MartindalexC

Ah my bad, I thought you were talking about a player specific model and not a team specific model. Regardless my point still stands, a team is the sum of it's parts sure, but if one part is a diamond encrusted piston then the team should be judged with that in mind and not lumped in with everyone else. But by having a smaller amount of teams you're basically signalling for a smaller set of games to be played, if so it means that teams could actually get demoted based on luck rather than actual skill. (Something which is a big no no in my book) I never said we should adjust the league for big teams, my point was that parity will always be an issue with those currently involved and as such trying to achieve said parity will have a very tough job. As such, it would basically spit in the face of the struggle if you allowed a good team (I'm talking about a team who has come close to winning the 'div 1 trophy', something which will be a very very select group imho, although I ofc hope I'm completely wrong here) to take a break and have to work their way back up. And I'm sorry but such a team would 'smash' the opposition in the lower divisions. Yeah, everyone loves a good underdog story but the reality is that if you made the top division even more 'premier' (Something you are proposing by lowering the amount of teams in such a division to 8) only to have one of the teams to leave for a season, that team really would cause havok in lower divisions based on the fact that, a.) They are clearly a 'premier' team and b.) they've been practising against the very best each and every game day, raising their skill further. The whole idea of taking a break is strange to me as well but it's still a topic that needs to be discussed and properly thought out. Personally I'm not too fussed about how the promotion / relegation is handled if we truly do go the division route, I will say one thing though is that by having a playoff series between each divisions from p/r you will get the highest parity as those who are the best will stay up which is what we want imo. But anyway the main thing for me is that last sentence with the main word being 'data'. If we really go in depth with the stats and objectively measure how good players / teams actually are, it will help a great deal in making the league (/divisions potentially) much more balanced and competitive, it also gives people something to study when going up against them. Seeing in writing (albeit numbers) who's each team's best player would give every team the opportunity to properly prepare for each game, something I would welcome with open arms. How we make such a system would be especially difficult as I outlined in an earlier post, however I do feel we could do something with it if enough effort is expended into researching it. (I'd be more than willing to volunteer if need be)

The subjectivity for me comes because not all players are equal, lumping multiple players into one value is very slap-dash method of determining who's better than who. For instance take the last EHL tournament on Xbox. In that season Russian Rockets finished in 6th place, so each of their players would sit at +1 based off your model. Which is fine, shows the team as a whole is atleast 'decent', on the other hand it doesn't show any variance within the team, instead it suggests that all players are at the same skill level. A player who got 70pts in 26 games would have the same rating as one who 18pts in the same time span, how is that not a flawed model if you're trying to rank how good players are? Say you were to adjust it to take into account points, goals and assists. How would you then differentiate play styles (For instance, one player who got 50pts could be a blue liner who gets a lot of breakaways, while one player plays the same position and plays a much more rounded defensively orientated game)? With the two contrasting play styles mentioned I personally would go with the latter player being more 'skilled', however then we get into who he's playing with amongst a whole host of other confounding variables. There's a reason advanced stats are used by actual NHL franchises to judge a players worth, without that independent eye you're just seeing if a player passes an 'eye test' whether they are good are not, which is extremely unreliable. (Due to many many biases) Now don't get me wrong, it is certainly possible, that said it would have to be so complex to take everything into account and hence would be very subjective unless fully planned with every variable accounted for. I'm talking time with puck average, average number of puck touches, average number of dekes, average shots for, average shots against... et cetera et cetera It is possible I'm thinking way too much into it but unless you really go in depth, any form of a player ranking system would be at the base of it, unreliable and subjective.

I'd be down for a GB vs anyone else series but I don't think we'd be able to get a team together , that said I do share your conviction that the community may not be mature enough for it, undoubtedly there are more than a few who would be more than mature enough for it, however those who are not will bring it down.

(Insert Billy's example here) But if NOS (Or anything team that is clearly good enough to be in Div 1, not just NOS) do decide to leave for a season, they should be put in division 2 to absolutely smash teams? Now don't mistake what I'm saying as though I'm defending teams 'taking breaks', far from it infact, however being so firm with the rules in this case will do more harm than good imo.

Problem with your idea is that it completely undermines the whole idea of a promotion/relegation system, atleast in my opinion. Divisions are made to evenly distribute the skill level of many teams so that the skill range is maintained in each subsequent division. If each team has a 'veto' it means that the 3rd placed team could decide that rather than to challenge themselves in a higher division, they could sit back and dominate those in their division atm. However by veto'ing the promotion for their team the next team must be able to get promoted, this just opens the door for a large skill range to develop not only in the division above but in the current division. (Which is something people should be opposed against, a larger skill gap means more landslide games) Additionally think about this hypothetical, if every team from the 3rd placed team all the way to the 20th placed team all used their veto in one season, based on the idea that they don't want to advance only to get dominated in the division above, what stops the 21st team from advancing because the teams who all finished higher in the season don't want to take the opportunity to move up? This hypothetical 21st overall team would get beyond smashed in the higher division, leading to lower parity in the division (Especially so if one team is the proverbial whipping boy) If you play well enough to finish in a promotion spot in a division, you should get promoted regardless of whether you feel you are 'up to it' or not, purely from a parity point of view. Furthermore your reasoning for why one team wouldn't want to get promoted is another perfect example of why divisions are inherently flawed for online gaming like this. There is nothing stopping teams from disbanding if they get promoted and don't want to lose more than they win, then reforming a new team to default to the old division (This is where an individual player rating system would help immensely, kind of what Billy mentioned earlier however such a system would be extremely subjective and unreliable imo). Finally, in regards to parity I think we will never reach a full blown equal league. With teams like Northern Stars, Sjukstugan, Synergy Hockey etc, they may be a bit of ambiguity about who at the end will win the league, but ultimately it will always involve the same few teams (Deviation will obviously occur but for the most part you could have a very good guess about who the final will be made up of). So trying to make a league, where only a select few can / will win, attractive to those who are just not skilled enough is a very tall order.

As Billy has eluded to, drawing up divisions is good in theory but when carried out it's very difficult to actually maintain. There is no real 'correct' way to structure it as there will always be positives and negatives, that said imo the biggest hurdle with divisions is creating an incentive to keep teams together and in the system. For instance if say you have a pre-tournament in order to try and categorise teams into divisions, those that are on the borders of each supposed division and get put in the lower categories will undoubtedly lose motivation to play. Now that isn't speaking about every single player as there will always be individual differences that make certain people unique, however it's a necessary generalisation if you want to think long term. The same can be said if there isn't any divisions, for instance the more teams you have, the higher the likelihood that the skill range will broaden, leading to more and more lopsided games, which also result in a lack of motivation from the players involved (Again, a wild generalisation but for the most part it is true. If you put up a poll of which type of game players prefer "Close or a blow out", I would predict with quite a bit of confidence that 'most' would go with the close game option). I'm kind of rattling off into tangents but since I'm an undergrad in psychology, this kind of stuff (social psych) is interesting for me. Anyway, my main point is that going forward any decision made should be made with quite a bit of research (Eg: Who to assign as 'commissioner' (Billy hates 'TGMA' ) is a pretty big deal as he'll / she'll be the figure head of the league and as such should be very approachable amongst other things) and not on a whim, however a certain air of authority is needed otherwise people start pushing the boundaries / challenging said authority.