Simulation Hockey League

Please pick ONE prompt to write about. Do not mix and match prompts. Identify the prompt you are using in your submission - Copying and pasting the prompt will deduct from your word count so if you do this make sure YOUR submission is 150+ words excluding the prompt.

CREATIVE PROMPT - Wow! All those improvements you made to the neighborhood around the arena have really paid off! People love the area more than ever. Attendance is at an all time high, and your franchise is making money hand over fist. Since you did such great work with the city, you've been given $3 million and asked to turn your eye to the team's needs! 

Written Task: What upgrades and changes do you make to your team's locker room, lounge, fitness room, parking garage, whatever! Use your 3 million wisely in order to make the best facilities possible for your teammates. Are you upgrading to some fancy new future tech? Is there something old and rotten that you need to replace? Are you mad that your parking spot is too far from the ice surface? Talk about what you're changing and why! (150+ words)

Graphic Task: Show me some of your incredible locker room improvements. Include some players enjoying them.

HOCKEY PROMPT - This is a more broad hockey question that kind of relates to the idea of surpluses and budgets. Whatever, who cares, take it easy on me.  

Written Task:  What is your opinion on the NHL salary cap? Is it great? Bad? Needs improvement? Tell me why. Is there another league that has a cap structure you like more? Do you have a compelling argument for removing it all together? Would allowing teams that could afford to spend extra money on players be too unfair in this day and age? What do you think? (150+ words)

Graphic Task: Show me your ideal NHL lineup if cap constraints were no longer a concern! Include how much you're paying each player!

You will receive 3 TPE for fulfilling all requirements.

All responses are due on Sunday, January 29th at 11:59 PST. NOTE: IF YOU SUBMIT/EDIT AFTER THE DEADLINE YOU WILL RECEIVE REDUCED/NO TPE.

Affiliate claims from either PBE or ISFL or WSLB or SSL are accepted; link directly to your post and note if your username is different there.
If you have any questions/concerns, please PM me. Tasks with malicious intent will not be graded. The graders reserve the right to determine malicious intent, after discussion with me. You will not be warned.

This task is for SHL players and send downs only, it is not for SMJHL rookies.

pt pass

3 million only gets you so far but I am spending that money in the in arena experience. The seating in the Maine arena is in dire need of an upgrade. Enough with these old hard plastic chairs that don’t even match the teams colors. We are putting in forest green seats that are lined on the bottom with a seat cushion. Every seat should be comfortable. We found a great deal for the seating and was able to get it done for $500,000 with labor included. Next I want to upgrade the presentation of our concourse. Each section that contains a restaurant or a bar is going to have the signage and appearance changed. I want a wood patterned background on all signs and the counter tops will match that as well. The lettering will be a forest green to match with the seating. The section number signs will also follow suit with the restaurant signs to make everything look similar. Lastly, I want to replace all of the glass and boards around the ice surface. They are used and abused and definitely need to be replaced.

So $3M sounds like a lot but really isn't that much when you are talking about arena improvements, so I will have to keep things tight. As much as I would love to have a better parking infrastructure or whatnot, the budget will not allow for that at all. So lets focus on the locker room specifically.

Step 1 is to get some air fresheners in there. It will not use much of the budget, but should go a long way to de-funking the locker room because that place is rough. From there, we will also update the showers with those faucets that allow you to choose your temperature of the water vs just jiggling the knobs. This is obviously just a luxury, but maybe it will inspire some of these people to shower more often.

Then we will invest all remaining money in cheese. Tons and tons of cheese that will rotate through in our unique "cheese room". Wheels and wheels of cheese upon cheese. You may ask yourself "Why would they do that?" and my response would simply be "cheese". Nuff said

Creative Prompt

Agent Tesla: Okay so we have been given a hundred thousand dollars to improve the quality of the arena for the sake of the team. We need to brainstorm how to use this money as efficiently as possible to make the most improvements to the arena for the Syndicate.

