Good evening,

The appeals team has received, deliberated and reached a decision on the appeal of the following Punishment: https://simulationhockey.com/showthread.php?tid=130482

The basis for this appeal is that Edmonton attempted to follow a customary process to be exempt from the tampering rule by getting permission from the Toronto GMs to speak with one of their users regarding an open co-GM position. This process is not described in the rulebook.

The following is an excerpt from the rulebook on tampering:
Tampering is defined as ANY attempt to persuade a player under contract with another team to sign with/join your team.
Attempts at tampering include, but are not limited to:
-Speaking about contract specifics, be it dollar value or term length.
-Speaking to a contracted player about roster openings, or where the tampered player would fit into your team's roster should they sign.
-Upselling your team's members, telling the tampered player how well they would fit in with the personalities on your team.
-Encouraging a player to ask for a trade request from their team to yours.

HO has typically allowed General Managers to gain permission from other team’s GMs to speak to one of their contracted players. In this particular case, HFFO asked the user to speak with his GMs. The user did send a message in the Toronto discord stating “Hey gang, I don’t know how to say or sugar coat this… I’m interested in that EDM co-gm position….” and received a reply from co-GM mcgriddleluver about 1 and a half hours later stating: “I wish you the best and I hope they hire someone else because it would suck to lose you”.

While we acknowledge that mcgriddle’s message could be interpreted as permission, the fact that the user in question did not formally apply for the position until after HFFO initiated trade discussions for said user with Toronto was significant in our determination that this met the threshold of tampering

HO also nullified a trade that was agreed to between Toronto and Edmonton for the acquisition of said player involving one of the draft picks included in this trade (S75 EDM 1st). While the trade was agreed upon we understand this was due to the circumstances involving the aforementioned tampering, therefore the trade remains nullified, however we have slid Edmonton's forfeited draft pick from S75 to S76 so that the S75 originally used in the trade negotiations is still a usable piece of a potential trade between Toronto and Edmonton.

The appeals committee has requested that head office immediately work towards adding the appropriate process for hiring external co-gm candidates to the rulebook. We also suggest that the external co-gm exception to the tampering rule be codified in the rulebook to avoid future confusion.


To summarize:
All aspects of the punishment stand with the forfeited first round pick moving from S75 to S76.

If there are any questions please ask a member of the Appeals Committee. Thank you.