Hello friends
While I was scrapping cheese from my pan for 3 hours, I was thinking about the VHL and his current situation with the Vikings/Eagles drama. While I'm solely against the relocation "come back", I think the relocation thing could be used as a spark to help, lets say, no so lucky franchise. But again, relocation just "for the lolz" isn't a good reason to move a team. I think the most common reason for relocation is most often poor results on the ice, and I think there might be a way to use that on our advantage.
When we think about Promotion/Relegation, we might often refer to the futbol system where a team in a lower division can challenge the lowest team in a higher division so they can be promoted. It's hard to replicate that system here considering the VHL's team building and the VHLM's team building isn't just the same, therefore can't be comparable. But instead of swapping teams (completely), why can't we just swap team's identity ? Like the roster stays the same for the VHL team, but they could "relocate" as the VHLM team, and the VHLM team is promoted to the VHL. How can we find a system that is fair and kinda stable ? Here's my idea.
First off, the "unsuccessful" factor. Even though the Vikings haven't won the cup "yet", we can't say they weren't competitive. They already made history with individual records and team records. In the other hand, from what I can remember, there's a good gap between last "real" competitive season from Cologne and Seattle, therefore, I could see them as "relocation" potential.
So the structure that I thought was, if a VHL team fails to make the playoff for 3 years in a row, they are subject to a relocation the next season. The competing VHLM team could be a team that reached the finals 2 times in the last 3 seasons or something, I haven't really thought about that factor. SO lets make a hypothetical situation.
The Express failed to make the playoff for 3 seasons, and the Bratislava Watchmen (RIP) have won the cup 2 times in a row. What we would get is, a public vote where the community would decide if they would rather keep Cologne (the city, the color scheme etc) or they are replaced by Bratislava. We could say great arguments for both side, and see what most popular team wins.
What could this bring is, maybe we would say less tanking (at the 3rd season) and it would force a quicker rebuild from the GM. Plus, we could see a rotation of teams, which could bring some hype as well. Some people are attached to teams in the VHLM (RIP Bratislava) and a promotion could maybe see them as a great opportunity to join. This is a long shot obviously and could hurt the "historic" side of the thing. But lets be honest, the league has seen 57 seasons, it's time to shake some things up.
Anyway, that's just a frenchmen rumbling ideas, and I wanted to make this public instead of in the BoG, because I think this is a community decision. Still a raw idea, but I think it could be up to discussion if it's possible, or what change could be made to it.