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Hello NHLGamers, It’s been rumored, it’s been talked about… we even hinted at it earlier during the season but tonight we are finally making the official announcement: moving forward after ECL 3, the European Championship League will take on a skill and merit-based divisional format. This is your post to find out everything about this new system and the next step in Online Competitive EASHL gaming before it is launched in ECL 4. Divisions First thing’s first, the divisions. The idea behind creating these divisions will be expanded upon in the text but the short version is this: We are continually working to improve the site, the leagues and the overall NHLGamer experience for everyone. Some might say this development process is moving too slow and does not reach far enough, some might say the website is expanding in ways that it should not. The community is special in many ways, not just because parts of it has stayed together for years (including previous websites, the community is now more than half a decade old) but also because it is continually expanding. NHLGamer has almost doubled its membership in less than a year while still maintaining its core, which is all of you in the community. It creates a tough balancing act when trying to create a fun place for EASHL rookies that want to experience the thrill of playing competitively for the first time while trying to give the hardened tournament veterans what they want, which is the best tournament possible where the stakes are high and winner takes all. Still, in an attempt to achieve this, we will be creating a divisions system where the hope is that teams will be better matched against each other – something we hope will lead to tighter games, more fun for everyone involved all the while creating a stronger foundation for the tournament to stand on. Our hope is also that more teams will be inclined to stay together and build longer lasting franchises. We’ve structured this post so that we should be able to answer as many of your questions as possible by getting to them one by one – a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) if you will. This FAQ will be available for future reference when the actual division based leagues come around. Despite this, if you feel something is unclear or just plain weird, feel free to sound off in the comment section with questions like: “Well, what if this happens..?” and we will do our best and elaborate. Let’s get to it: Q: How many divisions will there be? The short answer is 3 – a total of 3 separate divisions. The longer answer is that we set off to create an environment where all the top teams face off in the prestigious ECL Elite, up and coming franchises battle with veteran teams in the competitive ECL Pro and all newly entered or learning teams start off in ECL Amateur to hone their skills. This prevents teams with years of experience and chemistry from numerous EASHL competitions, from facing off with teams new to the site who are just learning what it takes to play EASHL at the ECL level. Q: How many teams will there be in each division? We are looking at a total of 16 teams for ECL Elite, 16 teams for ECL Pro and, depending on the amount of registrations, 16-24 (or more) teams in ECL Amateur. The goal is to keep ECL Elite and ECL Pro consistently the same size (16 teams each), which means if teams completely drop out of the division system or inactive teams return (read on), there will be balancing measures - meaning increased amounts of promotions or relegations. During extraordinary circumstances, ECL Pro can deviate from its 16-team baseline but ECL Elite has a hard cap of 16 teams. This part, much like inactive teams, is specified further down in the text. In case ECL Amateur sees an extraordinary amount of registrations, the staff will then decide if the division can be split up into two “conferences” (like ECL 3) or if registrations will have to be closed for the tournament in question. As a rule of thumb, we always do our best to include all registered teams in our leagues, as long as it’s reasonable. Q: How many games will there be in a season? The amount of games will, as per usual, be 2 games against each opponent – meaning 30 games (15 opponents) each season for ECL Elite & ECL Pro and somewhere around the same for ECL Amateur depending on the amount of teams. This ensures lean, hard-fought seasons with what we hope is the perfect amount of games – you get a sense of both the regular season grind while at the same time reaching the playoff threshold in just 5 short weeks: this by playing 3 opponents per week, just like during the last few seasons. Q: How will promotion and relegation work? First off, we will have promotions and relegations. Having closed divisions is not something we are considering at the moment so we are going with the European hockey model where teams can be both promoted and relegated in the different divisions. For ECL Elite: 8 out of 16 teams will make the ECL Elite Playoffs where the Top 8 teams start off in quarterfinals, then proceed to semi-finals and finally