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***WannabeFinn*** · 05-11-2022, 05:15 PM

Hello everyone!

We’ve had a lot in the works over the past few months. Some of the things we’ve been working on are changes that we hope will address some long standing issues and major pain points league-wide, and some are more minor changes that we hope will improve the day to day experience here in the SHL.

Minimum Salary Tier Adjustments
Beginning in S67, contracts will be reviewed and adjusted yearly based on TPE totals in the seasonal regression post in order to reflect the TPE tier a player is actually in. Previously, players in Tiers 1-6 could be signed for up to three seasons at the TPE tier they were in at the beginning of that contract. We have seen instances of players with well over 1,000 TPE playing on salaries as low as $2,000,000, no hometown discount or retention necessary. Starting in S67, contracts will be adjusted prior to each season for players who have moved into a tier that requires a greater salary to satisfy the minimum. For example, if a player has 1200 TPE at the beginning of S67 and is signed to a three-year deal at the Tier 5 minimum of $4,000,000 per season, but earns past 1300 TPE prior to the start of S68, their contract will be adjusted to the Tier 6 minimum ($5,000,000) for that season (S68). This change only applies to players who are going up a contract tier, it does not affect players who may regress into a lower tier. It’s our hope that this change will provide a much-needed nudge in the way of player movement and boost the value of younger, cheaper players. We hope that providing 2 full seasons of advance notice will reduce the likelihood of any last minute budgetary issues. We will continue to monitor the salary cap and how it functions, as it is a key tool for maintaining the health and competitiveness of the league.

Site Calendar
@Rangerjase has put a lot of work into getting the site calendar up to date and fully functional. Some feedback we’ve gotten from the off-season survey indicated that the calendar announcement prior to this season might have slipped under the radar, so I wanted to pull that back into the spotlight. You can find the calendar HERE (or under the “more” menu in the header). This calendar includes all events that take place throughout the season in the SHL, SMJHL, and IIHF, so if you’ve ever had to ask someone “When does FA open?” or “when is the draft again?” those answers should now be easily accessible via the calendar as soon as those dates have been decided upon.

S65 Schedule
Following an eight-week schedule in S64, we will be using a nine-week calendar for S65, which we hope will allow for some breathing room when considering some of the larger changes we will be enacting next off-season. This will be reflected on the site calendar (did I mention the site calendar?) We are working with IIHF head office (@Canadice new Commissioner!) on ways to promote the WJC/IIHF tournaments during the off-season in the future.

Point Task/Activity Check Deadlines
Effective immediately, deadlines for all point tasks and activity checks will be 11:59 PM PST Sunday nights. We know we have a lot of users in different time zones, and standardizing this to be more inclusive of those on the west coast of the US is a relatively minor change that we hope will make things a little easier for everyone.

SSL Affiliation
We were approached by @Canadice and @RashfordU a short while ago on behalf of the Simulation Soccer League with an affiliation request, which we have agreed to. The Simulation Soccer League is a growing sim league using the well known engine of Football Manager. Currently using the 3D FM22 engine, the league hosts 10 teams from all over the globe, and is expanding this offseason to 12 teams. The league puts out a quality sim experience, with casted games 3 days a week and requires a less demanding earning experience for TPE, especially with the help of the SHL affiliation. The league will be entering its fourth season in the coming weeks so stay tuned for more info about the Season 4 Draft. SSL has already accepted SHL affiliate claims since their formation, and we are happy to make that a true two-way affiliation. Going forward, users who complete the weekly Article, Graphic, or Podcast PT in the SSL will be able to claim affiliate credit for the main SHL or SMJHL PT that week.

Recruitment / Instagram
In recent seasons we’ve found that our traditional recruitment sources have begun to dry up for one reason or another. While we continue to press forward with the recruitment team in search of a variety of recruitment sources, Head Office has begun to explore paid advertisements on Instagram. While we are still early on in our ad campaign, we have seen several recruits register for the Season 66 SHL Draft class and we continue to gather data and insights as we fine tune our audience. Thus far, these ads have been paid without the use of SHL funds or donations. We wanted to initially explore the idea with private funds in order to get a grasp on the effectiveness of the ad set before planning a larger campaign. Give us a follow at @Simulationhockeyleague ! That being said, @Seymour will be moving on from his role as the Recruitment Team Head and we will be looking to hire someone that can help us develop new and exciting recruitment opportunities. Be on the lookout for that hiring post!

And finally, what you’ve all been waiting for.

Transition to FHM8
Beginning in S66, the SHL and SMJHL will transition to Franchise Hockey Manager 8. It’s hard to overstate how much work and preparation have gone into the decision to pull the trigger on this change, from back-end/index work to hours of testing to ensure that this will be a significant positive improvement for the league. The work done on this predates many members of head office, and will continue throughout this coming season as we prepare to make the change. We know that you are likely to have a lot of questions and/or concerns about this change, and we welcome those discussions. We will have more information on this switch in the coming weeks, but for now, I wanted to communicate the official timeline on this. We will be looking at all options on the table when it comes to restricting access to test simming on FHM8. The test simming culture that has developed over the past several years has become a detriment to the overall league experience and a deterrent for aspiring GM’s, and we hope that we can mitigate these issues.

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Thanks for reading this edition of the SHL's State of the Union. Make sure you take a moment to fill out the Offseason Survey before tonight's deadline!

On behalf of Head Office,
WBF