11-16-2020, 10:52 AMJumpierPegasus Wrote: I have theorized this in Detroit discord but never really made it very far. My biggest issue was that it used to be really really really fun to be a J player, because it was a 1 and done system, you went up against your direct peers for one season, and you getting ahead in TPE really mattered because you actually performed better. Versus now in the J when your first year can kind of be a write off and I feel like we lose people because they don't want to come in and score 8-15 points on line 3/4 in their first season in the league

I would almost move the SMJHL (as it is a mature league with so many teams already) to be a season 2-5 minor league and rebrand as the SMHL (Simulation Minor Hockey League). Keep the amount of teams (or contract by 2 whatever floats your boat) and treat it as a development, AHL type league. The big issue I ran into when theorizing this is then we'd need to either have to have a SMHL draft and SHL draft simultaneously or have affiliate systems like we used to. But then that means being an SMHL GM would be incredibly boring and awful and I don't see anyone wanting to do that if they can't draft, sign players, etc. because it is all handled by the big league team. It would require such a drastic shift to rules and wouldn't be easy and might be too convoluted to really work

Then I would have said create a new junior league with like 4-6 teams (similar to the old NWJHL size) and have it be a 1 and done league for rookies to go into so they can genuinely rip it up in their first season and get hooked on the league

But again, as mentioned, the SHL and the junior league are easy peasy. What do you do with that awkward middle minor league child? You'd need to make it fun for GM's but also not too complicated for the league to continue with. Might not be worth the effort when we could take a "if it aint broke don't fix it" approach

Problem is now you can't really do 1 and done or even two and done. Frankly going up before your 3rd or 4th season can be detrimental because you are more likely to get milestones as a 425 capped player in the J than as a 700 tpe player in the SHL. That doesn't get into the weeds of teams simply not having room for young players. There are plenty of young players in the J that could make an impact for a bad team, but no one wants to leave their good team for a bad one. For most users they rate having a good LR over plating time which will inherently push players to stay somewhere of they get drafted there and like it.