Dave Heinrich: Last time around you had limitless access to all your powers and fabulous wealth, but this time we are getting just a hundred grand? What in the world happened?

Agent Tesla: This time we are being paid by the team and so per the rules of reality as far as I know them we cannot exceed that limit. So I think my first upgrade is to get a team slushy machine for two thousand dollars.

Dave Heinrich: For two percent of our budget I think that is a solid improvement. Not sure of what the price would be, but after that I would say new shower heads could go a long way towards making everyone more comfortable after a game.

Agent Tesla: Twenty top of the line shower heads and that is another two thousand down. We are on a great pace!

Approximately an hour later.

Agent Tesla: Alright that is another thousand down and we have our hundred thousand spent to make the arena better. Now since you are technically in charge of this I just need you to sign off on these papers.

Dave Heinrich: Okay the slushy machine, pinball machine, army of knife wielding robot vacuums, shower heads, and wait a minute. You said we only had a hundred grand, but what is this consulting fee of 2.9 million dollars?

Agent Tesla: Look I spend upwards of six million dollars a season to train you and I am barely making ends meet in this reality. Either give me the consulting fee or we'll see how you feel having to digest a meal while wearing your digestive tract as a scarf.

Dave Heinrich: Sounds like a perfectly reasonable price for a consulting fee. Signed and sealed!

Agent Tesla: Then I will handle delivery! Thanks for doing business with me!

Ben Jammin is known to have asked the ownership to make some serious upgrades to the Chicago   facility for quite some time now. With the ownership group letting Ben choose how to spend $3M to upgrade the arena, there are some major projects he wants to get started on very quickly!

First, Ben wants to increase the parking lots not only for the players and staff but for the general public as well, he has seen how the fans have complained online about the lack of parking spaces and far it is from the parking lot to the arena. That would be his first task to handle.

Next, Ben would make all the in-game seats of the arena more comfy and have more padding. He would also upgrade the sound system of the in-game arena speakers so the music hits even harder, Ben knows how important music is and wants the best sound experience for everyone during the game. 

Lastly, the player lounge for the   would receive some upgrades too like a hot tub, giant flat-screen TV's, more equipment in the workout room and mini-theatre for players and coaches to review game film.

(195 words)

Creative Prompt

With three million dollars to inject into the Newfoundland Berserkers, Tummy Hurts has a few ideas for how to use the funds to improve the facilities around the Mary Brown's Centre. First and foremost, Tummy would focus on spending approximately $2.5 million of the funds on improving the kitchen and dining facilities, creating a world-class dining experience for Tummy and his teammates. This would help the Berserkers stay well fed, which we all know is a crucial element to maximizing on-ice performance. The money would not only expand the kitchen, but pay for the acquisition of top of the line appliances, tools, and even the hiring of a Michelin star chef to come in and create a whole new menu for Tummy and the gang. The remainder of the money would be spent on a relaxation room where Tummy would be able to nap peacefully when his tummy starts to hurt after eating all of the new food served in the team's improved kitchen facilities.

Fileworker PT Pass

Hockey prompt -

The NHL's salary cap is one of the more rigid and inflexible pieces in terms of a major sports league, and for the benefit of the fans, I think that's a good thing. Inherently, a salary cap established parity in a fair and concrete way that any other level of game management/shenanigans fall short of. It establishes that dynasties can't be bought or stacked, and avoids the problems of the 50's and 90's, where there were NHL teams that acted as glorified farm teams for another NHL team with the same owner, or there were clear super teams that performed far better than struggling franchises with too much consistency to properly build the game in emerging markets. The NHL should keep the salary cap as is, so that there is a clear outline of rules that reward good asset and cap management, that has a clear and understandable impact on developing an entertaining on-ice product.

