Hello SHL! It’s been an eventful season/off-season (and beginning of the season) over here in HO to say the least. We have been through a whole slew of rulebook discussions recently, as well as discussions regarding some changes to site structure, GM tasks, and more. I am excited to share a few of these things with you today! It's been a while, so buckle up!


RULEBOOK CHANGES
First, let’s get the tedious stuff out of the way - rulebook changes! Some of these are changes that have already been made, some are just codification of procedures that have already been in place for a while, but here’s the roundup:

Goalie Position Changes:
Previously the only reference to this in the rulebook was “Goaltenders after their rookie season cannot change their position” with no clarification on how that position change should be executed. We’re adding specific wording codifying the procedure we’ve been operating under for many seasons now:

Quote:Section I, Subsection D, Rule 3.ii
Goaltenders may request a free position change following their SMJHL rookie season but prior to their SHL draft. To do so, the user must post in the designated thread, stating their intention to change and their desired new position, and notify a member of SHL Head Office who will then execute the position change in the portal. This is the only time at which a goaltender may switch positions.

Personal Conduct
While we believe it should go without saying that sexual harassment is a form of “attack” and should already be covered under the blanket of “personal attacks” listed in our conduct section, it was pointed out that the rule could be a little clearer about that. In the interest of clarity and specifically protecting our community from that type of thing, we’ve slightly altered the wording of the following rule:
Section I, Subsection K, Rule 4:

OLD:

Quote:Personal attacks, excessive/malicious trolling, spamming, language/rhetoric that includes hate speech (including but not limited to racism, homophobia, ableism), or any comments made that belittle members of a certain religious, ethnic, or oppressed group will not be tolerated.

NEW:

Quote:Personal attacks, harassment (including unwanted sexual/romantic advances), excessive/malicious trolling, spamming, language/rhetoric that includes hate speech (including but not limited to racism, homophobia, ableism), or any comments made that belittle members of a certain religious, ethnic, or oppressed group will not be tolerated.

Appeals Team
The appeals team was previously not included in the rulebook at all, so with their help, we’ve codified the guidelines they’ve already been working under for many seasons.

Section I, Subsection K, Rule 8.

Quote:Any user issued a punishment by any Head Office may appeal that punishment to the appeals committee.
a. The appeals committee consists of site owners and four hired members
i. Appeals committee members cannot be a part of either SHL or SMJHL Head Offices. team.
ii. Appeals committee members must recuse themselves from discussions/decisions concerning the team their player is affiliated with (both SMJHL and SHL teams, including prospect affiliation).
b. Users have 48 hours from the public posting of their punishment to notify the appeals committee that they will appeal the decision.
c. Users have 72 hours to submit their appeal after notifying the appeals committee of their intent to appeal.
d. The appeals committee must review and respond to the appeal within 72 hours.
e. Decisions cannot be re-appealed unless new evidence/information is presented.

Waivers
We previously reworked the waivers section to remove the references to the now-obsolete fifth SMJHL season, but have now added instead guidelines on the release of inactive players:

Section 1, Subsection H:

Quote:If a player with more than 425 applied TPE is released from their SHL team, the player will enter waivers.
Waiver priority is determined by the previous season’s SHL League Standings in reverse, where the team with the lowest finish having the highest waiver priority and the team with the best finish having the lowest waiver priority.
a. If a team successfully claims a player off of waivers, they are moved to the bottom of the waiver priority list.
To submit a waiver claim, the interested SHL team’s GM must navigate to the “Waivers” thread located in the SHL General Manager’s Office subforum, and reply in the thread attempting to claim the player. The rules listed in Section 1, Subsection H, Rule 3 apply here for any team with higher priority who also wishes to submit a claim. GMs must also post the link to the post in the #Waivers channel in the GM Chat within 30 minutes of the waiver post onto the site. If the post in the #Waivers channel happens after the 30 minutes, that extra time will be added to the 24 hours in which a team can claim that player.
Players with less than 425 applied TPE are not subject to waivers and can be signed immediately regardless of activity status.

