State of the Union (September 2022)

Updates from the "Ones that Ruin Everything"

Thanks for all your patience, guys.  The past 2 weeks for me have been very hectic as I wrapped up my time in Victoria (including a handover of the dental clinic to the incoming detachment commander and hosting 2 of my kids for a week) and then physically moving back/driving to Edmonton.  Also concurrently dealing with a family situation that will require me to travel overseas next week.

Unfortunately, during this time, the processing/updating of the website was slower than ideal and everyone saw (maybe did not read) the article that Tyler wrote.  I will agree with one aspect of the article…Tyler, the other GMs involved and the league itself deserved a clarification/decision from the BoG much sooner than this.  We all recognize that this was not ideal and strive to improve and not let this tardiness repeat itself.

The backstory in this situation was that Bob (the Edmonton GM) posted on the Facebook page a list of players for release.  Immediately, 2 GMs saw the post, reached out to Bob to offer something in trade for 2 of these players and Bob accepted the trades, edited his post (removing these players) and initiated the trades through the website.   A comment initially made by Tyler in regards to one of the player’s was also subsequently deleted.  This was all done relatively quickly after the initial post and many GMs may not have seen the original post, however, a couple BoG members did and discussions amongst ourselves ensued.

Ultimately, an important clarification was needed in regards to when a player is considered “officially released” and concomitantly, when a trade becomes “official.”  In regards to the former, this timing is critical as it determines if the player is still a team asset and thus eligible for trade.  I will say that in either situation, I was adamant that I did not want either tied to “when they are officially processed in the sim” as that becomes 100% dependent on me processing them, multiple steps involved in processing them (including a player file that can take upwards of an hour to upload to reflect the player’s change in status) and can never be a consistent marker.

These debates were on and off for a couple days with different ideas being bantered back and forth.  In regards to the process of release, we narrowed our options down to four choices:

·      Having a pinned release thread similar to the “trade block” and GMs have 24 hours after posting a player to work out a trade.  After 24 hours, there is a waiver period and if no claims within a predetermined time, player is released outright (to FA or draft eligible)

·      Having a pinned release thread similar to the “trade block” and GMs have 24 hours after posting a player to work out a trade.  After 24 hours, player is released outright (to FA or draft eligible)

·      Having a pinned release thread.  Create a new waiver process (not possible through the sim for farm eligible players/prospects) for GMs to make claims

·      Having a pinned release thread.  Once a player is posted on the thread, they are effectively considered released immediately

Each BoG member was asked to vote for which of these options they would be happy with and 5/5 elected the last option (2/5 selected options 1 and 2 as well; 0/5 elected option 3).  As such, option 4 was the unanimous selected option.

Subsequently, each BoG was then asked if we should:

·      Cancel the two trades and release both players that were initially posted as released. Although not specifically in the verbiage of the rules, it should have been implied that a player posted as released is considered released immediately.

·      Allow the two trades to be processed and then write the process/timing into the rules so subsequently, a player is considered released immediately upon posting.

By a vote of 4-1, the BoG elected the first option and that this timing should have been implied.  As such, both trades will not be accepted and Lukas Cormier and Dmitry Voronkov will be released from the Oilers and the Rangers and Flyers will keep the compensation that they offered to Bob.

To add a final admin clarification, because most of the BoG have access to the admin side of the website, a trade is considered official (unless errors are noticed after the fact or BoG intervention is needed following new information) as soon as it is approved by a commish and thus appears on the transactions list on the website as this is instantaneous with “commish approval” being clicked and does not require the processing in the sim to be considered official.  We recognize that there is a “cancel trade” button that GMs involved in a trade still have access to even if both of the teams have approved the trade (i.e. prior to commish clicking approved) and following a discussion with Matt, the intent of this "was mostly to protect GMs from really bad deals and they can cancel it for you or if they both agreed too quick and forgot something – it was out of convenience to alleviate the work on the commish” and not for “GMs to continue to look for a better offers and then back out of already agreed upon trades as that is abuse.”

Therefore, for 100% clarity:

·      A new “released player” pinned thread will be created.  When a GM wants to release a prospect, release a player on a two-way contract or buyout a player on a one-way contract, they will make the post accordingly in the comments.  Players are considered released immediately upon posting.

