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halcyoncv · 11-14-2024, 07:34 AM

Hey everyone,

I am happy to join this community. The league looks so detailed & well developed & I want to make sure I get the best out of the experience. So I thought I would reach out to you all for some guidance.

What are the key things I should know as a beginner to hit the ground running?? Any advice on creating a player, understanding the league structure or even how to get involved in team discussions? Also if you have any do and do nots for someone just starting out, I want to hear them.

As well, I found these resources when doing research on this; & if anyone have any resources, tutorials or personal experiences please share with me, It would be greatly appreciated!!

Thank you……. Smile

***luke*** · 11-14-2024, 09:36 AM

Hey welcome! I would recommend joining the discord that should be in your PM’s! You’ll get faster response times that way

You can create a player by clicking the Player Portal on the navigation bar up top. Sign in using your login credentials and create a player!

*Ruggsy* · 11-14-2024, 10:23 AM

Yea joining the discord Luke mentioned is probably your best bet. But you can reply to that message as well and it'll go to me, or if you wanna message me on discord directly I'm Ruggsy there too

MrPrime · 11-14-2024, 01:41 PM

My go-to's are Ruggsy, Shmurph, Vaxlare, WannabeFinn and RangerJase.
They helped me in many ways over the seasons, they are great mentors and greater individuals. Smile

spidey · 11-14-2024, 05:07 PM

Once you are on a team, I would lean on your GMs and veteran players. Most really like helping new players and passing on knowledge.

Just ask questions.

The Discord thing is a huge help.

ToeDragon84 · 11-14-2024, 06:45 PM

First you should try having as many children as you can. 10 or 15 of them would be a good start, but don't hold back. Teach them to read and type enough by 6 months old to recruit them, have them build to 420 TPE or so and get your bonus points. Not much else to it than that.

*Ruggsy* · 11-14-2024, 08:30 PM

Now that I'm off work I figured I'd come back to this and just give my answer incase anyone else is new and comes across it. I am in a very rambly mood so this is long and I’m sure there’s things I cover too much or not enough but no question should go unanswered.

Let me first state that in this post I will be describing the 'ideal player', this does not mean everyone has to do what I'm saying or they will fail. There are many ways to enjoy what we have going on here and people put vastly different amounts of time per week to achieve that. There's no wrong answer when it comes to that, it's up to you. Also please don't draw any major conclusions from this, this is just some jumping points to know what we are about, I could talk about all of these things separately and so much more for a while lol

First and most important thing, just don't be a jerk. I feel silly saying it because you would think it's common sense, but it happens every once in a while and there is no faster way to fail here than being a bigot or overly hostile. SHL is extremely proud of our inclusiveness, everyone is welcome here and that will always be the case.

Other first and most important thing, yes we are all here to take part in a hockey sim. Yes most of us REALLY like hockey, but still..... on ice stats are NOT a major determining factor on your 'value' as a player. The community is super important to people here, many of us are on discord chatting with each other on a daily basis. We want people who are cool to talk to. Someone who is around often enough to check in with the team and see how things are going with everyone. Depending on the team, someone who wants to participate in game nights and maybe a watch party for a hockey game or a movie etc etc. Doing tasks is important, but its more about WHY your are doing tasks. Are you actually interested in going deeper into the community or are you focused on just making it through to the next season. One of my favorite things to tell people: you can teach someone how to build their player and do tasks, you can't really teach them to be a good person.

Quick thing on league structure before the next part: We have the SMJHL and SHL. After one season in the SMJHL you will be drafted again to the SHL. This SHL team will have your rights to be able to call you up, but in general you will remain in the SMJHL for 1-3 more seasons until this happens.

As for how the typical experience would go from you starting today:

The main places to hang out for the next few weeks would be the main SHL discord (discord button in the top toolbar) as well as the Rookie discord luke mentioned which is both sent through a site DM as well as a message when your player is approved.

The rookie discord is where you’ll find the rest of your Season 81 classmates and that discord will always be around for whoever wants it, so if you want you could catch up with people years from now who joined when you did.

In about a week (~two weeks prior to the draft) teams will start to ramp up their scouting. This is typically done through discord conversations. Here you’ll discuss plans for your player, your background in context of our league, as well as just general conversation so the team can get an idea about your vibe and inversely so you can feel eachother out and see if the team would be a good fit. My main tips for scouting are first to play it cool, its not a job interview. As well as knowing who you're talking to, is it just a general scout? Is it the GM? Whats the team? Start trying to put names to faces to logos etc. It can be easy to go on autopilot and just answer questions.

YOU control your player, if for whatever reason you're talking to a team and you don’t think its a good fit let them know. Maybe it’s just a misunderstanding, maybe it truly isnt a good fit. In the end noone benefits if you end up somewhere you hate. Teams don’t want people who don’t want to be there.

Fast forward to draft day. We have a 30 minute delayed live stream of the draft. Very shortly after you are picked on stream you’d receive an invite to your teams Locker Room which is another discord server. This is where a lot of the meat and potatoes of the league happens in terms of conversations had, friendships made, wins celebrated and losses mourned.

Getting engaged here is a big path to moving up in the league. SHL teams have people in SMJHL locker rooms, word gets around and that can be a major factor in your SHL draft placement. You can start to help your team through scouting, maybe even helping with tactics, setting up events, or just keeping the conversation going. All of this and more is ways to show your dedication.

Another path is league jobs, as a completely volunteer self serviced league we have many things to do here. There is a massive list of jobs that can get you closer to the inner workings of the league and show people that your interested in really helping out. This along with what I mentioned in the LR section is the type of thing that makes HO comfortable hiring your as a team general manager, head office etc etc.

Finally your question about guides, We do have guides for some things but it really depends what your curious about. I would say some starting places would be to look through the rulebook a bit, it might be ‘reading the dictionary’ energy but knowing what your talking about goes far here. If your interested in graphics definitely check out the graphics server.

With that I’ll end that with one more tip: the best thing you can do to learn here is talk to people.

***HabsFanFromOntario*** · 11-14-2024, 08:36 PM

Step one is to make a player at the top in the player portal

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