I think it was a novel idea at the time, but since it's inception the league has found too many holes and work arounds that it doesn't really serve it's purpose anymore. The main goal of the cap was to create parity in the league and to help give some of the smaller market teams a chance to succeed, but in practice I feel like it just puts a microscope on poor management groups and bad contracts. You make a few bad moves and you're stuck in cap hell unless you want to mortgage your future and package those bad contracts with picks and prospects. I heard on a podcast that at one point earlier this month 17 teams were over the cap with LTIR surplus as well so clearly it's not too effective. One solution I heard was to introduce a luxury tax that allows the rich teams to outspend the rest of the league, but for every dollar they spend over the limit they need to pay a tax and that taxed money is given to the teams that operate below the limit so rather than a hard cap, it's a soft cap with an incentive to be frugal as opposed to forcing them to.

That's a great question. To some extent, it is one of the best things that happened to the league. It helped with developing new markets, and it also helped with the volatility of the Canadian dollar. It also helped to limit the salaries of players and the shared profit structure seems equitable. I think it is a better system than a luxury tax, where teams can go over the cap, but pay penalties. It also helped to develop and sustain small markets. Without a salary cap, it would become impossible for some teams to control the evolution of their expenses. That said, the fans are the real winners of that deal. By imposing a cap on the salaries of players, it also helps to keep the price of tickets "affordable".

Big markets cannot win because of their economic situation, relying more on tactics, negotiation and management skills. It also provides a context where the biggest market of the league, Toronto, cannot buy victories and win the first round of their playoffs as they rely on the quality of their manager and their team. Finding a way that Toronto cannot buy themselves a cup is, in itself, one of the greatest achievements in professional sports.

The salary cap is a very interesting concept, and I think that the way the NHL does it is well executed, just because a salary cap is already a very complicated thing with all of the unique variables in place, it's a difficult thing to manage and create, and plus the salary cap system in most of the other professional sports leagues in north America, however I feel like there is absolutely no reason to remove the cap altogether, because the cap has served the exact purpose that it intended, being to balance out the winning chances of teams like the New York Rangers, who are a very wealthy team, and a team like the Florida Panthers, who are on the opposite side of this spectrum, if there was no salary cap, a team like Toronto or New York could sign all of the best players and run away with the league

153 words

The Cap is fine in the NHL tbh, back when the cap wasn't a thing. All it really achieved was make the Ranger build useless overpaid teams from all the aging FA every season anyways. So not like it even lead to super teams, it just lead to super bad decision making. The cap forces teams to actually think ahead and be less dumb with their money. Sure, it has issues with teams getting pretty blatant about abusing LTIR, but that's the biggest gripe I'd say.

From just a management standpoint, when I play EHM having to maneuver the cap is actually something that adds a lot to it. Because you can't just keep your superstars forever and keep adding young supertalent around them. You have to cycle out players and make hard decisions about who is/isn't worth keeping and find a way to continuously draft well enough to keep refilling as your trade out players who no longer fit in your cap structure.

Creative Prompt:

Well the Maine Locker room is already a fantastic place to be! But who can say no to upgrading things even if they don’t need to be!? So the Locker room getting a makeover would include a new cyro chamber to replace the dated cold baths, it would also include a new fitness facility for the freaks who can never get enough working out in. But most importantly it would provide a new entertainment area/video room With a projector TV that covers an entire wall. This room would be used to watch game film but in downtime would have all the latest consoles so we can play the latest and greatest games and have watch parties. Most notably the team can be found here every Sunday night watching the new episode of The Last Of Us! The room has theatre seating and a state of the art sound system to ensure everyone has a great viewing and can hear every detail in full 7.1 surround sound.

CREATIVE PROMPT: With three million dollars (I assume this is Canadian dollars since Winnipeg is located in Canada) Lias would start a community fund to make sure underprivileged kids in the community are able to attend some hockey games. We will have a suite that is dedicated just to bringing in a class of kids to each home game, and they will be provided with jerseys and food and refreshments for the game. They will get to meet some of the players after the games and get autographs and stuff like that. During intermissions, the kids will have the chance to either tour the arena, or maybe even skate as long as there isn't some other planned intermission festivity getting in the way. If there is any money left over after all of this, we will do a fund to get hockey equipment for kids in the community who can't afford it because hockey is an expensive sport to play.