·      A trade is considered official once it appears on the transactions log page (again, pending ongoing BoG scrutiny if unique circumstances exist)

·      A draft pick is considered official once posted (also not “in the rules” but additionally implied that one cannot “change their mind” on the player after posting)

·      Actual processing of any transaction within the sim (i.e. seeing the players traded teams or actually released) is not a critical timing factor in regards to it "being official"

We fully understand that not all will agree with our decisions here (and some may be madder than others), but we collectively feel that this is the best choice for the league and are attempting to be as transparent as possible.  Our rules document is already 18 pages long and at times, there are situations that arise that the rules either don’t specifically address.  Those grey areas do not mean that these can be exploited (not using this term in an accusatory fashion) until clarified.  This was one of those grey situations and it is the BoG’s responsibility to either determine what is/has been/should be implied and/or what is the direction that the league wants to take given the scenario.  From these BoG decisions, the rules can either be amended for clarification, added to, deleted or not require a change and furthermore, the logistics of the implementation (including timing).

In regards to the aforementioned situation and the comments in Tyler’s article, please consider this a public apology to Tyler if he feels that he was accused by me of being dishonest, a cheater or a liar.  I do not feel that I did that in my message(s) to him but I cannot truly know how it was perceived.  Without going into the specifics of the messages beyond what is already out there, the gist of my message(s) was that “based on his history, I felt he would have an issue with the specifics of a released player being traded if it were another team involved” and “that if the BoG acted contrary to what his opinion was, he would call us out.”  We will truly never fully know the answer to my first assumption…however, based on his recent article, I think it is fair to say that I was 100% correct in the second assumption!

Lastly, recently, there were some other GM-generated rule proposals that the BoG voted upon:

1.     Passed 4 – 1:  Effectively immediately, when a GM retains salary on a player, they have to additionally pay the retention equivalent in DCHL Cash (or can be real-world fee that is the same as purchasing cash). In other words, if you offered 50% retention you had to either fork over the cost from your DCHL cash reserve or pay 5 CAD for ever mil retained...and you still lose the cash against the cap as per normal.

2.     Passed 4 – 0:  Starting in 2023 UFA Frenzy, GMs will be permitted to bid above the “max bid” but any amount above this amount is paid as 2X DCHL cash (in the vein of a “luxury tax”).  This is a modification to the Giletto-Girard rule and eliminates the “first to bid the maximum” race that has existed in UFA.  Max AAV and the amount entered into the UFA spreadsheet remains the same - the difference in the final bid and the "max bid for max AAV value" is the luxury tax.  It allows all GMs the opportunity to win a player if they are willing to spend the money…and possibly gets rid of the Giletto Sportsbooks cash still out there.

3.     Passed 5 – 0:  Officially kill the previous BoG proposal about discounts and bonuses in UFA based on playoff performance in previous years that had confusion about when it would start.  (Note:  the crux of this being defeated was the thought of 32 individual UFA spreadsheets and the amount of admin tracking that would be added on our plates)

4.     Failed 3 – 1:  Starting in 2023, Each team is only allowed 50 contracts. Prospect lists can have as many as you want but players on prospect list who have had NHL contracts in the past count towards the total 50 (since the contracts continue to burn in the background).

5.     Failed 5 – 0:  Should we endeavour to build a list of "GM goals" each season and GMs could pick a goal. If they accomplish the goal, they get a corresponding reward. We would have 32 goals and could do a draw) and let each team pick from 1 – 32 each year based on their position in the draw.

6.     Failed 5 – 0:  Starting in 2023 UFA frenzy, should we offer an additional discount to teams if the DCHL team signing the player is the same team that owns the NHL contract (e.g. DCHL Canucks get discount if UFA is with NHL Canucks).

The exact verbiage of the proposals that passed (including the monetary amounts attached to them) still needs to be finalized and will be done before the season starts.  Please note the immediacy of the implementation of the retention rule so, any trade involving retention moving forwards from today will be subject to this additional monetary condition and the precise DCHL cash payment (or real world payment) may need to be done after the players switching teams is processed.

As all can see, the BoG is always open to rule suggestions and do actively discuss each one.  As such, please stay tuned for a Facebook post asking for possible rule suggestions that the BoG can then discuss and possibly implement.

Thanks again for your patience…and for getting this far in the article!!!