Future of the ECL seasons

[vSilenttio]

Hello people! Now as there is discussion topic already about league system and then other one about divisions, I decided to throw another one out here 'cause I couldn't find any other good topic for this. I was just wondering the length of this season as it appeared be the theme of our conversation in PS4 party. During respectful Consolehockey's Xbox era there used to be always one longer tournament where we played against lots of teams (50% or 100% of opponents) with no matter of how many teams we had in the league, and then we had tournaments with same amount of teams shared into many groups. Everyone knows this, right? Two seasons per one game (NHL 13 etc). So far it have worked well but why not to add one, and make them little bit different? And reason why I'm writing about this is that we play this game a lot from September to May so that makes like 8-9 months per game.

I'll get to the point. I've had couple things/questions on my mind about this so I'm going to do this by the old classy way. So, about the seasons!

• What is NHLGamers plan/word on this? Have there been discussion about this? I'm pretty sure that yes, but it would be fun to hear some of it as an NHL-gamer myself! Let us know.
• People's opinion which is big part of the conversation overall - what you guys think? Should there be two seasons on NHL game just like before, or maybe one or even two more? Personally I would add one more season because it would make those 8-9 months really matter, instead of having longer breaks from the league gaming which is the biggest reason we play this game! Would (lets say) three seasons per one NHL game make winning the championship way more meaningless? After all, it would always be Elite championship even though there would be three seasons for example. Instead of two champions on one game, how about three as there's time for it.
• If not, does people enjoy these league gaming breaks? Sometimes you wait couple weeks for the next season, and then sometimes it's a month and especially during Autumn it can be 2-3 months without single tournament game!

So, here are my thoughts on this in case people wants more league gaming during nine months. From now on, I'm talking about well-known 30-team Elite league. If you're already pissed off or there's already something wrong very badly, please stop reading and let me know! Well, after all this is all my imagination, so no need to get mad...

IMO, there should be three seasons. These should be all smaller seasons where you play against 50% of the Elite teams, so two conferences -> 8 teams per conference continue their road after regular season. Simple. So shorter regular season would last about 5 weeks, add the playoffs and you have 9 weeks combined which is little bit over 2 months with the shorter season.

Playful demonstration where we know the exact level of our Elite teams, so it might sound funny.

• First season starts on 15th/October/2016. That gives about 30 days to play next game before ECL starts so about four weeks before anything serious starts. Players/teams might be little bit shaken after long summer etc. but shorter time to play around with your team and so on, could bring little bit stability and seriousness into this community through the year. Atleast that's what I want, and perhaps the Staff too? Okay so lets add those two months and we have new champions on 1st/January/2017, christmas break counted in. Little break here, lets say couple weeks. 16th/January/2017 is a new season opener time, new elite teams risen and some of the former Elite's bottom teams fallen. And lets add 9 weeks again -> we have new champions on 19th/March/2017. I know, it sounds very tight but thats why your team has +8 players, right?! Get it all going on again on 3rd/April/2017 and add those 9 weeks again -> we have this year's third champions on 4th/June/2017. Wow, let the offseason begin finally as we would have three wanted Elite Trophies shared on one year!

Or then just make smaller Elite league (like 16/24 teams, 8 makes the playoffs) and so on, this way it wouldn't be that tight. Ugh, I dont know. Any opinions about anything I wrote? And damn this might be very crazy topic opening after all but I hope this wakes up people to discuss this "how many seasons per year" thing. Well, I dont know if it's a thing or not but surely something when you think the future of ECL. I know that playing three +2 month seasons might be crazy between Autumn and beginning of the Summer. With smaller Elite leagues, you could do many, many seasons during one year. So everything here is pure speculation, no need to get mad!

Again all this is just creation of midnight talking and I'm sure that NHLGamer has their plans already (about the divisions etc etc etc) but still, it's forum so... Comments? Anyone?

Edited April 21, 2016 by vSilenttio

[Daigle_]

30 teams elite league sounds good with 2 conferences and 3 per game. hyvä Silentio! This would be great to see.