the ECL Finals where the league winner will be crowned. The teams that finish #15 and 16 in ECL Elite will instantly be relegated and play in ECL Pro the following season. Teams that finish #13 and 14 will not be instantly relegated, but will have to play two teams (one each) from ECL Pro in a Best of 7- ECL Relegation/Promotion Round. Teams that finish in places 9-12 will not play in the playoffs nor be subject to relegation. In summary, this means a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 4 teams are relegated each season. It also means 10 out of 16 teams will see some form of post-season play and ensure that every team will be fighting all season, either to make the playoffs or avoid elimination. For ECL Pro: 8 out of 16 teams will make the ECL Pro Playoffs where the Top 8 teams start off in quarterfinals, then proceed to semi-finals and finally the ECL Pro Finals where the league winner will be crowned. The top two teams (finalists) of ECL Pro are instantly promoted and will play the season after in ECL Elite. The teams finishing in spots #3 and 4 (the losers of the semi-final round) will then move on to face teams #13 and 14 (one each) from ECL Elite in the Relegation/Promotion Round (7 games). As far as relegations go, teams that finish #15 and 16 will be instantly relegated to ECL Amateur for the following season. Teams that finish #13 and 14 will follow the same model mentioned earlier and play two teams from ECL Amateur (one each) in a best-out-of 7 battle. In summary, this means 10 out of 16 teams in ECL Pro sees some form of post-season play. For ECL Amateur: 8 out of 16 teams (depending on the size of the division) will make the ECL Amateur Playoffs where the Top 8 teams start off in quarterfinals, then proceed to semi-finals and finally the ECL Amateur Finals where the league winner will be crowned. The top two teams (finalists) of ECL Amateur are instantly promoted and will play the next season in ECL Pro. The teams that finish in spots #3 and 4 will then move on to face teams #13 and 14 from ECL Pro in the Relegation/Promotion Round (7 games). In summary, this means a total of 4 teams in ECL Amateur will be given the chance to advance to ECL Pro, something that we hope will be a welcome addition for all our new members looking to make their way up. Q: What teams will play where when the Divisional system starts up in ECL Season 4? We said before ECL 3 that the new format (bigger conferences, more games) was mainly for two reasons; 1. To try out the format and see what the benefits and disadvantages were and 2. To make sure all teams truly got the opportunity to distinguish themselves over a long season before we introduced divisions. Therefore, the teams that finish this long, grinding regular season in the Top 4 in each of the ECL 3 conferences will have guaranteed spots in ECL Elite, locking up the first 8 spots. The next 8 spots will be decided by the ECL 3 playoffs. This gives the remaining 24 playoff-bound teams (seeds 5-16) a chance to – outside of battling for the title in our biggest tournament yet – use the playoffs to get their hands on the final 8 spots. The deciding factor will be wins. Out of the 24 teams who make the playoffs but are not directly qualified for ECL Elite, the 8 who manages to collect the most playoff wins will be the ones to claim the final spots. In a situation where two or more teams have the same amount of playoff wins, the regular season rank will act as a tie-breaker. The third tie-breaker is PPG in the playoffs and the fourth is PPG in the regular season. This naturally means the 8 teams who aren’t directly qualified to ECL Elite and make it the farthest in the playoffs are the final 8 to be added to the top division. This could theoretically mean that, if there is an upset and a #16 seed beats a #1 seed right away in the first round – they could both be playing in ECL Elite the following season. The teams that made the playoffs in ECL 3, but didn’t make the cut for ECL Elite, will start ECL Season 4 in ECL Pro. Teams that do not qualify for the ECL 3 playoffs will start in ECL Amateur next season. Q: Can a team pause/be inactive for a season? In ECL Elite and ECL Pro, teams can apply to “pause” for one season (in ECL Amateur this is not necessary). This turns them into an inactive team, and they will not participate during that season. They cannot be promoted nor relegated. An inactive team is however expected to play during the following season, otherwise they will lose their current divisional spot. A need for a longer inactivity would have to be brought up with the NHLGamer staff and will be handled on a case-by-case basis. To fulfill the inactive status, the team needs to keep at least their captain and one assistant captain, as well as 2 other players (for a total of 4) on the inactive roster – these players are not allowed to participate with another team in said season, where the team is marked as inactive. Special cases where, for example, 6-7 players outside of the captaincy squad cannot play and will stay inactive but the Captain wants to play for another team and still keep the