Official Rules:
Note: Since this league is managed by the members during their spare time, rules may not address all issues. If an issue arises that the rules do not cover, the commissioner of the league will decide what the ruling is on the new issue, and he may or may not include a rule in this section once his decision is made. Owners are expected to comply fully with both all rules and all decisions of the commissioner and failure to do so may result in removal. Any action deemed subversive, inciting dissent or anger among other owners toward the leadership of the league, will not be tolerated. It is the duty of all owners to keep up-to-date on these rules. While the commissioner will do his best to notify owners of changes, it is not the commissioner's responsibility to make sure that owners read these rules, that is the responsibility of each individual owner.
League Vitals
FHLsim
FHLsim is the simulation engine we use to simulate our games... this engine allows owners to submit their lines to the commish, set their own rosters, and allows the league to have numerous stats for both individual players and teams. Any questions regarding FHLsim should be placed on our message board, and if they cannot be answered on the message board, the question should then be submitted to the commish.
Ownership
1. Owners are expected to stay active by:
a) posting on the message board at least once every 15 days
b) posting at least 50 messages per year on the message board
c) participating in at least three transactions per year (transactions include trades, drafted players, adding and dropping players)
d) if an owner does not meet these minimum requirments, or allows other owners to believe he is inactive, he/she will be stripped of their team, and the team will be given to a new owner. If there are extenuating circumstances, the commisioner will decide whether the owner may keep the team or not
2. Owners are expected to remain courteous on the message board. Offensive language and comments will not be permitted.
3. Owners may own only one team. If an owner attempts to own more than one by deceiving the commissioner and other owners, that owner will automatically be banned from the league.
4. If an owner leaves the league and has pending trades, all of those trades are automatically cancelled.
The League
This league runs perennially, and every player on every team remains on that team until traded or dropped. All 30 NHL teams are represented in the PHL.
Player Limits
Each team is given a protected list that must include exactly 40 players. These players can be selected from any hockey league in the world, but no player that has not yet been NHL draft eligible can be protected by one of our teams.
Players: Ratings and Trades
Player Ratings
Players are rated by the DVHL system, and all players that are on the 40 man protected list, but are not in the DVHL ratings system will automatically be rated a 50 in all categories. DVHL normally rates all players that played at least one game the previous season, and all ratings are normally based on a combination of performance from the previous season and two seasons ago.
Trades
All trades will be posted in the forum, and the following process will be followed:
1) The trade is submitted to the commish or to one of the trade commishes, and if the owner wants to attach reasoning, they may.
2) Either commish or trade commishes post it on the proposed trades board as a poll, and place the reasoning of the owners (if given) involved up there with it.
3) the poll is left up for 48 hours, or until enough owners vote to either put the trade through or cancel it, after which time if the poll is at least 60% against the trade, then it gets cancelled. Also after this time, both owners are given the chance to cancel the trade... however, if one of the owners decides to cancel the trade he is not allowed to trade at all for 1 week, and he is not allowed to trade any of the players involved in the proposed trade for two full months from the time the trade was submitted.
4) If the trade is confirmed by both GMs and the vote was not at least 60% against the trade, then the trade is confirmed.
Note: Trade Mods cannot make their own trades official and cannot delete their own trades if they cancel them.
Trading Entry Draft Pick Limits
Entry picks for the upcoming draft can be traded, but entry picks for any years beyond the current one cannot be traded. Once the trade deadline occurs every season, no picks can be traded at all, but after the deadline is up, the picks for the upcoming draft, and the draft of the following year can be traded. So, here is the chart...
End of season 1 - entry draft 1:
Entry Picks for both entry draft 1and 2 can be traded
Entry Draft 1 - Trade Deadline Season 2:
Entry picks for entry draft 2 only can be traded
Trade Deadline season 2 - end of season:
No picks can be traded
End of Season to - Entry draft 2:
Entry Picks for both entry draft 2 and 3can be traded
Etc.