First season starts on 15th/October/2016. That gives about 30 days to play next game before ECL starts so about four weeks before anything serious starts. Players/teams might be little bit shaken after long summer etc. but shorter time to play around with your team and so on, could bring little bit stability and seriousness into this community through the year. Atleast that's what I want, and perhaps the Staff too? Okay so lets add those two months and we have new champions on 1st/January/2017, christmas break counted in. Little break here, lets say couple weeks. 16th/January/2017 is a new season opener time, new elite teams risen and some of the former Elite's bottom teams fallen. And lets add 9 weeks again -> we have new champions on 19th/March/2017. I know, it sounds very tight but thats why your team has +8 players, right?! Get it all going on again on 3rd/April/2017 and add those 9 weeks again -> we have this year's third champions on 4th/June/2017. Wow, let the offseason begin finally as we would have three wanted Elite Trophies shared on one year!

agreed with all

[Billy44205]

Wow @vSilenttio you're stepping up your wall-of-text game, impressive! lol

I definitely, DEFINITELY agree that 3 ECL seasons a year should be the new norm. I had a rough estimate at 2.5 months for each tournament, add 2-3 weeks between seasons, basically the same stuff that you mention.

HOWEVER, I also think 30 teams in the top division defeats the purpose of divisions. You just know the top teams will smash the 25-30 ranked team there, and isn't this what you guys want to avoid? Also the bigger the division the safer the top teams are that they will stay there forever. I think Chimera mentioned something like wanting a very small division size so that every team would be threatened with relegation, not that I share his opinion but at least that's a valid argument. With that said, if most people wanted a chance to face the top dogs (and the probability of being smashed) I would prioritize that over what the top-guys minority may want and a big top division cut into 2 groups would indeed be best, I guess, however "inelegant" it looks to me.

I have been thinking about all this (a LOT) and I still say that 3 divisions are best, always have and I have stated my reasons in the past so I won't repeat myself but let me just add that 3 or 2 or however many divisions should not be more or less complicated to manage imo. If not of equal size, then I'd like maybe 15 teams in top and bottom divisions (8-team playoffs), and the rest in the middle division (8 or 16-team playoffs depending on division size I guess). I'd do 7-game series in top playoffs, 5 games in middle division and 3-game series in bottom division, then include some sort of promotion/relegation playoffs.

As for tournament schedules I'd have ECL1 October to mid-December, ECL2 mid-January to enf of March, and ECL3 mid-April to end of June. Then maybe Summer Cup sometime after that.

[Daigle_]

i would like to see 30 teams mainly cause off Conferences and Divisons, otherwise i agree with Billy that their unfourtaneitly aint 30 top teams that is fairly equal.

[vSilenttio]

5 hours ago, Billy44205 said:

I definitely, DEFINITELY agree that 3 ECL seasons a year should be the new norm. I had a rough estimate at 2.5 months for each tournament, add 2-3 weeks between seasons, basically the same stuff that you mention.

HOWEVER, I also think 30 teams in the top division defeats the purpose of divisions. You just know the top teams will smash the 25-30 ranked team there, and isn't this what you guys want to avoid? Also the bigger the division the safer the top teams are that they will stay there forever. I think Chimera mentioned something like wanting a very small division size so that every team would be threatened with relegation, not that I share his opinion but at least that's a valid argument.

Good stuff and I'm glad that active bloodhound like you agrees with stuff I wrote. Now some words on things that I underlined from your text.

If you're talking about top teams by saying "you guys", okay good point but these days there's a lot more tough teams to compete against compared to NHL 13/14 times. Atleast that's what I think. Of course it depends where you draw the line but if we're talking about top teams, I could name handful (5-8) of teams that are going seriously after the championship this year and then there's like 15-20 teams I could call dark horses out there -> brings me 20-25 teams. So 12-team Elite league could have worked before but now as there's ~50 teams competing and people are learning a lot from top teams, so only four team chaning in Elite would be nothing in bigger picture (or more, but dont know if there's any sense changing every team except semifinal-teams or so). So I dont know about that smashing-part, but I share your opinion with the other underlined part. 30 teams is a lot, and if 16-26 teams stay on the Elite, it's maybe too much again. Yes, that's valid argument from Chimera, but has it's dark side like I said.

Respect to "mid-table" teams that are competing very hard these days. Feels good on behalf of community that we are having +20 teams that you cant beat in best-of-7 series if you play half-assed, on thinking level. Compared to old times when it was way more easier.

