08-11-2021, 11:32 AMnour Wrote:

08-11-2021, 04:45 AMSegi Wrote: I think this new rule will inevitably lead to some people waiting to sign new contracts until after regression. With the planned 8 week season, it's gonna be extremely tight to get the file ready before the next preseason is planned to start.

Also in general, I fear the new schedule might put a lot of pressure on a lot of people in GM and other behind the scenes jobs. Can the league afford to force so many people to do their jobs in such a short time?

Thanks for the reply Segi! We had some pretty fruitful conversation about the new extensions rule in GM Chat last night and we’re looking into adding a footnote that will allow players in Regression to sign at whatever their listed Regression amount is during the offseason, to avoid them needing to hold off for their Regression to actually be processed on their player page.

So I’ll just clarify something with the shortened schedule that I wasn’t completely clear about in the original post. Our gameplan for shortening the season isn’t just going to be shaving a bunch of time off the Offseason, we’re streamlining various things throughout the season just so they don’t drag as long. The introduction of a Sim Team allows us to shorten the regular season to be a consistent length every season, we no longer have to pause for playoff predictions in the move to 16-team playoffs, so we’re likely going to pull just a few days from the offseason, which we feel won’t rush the various departments and GMs in their offseason work. The plan for streamlining is actually just going to be bringing us back to the offseason lengths we operated with before the S50s, which didn’t post any hitches.

All in all, this idea is not being implemented this offseason. We’re still very much in need of conversations with SMJHL HO, IIHF and WJC HO, Updaters, Budget Team, Events team, and many others before we can put this plan in motion, so we’ll absolutely be listening to all these parties before we make a decision. The main goal here, in my opinion, is consistency, which will allow us to plan important dates months in advance, the shortening is more of a secondary goal.

Appreciate the thought out reply! Counting the post regression number for contracts does make a lot of sense to me and should help speeding the whole thing up a bit.

I can get very much behind streamlining the seasons more and shaving a couple of days off the current off season might work. Though we do have to keep in mind that preparing the file takes a longer time compared to before the S50s.