Good day SMJHL community. It’s come to our attention that a few things in the rulebook were missed by more than one entity, be they simmers, teams, etc, this preseason. While these infractions are against the rulebook, we in J HO deliberated for a bit and have come to a unanimous agreement. We feel it is overly harsh to punish GMs or Simmers for small mistakes in preseason given that the games ultimately do not overly affect the regular season or playoffs, and do not offer a serious competitive advantage. Thus we wish to formally let everyone know that we will be more lenient on small infractions committed during preseason that do not overwhelmingly negatively impact the community.

However, should it be found that people are disregarding the rulebook in grossly negligent ways, then we still reserve the right to hand down necessary punishments. For example, missing one goalie swap may not need a full punishment on the simmer, but blatantly disregarding all goalie swaps for a day is still grossly negligent. Preseason should be a time for shenanigans, but still not overwhelming abuse of the system. Teams will still be warned about illegal mistakes, and will be expected to fix them by the start of the regular season. Teams will still be punished should they have been warned and still not fix it in the regular season.

This will be reflected in the SMJHL Rulebook as the new 9.A at the very bottom as “Pre-Season Infractions”, and everything else will be shifted down one accordingly.