's the longest one I can remember for a patch for an NHL-game. Of course it's very specific and goes into detail about certain team specific textures, but nevertheless EA Sports seems to be working hard to prove that they do in fact care about this title. There is an overwhelming amount of improvements listed, but one of our favourites is one that our very own community has been asking for and is something that @gzell60 discussed with producer Clement Kwong during our interview at Gamescom a few weeks ago: Allow for a human controlled goalies to play as the extra attacker in EASHL games. There it is! This will certainly make pulling the goalie - both in a delayed penalty situation, and in the last minute - a more valuable asset in the EASHL and the NHL Gamer ECL-leagues. It's time for the goalies to do some shooting practice too. Another added feature that I find really interesting and welcome is the ability to adjust the amount of help you get with your passing online: Added “Online Pass Assist Percentage” slider to the controls screen. According to the description, the assist is at 100% by default, but you can turn it completely off. This is comparable with the manual passing you can find in the FIFA-series. It may finally be time to stop yelling "That's not where I aimed my pass!" - ok, maybe I did. You can find the full and impressive list of updates below. Please let us know which improvements are the most pleasing to your eye in the comments section below! Source: http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/10356843.page?sf48667017=1#35169115 On behalf of the NHL Gamer staff,

Hey NHL Gamers, You might have noticed that our website was unavailable for a few days. As an administrator of a website even an unexpected downtime of a few minutes is one of the worst feelings in the world - let alone when it goes on for days. We've had our technical hick-ups here and there during the development of the site and a lot of the time we've been responsible for messing things up. This time around that wasn't the case and we could only watch things unfold in the passenger seat. We're still waiting for a detailed report from our internet service provider (ISP) on what went wrong. What we do know, is that something went wrong with their scheduled maintenance work of their servers, which caused them to need to move all of their different servers' data over to new hard drives and reroute the traffic. The maintenance work was done in order to increase the capacity and bandwidth of their servers. While we're not happy about the downtime, we know the people over at our ISP worked as hard as they could to get the systems up and running again and thank them for their efforts. We are looking at our options going forward, in order to avoid similar situations in the future. I would like to thank everyone for their patience during the downtime and welcome you back to NHLGamer.com. Please post any problems you might find over in this thread: Also, if you're playing in the Summer Cup, please check the below post: On behalf of the NHL Gamer staff,