Good day everyone,

So, it has come to the attention of SMJHL HO that the Great Falls Grizzlies illegally contacted a player before the player was approved. However, the circumstances here are a bit unique.

First, Great Falls reached out in regards to scouting and not explicitly signing a player who was not approved yet. Second, the rulebook itself technically contains the "no early contact" rule as a subclause to a section that specifically regards signing Free Agents. With that, Great Falls has no space to actually sign any Free Agents currently. Thus, it is admittedly possible for this specific situation to be construed in a way that, since Great Falls had no ability to sign the player in question, the rule would not technically, again under a construed understanding, apply and no harm existed from these actions. However, while SMJHL HO is aware of this possibility, we are also aware that to construe things in this manner is to construe them so tortuously that it enters the realm of unreasonableness. As such, we have voted on the following.

1. GFG is penalized under the existing 9.J that they are no longer eligible to sign the player in question (Unnamed publicly for privacy reasons) for the remainder of S63.

2. 9.J has been nearly entirely rewritten to be as explicitly clear as possible that you cannot talk to a user with a player awaiting approval about anything related to, but not limited to: signing with any team, scouting for any team, or any conversations that can be reasonably construed as such. We are aware of potential concerns regarding gray areas, which is why we have explicitly stated to ask SMJHL HO should you have any questions. The full rewrite can be found as only the relevant sections due to size and formatting here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dN0X...sp=sharing, and the SMJHL Rulebook will be updated following this post being posted.

As always, GFG are free to appeal to the Appeals Committee.

If anyone has any questions, please either reach out here on the forums or over Discord to any member of SMJHL HO.

Tagging @Geekusoid, & @Fluw



Construe isn't a word anymore