Waivers
If a player is dropped from a roster, there will be a 24 hour waiver period. At the end of this period, if more than one team made a claim on the player, the team with the worse record during the current season, or in the case of the off season, the worse record in the last season, will get the player. If after 24 hours nobody claims the player, he is then available for the first team that makes a claim on him.
Re-Ratings
Each owner is allowed to submit two players from their team that they believe are rated too low. Those players will be assessed by the commish, and if their overall rating is an 80, and the commish believes the new rating should be 84, then the players values will be adjusted so that the overall rating is an 84. Individual ratings, such as intensity and speed will not be re-evaluated... only overall will be re-evaluated, and the individual ratings will all be adjusted to make sure that the new overall rating is acceptable. So, if Kovalchuk is rated a 73 overall, and he is deemed to be an 83, but his speed is a 51, then his speed will only move up 10 points to 61, so that the overall rating can be 83. 61 is still not acceptable for Kovalchuk's speed, but I am not re-evaluating individual categories, so he will have to be a 61.
Also, each team will be assessed by a member of the rules committee and two players from each team that are deemed to be rated too high will be submitted to the commish for re-evaluation. The rules committee members will remain anonymous, so that there is no fighting amongst owners. So, in total, 4 players from each team will be re-evaluated.
Note: Just because a player is submitted by an owner and deemed by that owner to be rated too low does not mean that the commish will rate that player higher. In fact, the ratings of that player may drop. The only promise is that the player will be re-evaluated.
Captains and Alternate Captains
Before the beginning of each year, all teams choose 1 captain and 2 alternate captains for their team. These players receive a leadership rating boost of 10 for the captain and 5 for the alternates. If these players are traded away, they do not lose their leadership rating, nor can the team that traded them replace their leadership by giving someone else the A or C.
Position Switching
1. Between October 1 and October 4 of every year, all owners will be given a chance to switch the positions of all their players. This is a one time opportunity before each season, and a list of any switches must be emailed to the commish.
Note: Any player that is not rated by DVHL will automatically be given the position C, so owners should email the commish with the positions of unrated players.
2. Players rated as a forward can be switched to any other forward position. Goalies and Defensemen cannot be switched at any time.
3. Players will not be allowed to switch positions during the season for any reason except if they are acquired by a team in a trade.
4. If a player is traded from a team and then comes back to that team in the same season, that player will resume the position he held with the team before he left. The GM will not be allowed to switch his position.
5. If a GM wants to switch a player's position, the application for a position switch must be submitted with the trade.
6. The commish has the right to switch positions of any players he needs to if it is impossible to dress 3 LW, 3 RW, 3C or 5 D, and the owner cannot undue these change until the next season.
Awards
Tangible General Manager Awards
These awards are posted on the message board under the heading "budget," which is stickied to the top of the general board.
Team Awards
Stanley Cup - Awarded to the winner of the Stanley Cup playoffs
Clarence S. Campbell Bowl - Awarded to the Western Conference Champion
Prince of Wales Trophy - Awarded to the Eastern Conference Champion
President's Trophy - Awarded to the team with the most regular season points
Divisional Winners - Awarded to the team with the most points from each division
Individual Awards
*Hart Memorial Trophy - Awarded to the MVP of the PHL
*Lady Bing Memorial Trophy - Awarded to the most spotsmanlike player
*James Norris Memorial Trophy - Awarded to the best defenseman
*Vezina Trophy - Awarded to the best goaltender
*Frank J. Selke Trophy - Awarded to the best defensive forward
*Calder Memorial Trophy - Awarded to the best rookie
*Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy - Awarded to the player who most exudes perseverance
and sportsmanship
*Conn Smythe Trophy - Awarded to the MVP of the Stanley Cup playoffs
*King Clancy Memorial Trophy - Awarded to the player who most exudes leadership and
humanitarian qualities
Bud Light Plus/Minus Award - Awarded to the player with the best regular season +/-
Art Ross Trophy - Awarded to the player with the most regular season points
Maurice Richard Trophy - Awarded to the player with the most regular season goals
William M. Jennings Trophy - Awarded to the goaltender with the best regular season
Goal Against Average
Regular Season All-Stars (1st and 2nd team) - selected by the commish
* Denotes that the award is selected through a process:
1) the commish decides on three nominees to submit to the owners
2) the owners vote on these three nominees
3) the nominee with the highest total of votes wins the award
Drafts
Entry Draft
1. The entry draft begins at 12:00am eastern June 15th of every year. The order of the draft is generally the opposite order of the standings of the previous year, although this order will be changed somewhat by a draft lottery (This means that if the Stanley Cup winner finished 6th overall he gets 24th overall pick). Owner's are given 24 hours from the time of the previous pick to make their picks. So, if 1st the first overall pick is made on the 15th at 1:30pm eastern, then the second overall pick must be made by 1:30pm eastern on the 16th.
