Updated Playoff Scheduling Rules

[janbonator]

Dear gamers,

Unfortunately it has turned out that the current rules for playoff match scheduling have turned out inadequate. The remaining teams are very competitive by nature, which is of course to be expected in a tournament like this. However, the side effect of this is that many teams only want to play with their best possible lineup, resulting in conflicting interests between the teams, as no one would like to give an edge to their opponent. We simply cannot afford to postpone the tournament any longer, so we have decided that the current rules should be modified with immediate effect.

From now on, the playoffs will continue with the schedule that was in use already during the regular season. Effectively it means that the default match days will be Monday, Wednesday and Thursday at 20:00 CET, with Sunday being the "emergency back-up day", during which the games delayed due to technical difficulties etc. must be played at the latest. Not having the best lineup available is not considered a sufficient reason to postpone games from default times and/or agreed re-scheduled times to Sunday. Teams are allowed to re-schedule their games, but any game day outside the default days will have to be accepted by both teams. If no agreement is reachable, then the games will be played on default match days. By default 2 games should be played on Monday, 2 games on Tuesday and the rest (max 3) on Thursday.

A public thread will be opened in the Forum section, in which teams are expected to post their match dates and times. If the teams are playing on default times, the teams should post that "We have agreed to play on default days". In addition to making the scheduling more transparent to the community and the administration, this will also make it easier for those who want to spectate the streams of the games.

Round 3 of the playoffs will officially start on Monday the 22nd of February, and the following rounds on consecutive Mondays. However, teams are allowed to start Round 3 before that if they have already agreed to do so.

We apologize for any inconvenience the new ruling might have on the remaining teams, but we felt it was of utmost importance to improve the rules to get the rest of the playoffs played in time and with as little hassle as possible.

Respectfully yours,

NHLGamer Staff

 

Edit: Note! We meant Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, as in the regular season, as currently scheduled. Sorry for the confusion!

[gzell60]

"If no agreement is reachable, then the games will be played on default match days."

Let's assume your team cannot play on Tuesday and Thursday, but every other day of the week. Your opponent knows about this situation, the series starts on Monday and you take a 2-0 lead. Because there is enough potential for drama, your opponent now refuses to play on Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday telling you "we don't have 6 players" (even though they do, nobody knows that though). According to the sentence above, this means the remaining games are tied to Tuesday and Thursday, and because your opponent was able to play while you were not, you lose the series even though you were in the lead.

Is this correct? Dangerous rule change if you ask me.

[Billy44205]

The "dangerous" rule change makes it about the same as regular season scheduling (except default Wednesday turned into Tuesday? I dunno why). Did many people complain that you could potentially screw teams for 2 WO wins then? I don't think that rule is necessarily good enough as it doesn't address the real issue imo which is what to do when teams don't play their games (coz giving both teams WO losses gets you nowhere in the playoffs), but it's better than no rules at all.

One other thing I would have an issue with, is how basically you have less than a day to schedule your first games if you work with if the first day of your playoff round window is also the first default game day. In this case, before Sunday evening it is possible you don't know who you play against, so you only have Monday morning/afternoon if you are to reschedule your first 2 games. I find this impractical and I'd rather set the playoff window as Saturday to Friday rather than Monday to Sunday. A playoff window should not begin with a default game day imo.

[gzell60]

1 minute ago, Billy44205 said:

In this case, before Sunday evening it is possible you don't know who you play against, so you only have Monday morning/afternoon if you are to reschedule your first 2 games. I find this impractical and I'd rather set the playoff window as Saturday to Friday rather than Monday to Sunday. A playoff window should not begin with a default game day imo.

From the experience I gained so far, a lot of teams don't know in advance whether they can play on a certain day anyway. In our case most games were agreed on like 5-7 hours before they took place.

[Kenu]

41 minutes ago, Billy44205 said:

The "dangerous" rule change makes it about the same as regular season scheduling (except default Wednesday turned into Tuesday? I dunno why). 

That is a mistake on our part. Thank you for pointing that out Billy, that was unintentional and has now been fixed. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday are the correct days and this is what it says in the schedule.. Anybody running into problems due to our mixup, let us know.

 

43 minutes ago, Billy44205 said:

One other thing I would have an issue with, is how basically you have less than a day to schedule your first games if you work with if the first day of your playoff round window is also the first default game day. In this case, before Sunday evening it is possible you don't know who you play against, so you only have Monday morning/afternoon if you are to reschedule your first 2 games. I find this impractical and I'd rather set the playoff window as Saturday to Friday rather than Monday to Sunday. A playoff window should not begin with a default game day imo.

This is also a very valid point and something we have to do better in the future.

In this case, I believe all four teams have been aware of their next opponent for a few days, but I agree it should've been announced earlier.

 

There's a lot of practicalities we can improve on significantly for the upcoming second season and we're really happy to get the feedback. 

 

44 minutes ago, gzell60 said:

From the experience I gained so far, a lot of teams don't know in advance whether they can play on a certain day anyway. In our case most games were agreed on like 5-7 hours before they took place.

This is unfortunately true. However, we would like to change this culture, so that people can plan their lives better. It's a hobby, put it in your schedule. Being a captain can be a nightmare and having a better structure to scheduling games is definitely something we want to help teams with.