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(GRADED) Deep Dive #2 - The SMJHL’s Forgotten Affiliate System
#1
(This post was last modified: 09-26-2022, 06:36 AM by Opera_Phantom. Edited 1 time in total.)

For over sixty seasons, the Simulation Major Junior Hockey League has been the premier developmental league across the world of hockey. Each season, teams filled with young, promising talent compete to hoist the league's championship - the Four Star Cup. More than that, players are able to hone their skills against the best in their age group in order to one day realize their dream of playing professionally in the Simulation Hockey League. It is this aspect of the league that is so crucial; it's "raison d'être".

The relationship between the SHL and SMJHL is an obvious one. The leagues operate in unison, one feeding into the other and more players move through the ranks every year. With more talent than ever filling both leagues, the importance of the SMJHL has sky-rocketed in recent seasons, as players find themselves spending more time at the junior level - often three or four seasons, as opposed to the one to two that was, once, commonplace - waiting for the chance to break into crowded SHL lineups.

While the relationship has always existed between the SHL and the SMJHL, it was originally very different.

These days, and for the past many years, the two leagues have operated as separate entities with a "working relationship" of sorts, with rules defining how and when a player can either be sent back to the SMJHL from their SHL team, and when that is no longer a possibility. This system mirrors in many ways the relationship that exists between the National Hockey League and the Canadian Hockey League (and the three leagues operating under its umbrella).

When the SMJHL was founded, however, for a short period of time, things did not work quite that way.

When the SHL began back in Season 1, alongside it was a development league known as the North West Junior Hockey League, or the NWJHL. The NWJHL, so-called due to the geographic location of many of its founding clubs, was much more a "part" of the SHL than the SMJHL has ever been.

The NWJHL was a true minor league, much like the American Hockey League is to the NHL. While rookies were drafted into the NWJHL annually, with no connection to any SHL teams, the remaining players in the league were sent down by SHL clubs. They were not, however, returned to the NWJHL team who had drafted them initially. Rather, they would be sent down to their SHL team's minor-league affiliate.

The mechanisms of this were interesting, if nothing else. A player might have been drafted in Season 1 to the NWJHL's Lethbridge Lions. That player might then be drafted by the Winnipeg Jets of the SHL, but as a rookie find themselves unable to crack the team. As a result they would be sent down to, say, the Prince George Firebirds, who would have had an affiliate agreement with the Jets.

Things got more interesting for two reasons. First, there were more SHL teams than NWJHL teams, meaning NWJHL teams would be fed talent from two SHL clubs. Secondly, these affiliate agreements were time-limited, leaving NWJHL GMs constantly searching for more favourable ones - and those existed. Some SHL GMs were known to be more willing to send down talent, or just had deeper prospect pools in general, meaning a boost for the NWJHL team connected to them.

The "affiliate" system was eventually replaced by the system we have now, and with it the name of the league changed to the SMJHL. It is interesting, though, to think back to that time and how it changed the nature of the game. There was, to an extent, less focus on roster-building over the longer term among junior GMs, who couldn't be guaranteed they would keep the players they drafted for any more than a year. For that reason, the change was, in my view, a positive one - but it was not without its detractors. In any event, the change seems to have been a positive one, as the SMJHL continues to grow in popularity and importance.

Something happened on the day he died. Spirit rose a metre and stepped aside.
Somebody else took his place, and bravely cried. I’m a blackstar, I’m a blackstar.

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 a bottomless curse, a bottomless sea, source of all greatness, all things that be.
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#2

Banger historical deep dive

“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. ... There are neither beginnings nor endings to the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.”

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#3

Good read.



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#4

@teztify APPROVED! +5 TPE
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