Changes To GM Tasks
Our current list of GM tasks dates back to a time of a former sim engine and an entirely different way of doing things on the site, and was long due for an overhaul. Starting this season, the GM task list will be changed to reflect more current procedures.


The list of GM tasks we’ve used up until now, just as a reminder, is:

Quote:Lines Submitted
Regression Done
Budget Posted
Contracts Deposited
Send-Downs Posted
Roster/Prospects/Update Forums Updated
Roster Builds Verified
Backup Goalie Designated

The new list will be:

Quote:Regression Done
Budget Posted
Draft Trades Posted
Contracts Deposited
Send-Downs/Releases/Unsigned Prospects Posted
Prospects Moved in Portal and Invited to Locker Room

To highlight the big changes here:
GMs will no longer be required to post a lines thread. With the switch to sheets for goalie starts, and the existence of the in-season roster changes thread for other changes, the only real unique use for these threads any longer was in the event of playoff goalie swaps (which are also not very common). In light of that, we will be posting one unified thread for playoff goalie swaps, and eliminating the individual team lines threads entirely.

The regression deadline will now be the same as the GM tasks deadline. In the pre-portal past, when HO was responsible for posting a master list of regressing players, regression had a different deadline than the rest of GM tasks. With that now automated via the portal, there seems no reason to keep distinct deadlines on those items. In the event of pending trades of regressing players, regression extensions may be given by HO if specifically requested.

Additionally, we are adding the following clarification regarding regression of active players:
(Section I, Subsection C) Rule 5. :

Quote:Active players are responsible for completing their own regression by the regression (GM Task) deadline. In the event that an active player does not complete their regression in that time, that player's GM must complete the regression within 24 hours following the regression deadline.

Roster/Prospects/Forum etc - all the tasks that used to be necessary with forum-based player pages and locker rooms, now updated to reflect the existence of the portal and obsolescence of forum locker rooms.

The “roster builds verified” task has been removed. With the scouting fog existing in FHM8, it is often impossible for GMs to correctly audit any rookies or free agents who have joined their team over the off-season until well after the season has already begun. In light of this as well as a number of player build errors that have cropped up over the past couple of seasons, we will instead be rebooting the audit team, who will be responsible for regular audits of both SHL and SMJHL team builds (more on this a few paragraphs down).


Sim Team Changes
This has already been communicated to GMs in both the SHL and the SMJHL, but since the start of this summer, SHL HO has been monitoring the state of the sim team. As you’re likely all aware, we saw a concerning increase in the frequency of errors and issues (especially errors necessitating resims). We had hoped these issues might improve, but sadly that was not the case. As a result, the sim team has been under SHL HO Stewardship, with close collaboration of J HO for anything SMJHL related, for a few weeks now. We hope that this new paradigm can be as short as possible and to return to an acceptable level of efficiency before we open up applications for the position and hand the reins off to a new head.

This is an ongoing project; we are committed to making the sim product the best it can be (given some limitations of the visual engine, which I’m sure we’ve all had some opinions about at one time or another), but this will require continued work. The SHL and international sides of things will continue to be spearheaded by @Jimmysmo27, who was only recently brought on as sim team co-head prior to the SHL stewardship and has been instrumental in keeping things on track this past season, and our point person on the SMJHL side is @Wally.

We have a few other (fun!) things in the works for the sim team as well, but those will be announced shortly (tag @Ace, you're it) so I’ll leave that little teaser for now!

