Okay,
So hear me out. With all the debate about team sizes and whatnot, and the need for expansion I got an idea. As you may know, VHL teams are growing from the 6-4-1 to a 9-4-1, and as these bigger recruitment drives and draft classes come, new players won't have room on teams. From talking to people, I've learned that expansion is costly for the league, and not really an optimal solution.
The VHL's partners SBA and EFL both have a NCAA system, where your player is in the NCAA for at most 4 years, then in the season before they are drafted they "uncap" and don't have to follow the TPE cap for the league anymore. What I was thinking is to introduce an NCAA system similar to the ones in EFL and SBA. What this means is that there are more spots for players, since they'll be in the league for at most 4 seasons, and won't be a strain on the VHL, where new players who aren't eligible for the VHLM (just over 200) are getting 3rd line minutes.
To populate the league, each VHL and VHLM player would get to create a "filler", which is a player who can only apply a specified amount of TPE per season. So that number could be 50 for instance, and each filler could only apply 50 tpe to the NCAA player, so that it isn't OP.
Now, we'd change the VHLM to a farm team system, and preferably match each VHL team with a VHLM one. The players who have been VHL drafted would be assigned to the VHLM (if there wasn't a need for them up in the VHL) to develop and eventually join the VHL team. This would mean that the VHLM cap would be increased to say 450 or 500, and players would be allowed to still earn tpe once they hit the cap, it would just need to be banked.
The process would be players would sign up, and be recruited by an NCAA team (no draft). Then they would spend at max 4 seasons in the NCAA, with a cap similar to the current VHLM, just wouldn't be allowed to bank any TPE once they hit 200. Then players would declare for the draft by uncapping, and are free to earn as much TPE as possible in their final NCAA season. Once drafted they would either be assigned to the VHLM, or called straight up to the VHL.
An increase in career length would also be needed, and I just quickly though of this. Season count stays at 8, but NCAA seasons, and the first 2 VHLM seasons do not count towards this cap. If you're called straight up to the VHL team though, and skip the VHLM entirely, the season counter would start ticking.
Let me know if you hate/love/have suggestions for this idea. I obviously don't see it being implemented in the next 3 seasons, but it's certainly a possibility in the short future imo.