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I am terrible at writing intros to this kind of thing, so I’m just going to cut to the chase: we are contracting the VHLE back to 6 teams.

 

As I’m sure a lot of you know, there has been a worrying trend of thin rosters in the VHLE, and the numbers reflect that we have a few too many roster spots for players to cover them. We anticipate that a large bounceback in the form of the sizable S90 class of recreates (when compared to S89 at least) should help breathe some life back into the locker rooms. However, we are also helping it along with contraction. After these changes, on average, we are anticipating just shy of two full lines of active players per team.

 

The unfortunate teams that will be heading into the ether are the Geneva Rush and the Istanbul Red Wolves. There was never going to be an easy decision here, but between weak branding, short history, and tangential connections to local terrorist groups, these two franchises will not be in the VHLE for S90 and moving forward. I know that not everyone will be happy, but there was no way to do this without pain somewhere along the line. 

 

However, much like the VHL in S58, we had a bit of a mismatch in terms of the rosters that make sense to remove and the franchises that make sense to remove. To that end, we are effectively full swapping roster players, prospects, and draft picks from Istanbul and Geneva to Stockholm and Vasteras, respectively. The current roster players and prospects on Stockholm and Vasteras will be released and available as free agents this off-season. The current draft picks owned by Stockholm and Vasteras will be passed or deleted as required.

 

Note: compensatory picks will be required in S91 to make this work, we will make sure everyone is made whole. The actual position of these compensatory picks is to be determined.

 

We were lucky enough to not actually need to fire anyone as GM to make this work! There has been some juggling behind the scenes, but here’s how everything shakes out:
- JB123 steps down following an absurdly strong run in Oslo
- Gaming Ringleader shifts over to GM Oslo
- Z follows his roster to Vasteras and takes over there
- Masu steps down from Istanbul in the hopes of pursuing other opportunities
- Twists keeps Stockholm and inherits Istanbul’s roster

 

That’s all for the actual contraction side of things. If you have any particular comments, questions, or concerns, please reach out to thad or I directly. My DMs are always open. 

 

Moving on to a couple of rule changes.

 

 

 

INACTIVE FREE AGENTS

 

Starting this off-season, teams will only be able to add 2 inactive free agents to their roster.This does not apply to players that go inactive mid-season or during their first three years post-draft, it only applies to the players that would have gone through the (now defunct) waivers system. 

 

Since we will only have 12 players to hand out this way each season, we will also be introducing a mini-draft, run on Discord or the forums, to allocate these players in the fairest manner possible. This draft will consist of two rounds, the first of which will be a reverse of the regular season standings while the second snakes that (i.e., equal to the regular season standings). Our current plan for this is to do rolling 12-hour clocks similar to VHFL, but we can adjust that on the fly as required. Teams are obviously allowed to pass on their pick if they do not see value in claiming an inactive free agent.

 

We’re hoping that reducing the crowd of those high TPA inactive free agents to maximum 2 per team will increase engagement for the players who remain active by freeing up more ice time, and by extension, delivering better stat lines.

 

We will be monitoring inactive free agents and their necessity over the next few seasons and will hopefully be able to remove them entirely at some point.

 

 

 

PLAYOFF FORMAT

 

In our 8-team VHLE as it stands now, 5 teams make the playoffs, with a 4-5 wildcard round before semi-finals. 

 

We don’t feel that a competitive league should have 5 of 6 teams making playoffs, so we are transitioning back to a 4 team playoff, with the matchups simply being 1-4 and 2-3. Both semi-finals and finals will remain best of 7. Tiebreakers remain unchanged. Games will be simmed 1 per day to keep as close as possible to in line with the VHL and VHLM playoff schedule.

 

 


TL;DR - Geneva and Istanbul branding deleted. Those rosters move to Stockholm and Vasteras. Current Stockholm and Vasteras rosters released. VHLE moves forward with 6 teams. Some rule changes regarding inactive FAs and playoff format to accommodate the contraction.
 

cc: @VHLE Commissioner @VHLE GM

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I’m at least happy a cup was brought to Istanbul during its short tenure, I’ll always remember my time there!

 

ISTANBUL.

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1 minute ago, Alex said:

You mean Yukon…

I wasn't here for Yukon so my affinity is for my first E team in Geneva.  Hopefully the Rush live on in some way though!

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1 minute ago, FrostBeard said:

Why not Rush and Storm? Those were the teams that shouldn't have been added to VHLE.

 

The Storm are just coming off 4 straight finals appearances (including 3 cup wins).

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Just now, Enorama said:

 

The Storm are just coming off 4 straight finals appearances (including 3 cup wins).

Great time to take them out as far as I know

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  • Moderator

2 down, 6 to go.

 

Actually sucks to see that one one our leagues is suffering that bad. I'm glad the GM situation pretty much resolved itself, and what's happening with the rosters and such. We've got to better prepare our players in the M, so I'm putting that on my board.

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I like this move but here is my unimportant opinion on the matter:

 

The Istanbul Red Wolves probably have one of the best logos/branding across all three leagues, sad to see them be one of the teams that go. 

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45 minutes ago, kelvi said:

I like this move but here is my unimportant opinion on the matter:

 

The Istanbul Red Wolves probably have one of the best logos/branding across all three leagues, sad to see them be one of the teams that go. 

I think most liked the old Red Wolves branding being re-used in the E after being taken out of the VHL years ago. It just didn't fit Istanbul in the first place since there just isn't any actual red wolf connection to Turkey, just like the Rush having no connection to Geneva after being ripped away from Yukon.

 

Maybe in the future if there's expansion or rebranding of some team either in the VHL or M, there could be an avenue to bring back these old brandings.

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