Non-movement of FAs in the Portal
Our efforts to develop a free agency window that is both interesting and functional continue. While the signing freeze has had a decent enough level of success, some of the same issues the previous system had have been persisting, namely that many FA players were crashering themselves into a contract very early on in the window, which negated some of the impacts of the signing freeze. While it is true that some players were using the allotted time to reflect as we’d hoped, this is not in large enough proportion for both us and GM’s to feel as though the change was meaningful. As a result, we are issuing a few changes to hopefully create a more dynamic and enjoyable experience for all. As a reminder, the freeze begins the Monday following the end of the SHL Playoffs at 9 AM PST/12 PM EST.

UFAs and unqualified RFAs that have not had prior crashered contracts posted must be moved to the FA section of the portal.
We are instituting a Crasher moratorium for 72 hours that takes effect at the time of the Freeze. The moratorium will end Thursday at 9 AM PST/12 PM EST.
Players that are not moved to FA on the portal by Tuesday at 9 AM PST/12 PM EST are no longer eligible to be rostered in the upcoming season by their previous team.

This implies that future SHL Entry Drafts may only occur between the end of the moratorium and the following Sunday. Furthermore, FA postings, RFA offer sheets, and IFA bids open up at 9 AM PST/12 PM EST the day following the draft as always.

Additionally, the rulebook will be clarified to reflect the new process with regards to consequences for GMs who fail to comply with the mandatory movement of FAs in the portal. The rulebook will now read:

Quote:Section II, Subsection E, Rule 3.a.c
iii. UFAs and unqualified RFAs who have not had contracts posted prior to the signing freeze must be moved to the free agent section of the portal.
iv.Failure to move free agents in the portal will result in the following punishment(s):

• If a free agent is not moved before the beginning of the freeze but is moved within 24 hours following the beginning of the freeze, the offending GMs will forfeit half of their GM pay.
  
• If a free agent is not moved more than 24 hours following the beginning of the freeze, the team that failed to move the player will not be able to sign (or roster through other means, including trades) that player for one full season.
  

v. Free Agents and GMs will be unable to agree to contracts for the first 72 hours of the signing freeze, including contracts discussed via direct message or elsewhere that would otherwise be subject to Section I, Subsection K, Rule 1. (the Jack Crasher rule).

Rostered Players Without Contracts
The rulebook previously didn’t specify what punishment would be issued to teams rostering un-contracted players. While we’ve gone off of precedent in recent punishment rulings in these cases, we feel this to be ultimately inadequate in addressing the level of severity of such an offense. Consequently, the following will be added to Section II, B, 6:

Quote:a. Players must have a contract in order to be eligible for play. If a player is found to have played for a team in regular season games without a contract, the GMs of that team will be fined half of their GM pay for that season, and will forfeit their next available 2nd round pick.

Audit Team Revival
After a few recent occurrences in which the file needed further verification from HO, simmers and the file teams, we began discussing the idea of bringing back the Audit Team to full function. While the audit team was never officially disbanded, it has been dormant ever since the need to audit thread-based builds disappeared when the portal went live. We’re happy to announce that @bbjygm will once again lead the team that will see verifications for the SHL and SMJHL files twice per week, once at week start (following the weekend update cycle) and once later in the week prior to the update cycle. Hiring posts with pay structures and job descriptions will be coming shortly. We’re looking forward to this revitalized mechanism to operate fully to bring an extra level of trust and validity in our simming procedures.



Additional Projects
We are also working on a number of other projects behind the scenes, some of which aren’t ready to see the light of day yet, but a couple other things on our radar/in production include:

• The Off-Season Survey (start of season survey?) will be coming very soon
  
• We are once again revamping the GM guide to reflect some of the recent changes to the rulebook and simming procedures
  
• We are continuing to monitor the draft odds/lottery/order situation - we are still looking for new and exciting ways to make hard tanking less appealing and to make it more rewarding for teams to try their best even in seasons they don’t reasonably expect to make deep playoff runs, so we should have more information on that for you in the near future
  

PHEW okay, that's all for now! Thanks for reading, thanks for being a part of our big beautiful league, and happy holidays to all!

On behalf of SHL Head Office
-Jess