divisional spot will be handled on an individual basis by the staff. If an inactive team is not able to keep the amount of necessary players on the inactive roster (4), they will lose their inactive status and drop to division 3 for the next season. Q: What if teams split up? Who keeps the divisional spot? On NHLGamer, just like in real life, drama is to be expected. Sometimes it even finds its way into individual teams. But if teams split up, who keeps the spot? The staff will look at each individual case but, as a rule of thumb, the captain is considered the owner of the team. If a team has disagreements where, for example, the captain has lost the faith of his teammates and kicked most of them – he will have to explain his case to the staff. If both assistant captains and at least 3 other members that played for the team the season before applies ownership of the team, they will have a strong case to claim the team (however not the name of the team, unless agreed on with the captain). If a team is completely dismantled, they will not keep their spot in the division. Q: What about newly created teams that consist of established ECL players from several different teams? Do they have to start in ECL Amateur? To have highly skilled, established, experienced EASHL players form a new team only to play in ECL Amateur and be unevenly matched with completely new teams goes against what we’re trying to accomplish with this system. That said, we are aiming to create an environment where longevity, stability and consistency are some of the key factors moving forward. What follows is an attempt to balance these mindsets. Let us use a team from this season as an example; Laser HT. Laser, for those of you who don’t know, has been an established franchise in EASHL tournaments for years. Yet, they had not played in either ECL season 1 nor 2, but the players that today form Laser had. Many of them had even been a part of teams that made the finals, even won the tournaments. Now, ECL 3 was not based on divisions but if it had been – like in the future – Laser could have applied for Exceptional Team Status. This term is drawn from the OHL (Ontario Hockey League) where certain special players (lately John Tavares, Aaron Ekblad and Connor McDavid) have been granted Exceptional Player Status where they were allowed to “skip” one year of waiting to be drafted and were approved to be drafted to the OHL at age 15 instead of age 16. Similarly, new teams can apply for Exceptional Team Status in the ECL where they will be allowed to skip ECL Amateur and start in ECL Pro. At this point, new teams cannot apply directly for ECL Elite as it would undermine the idea of working your way up the divisions and staying there based on ECL results. Anyway, back to Laser. Had Laser applied the Staff would have granted them this status due to a few factors; Longevity and reputation (Several top tournament finishes in their history, always considered a top team when participating) Quality of players (most, if not all, players on the current Laser squad have been leading members and top point producers of teams that finished in the top-4 of both previous tournaments) EASHL 6vs6 ranking (they are ranked in the Top-10 of all European teams) When deciding Exceptional status, there will always be a subjective factor involved but bullet points like the ones in the example above will form the basis of any decision made on whether to grant exceptional status or not. Finally, the term “exceptional status” is there for a reason. These applications will only be granted under very special circumstances. Q: Will there be an ECL Season 5? Will it be played during NHL 17? When will the leagues start for NHL 18? The below are subject to change, but provide an overlook of our plans and what our suggestions are for the upcoming leagues: NHL 17: ECL Season 3 ends by 29.1.2017 ECL Season 4 starts 13.2.2017 and ends 2.4.2017 ECL Season 5 starts 24.4.2017 and ends 18.6.2017 Summer Cup specifics to be determined. (This is a draft-type league) NHL 18: releases 14.9.2017 (estimate) ECL Season 6 starts 16.10.2017 and ends 10.12.2017 ECL Season 7 starts 8.1.2018 and ends 4.3.2018 ECL Season 8 starts 2.4.2018 and ends 27.5.2018 Summer Cup specifics to be determined. (This is a draft-type league) Q: Are you guys out of your minds? This concept/detail x will never work! First of all, this is a proposition that we have set up for the community and we look forward to hearing your feedback. While we have a strong belief in that the plans we propose will be a good step for the community, we don’t blindly believe our plans to be perfect (nor that there is a perfect one-solution-fits-all solution) and we are open to discuss the subject as a whole or the smaller details as long as the discussion and feedback is constructive and respectful. Please elaborate on your own ideas. Verbally attacking the staff, or other community members will not be tolerated and may lead to disciplinary actions. That is all for now. Please feel free to share any and all thoughts you might have in the comment section below. On behalf of the NHLGamer.com Staff,