I'm not going to mention any names on who are these mid-table teams on my papers at the moment, but Silver Sword Boys, Ace Boys, Tiki Boys, Breaking Boys, Nightmare Boys, Refusing Boys, Nordic Sta.. Boys, Muro Boys, Raakkel Boys, Coal Boys, Dynamo Boys and the list goes on... And dont get me wrong, being a mid-table team these days is more like being a dark horse than shitty shitbag team (what we dont even have these days). So no need to get mad if you are (or you're not) on that list, just a little demonstration on how many good teams we really have after "top-dogs".

Edited April 21, 2016 by vSilenttio

[Lauri]

Top division teams imo should be 24 (2/12 group stage)  with 16 advancing and bottom 4 would battle for relegation with 4 from lower division. 

[vSilenttio]

1 hour ago, Lauri said:

Top division teams imo should be 24 (2/12 group stage)  with 16 advancing and bottom 4 would battle for relegation with 4 from lower division. 

Alright, this is perhaps the best one so far! I would change the bottom-4 to bottom-8 and they battle against Div1's top-8. Div1's #1 team faces Elite's 24th, 8th faces Elite's 17th and so on. Div1's teams gets the home advance in relegation battle.

[gzell60]

16 hours ago, Lauri said:

Top division teams imo should be 24 (2/12 group stage)  with 16 advancing and bottom 4 would battle for relegation with 4 from lower division. 

That means no post season for 4 teams at all. I think adding those to relegation would be more interesting?

[Daigle_]

On 2016-04-21 at 5:51 AM, vSilenttio said:

These should be all smaller seasons where you play against 50% of the Elite teams, so two conferences -> 8 teams per conference continue their road after regular season

I like the conferences but does it have to be that you just play the teams in you conference in regular season, i think not.   why not play teams from both conferences? would that make too many games?

[Billy44205]

On the topic of a 24-team division: I'm torn on whether it's better to have the bottom 4 or bottom 8 play relegation playoffs. I kind of like the idea that spots 16-20 have some value in that you at least stay in your division for sure, as opposed to the 21-24 spots. But if people would rather put themselves at more risk to go down a division to play more ECL games I guess I'm fine with every non-playoff team going to relegation stage.

By the way, 24 teams means 2 groups (or conferences if you want to use fancy real life-ish terms) and most likely it also means 2 divisions each made of 2 groups, with the lower one having a variable size depending on the number of teams registered. It may sound obvious but I just want to present everyone with all the implications of the initial choices made in a given scenario.

@pnordetun If there are conferences inside divisions it will be because the divisions size is too big to have teams play against everyone. At 24 teams, and even more so at 30 teams, you have to cut a division in 2 groups and you won't play against everyone. I don't really like the idea of only playing against half your division which is why I like a smaller division size better.

[Daigle_]

43 minutes ago, Billy44205 said:

If there are conferences inside divisions it will be because the divisions size is too big to have teams play against everyone. At 24 teams, and even more so at 30 teams, you have to cut a division in 2 groups and you won't play against everyone. I don't really like the idea of only playing against half your division which is why I like a smaller division size better.
 

well is it really necessary and carved in stone that you must play the teams home and away? If using divisions and conferences you can play your division rivals in the conference home and away(if 24 teams total then 5 teams you play twice in your division =10 games). And the other teams in the conference and the teams from the other conference one time =18 games makes a total off 28 games in regular season.

I dont feel any difference between home and away games anyway so if its just made that all teams have the same amount off away and home games in the singel games and that could maybe work?

[Lauri]

4 hours ago, gzell60 said:

That means no post season for 4 teams at all. I think adding those to relegation would be more interesting?

Thats true but having a postseason relegation fight when you lets say lose playoff spot in even score seems a bit unfair, but why not if thats what people want. 

[iSvamp]

whaaaaaaat happened with thiiiiz? 

WE VOTED! 

[swagx88]

1 minuutti sitten, Tuukka.R kirjoitti:

What is this 30 team elite season ?  Is this some kinda joke ? 

shitstorm inc 

[Kenu]

You guys can see that this was posted in 2016, right? Closing thread.