2. When a team makes a draft pick, that team must also drop a player simultaneously. Therefore, a normal draft pick should look like this:
1) drafted: Sidney Crosby; dropped: Drake Berehowsky
2) drafted: Jack Johnson; dropped: Richie Regehr
Teams have the right to skip a pick at any point if they feel that the players on their team are better than any available players in the entry draft. However, if a team skips a pick, that team still must go onto the entry draft board and let everyone know that they are skipping... also, after a pick has been skipped by a team, that team can no longer make entry draft selections, although the team may still trade their remaining picks.
If a team fails to make a selection or notify the owners that the team is skipping their pick within the 24 hour limit, the person in charge of the entry draft will decide whether to make a selection for that team or make that team skip... if a selection is made with the pick, the team will also be forced to drop a player, so it is in the best interest of all owners to notify the owners of their pick or skip every time they have an entry selection.
If an owner will not be around for their selection, they may submit a list of players they want to select to the person in charge of the entry draft. The owner must also submit a player they want dropped when they make their selection.
Waiver Draft
Once the first player is selected in the entry draft, a freeze is declared on waiver claims, so that no player can be claimed off waivers during the entire entry draft. On August 15th, we will begin a waiver draft. The order of this draft is exactly the same as that of the entry draft. If an owner chooses to claim a player off waivers, he must also choose to drop a player, so a waiver draft selection would look like this:
claiming - Johan Hedberg
dropping - Tim Thomas
The player dropped then becomes available to be picked up by any subsequent team in the waiver draft. A team can choose not to select at any point during the waiver draft, however, once a team has chosen not to select, they declare themselves out of the waiver draft, and can no longer select, so if I decide not to select, there are now only 29 teams still participating in the waiver draft.
Each team has 24 hours to make their selection, and then when the selection is made, the next teams 24 hours start. So, if you make your selection at 2pm eastern, then I have until 2pm eastern the next day to make my selection.
Teams can make as many waiver selections as they want, however, no team can drop a player that they selected in the waiver draft. At the end of the waiver draft (the end is when everyone has chosen not to select any more players) the waiver freeze comes off, and teams can once again select players from the waiver wire as usual... However, every player is on freeze for 24 hours. So, if more than one team makes a claim on a player within the first 24 hours after the end of the waiver draft, the team with the worse record the previous season will get that player.
Also, waiver picks cannot be traded, although once a player is selected with that pick, the player can be traded... it is only the pick itself that cannot be traded.
International Hockey
International Hockey follows many of the same rules as the PHL, but the differences are noted.
Eight teams compete in international hockey, and the teams are run by management teams that consist of:
One General Manager: the ultimate authority in charge of picking lines
Two Assistant GMs: they help the GM select the team
One Coach: submits the lines before each game
International hockey includes the following competitions:
World Championships: every year from approximately June 1-June 30
Olympics: every 4 years starting in 2010 from approximately February 1 - February 28
World Cup: every 4 years starting in 2008 from approx. September 1 - September 30
All international competitions will follow this format:
Round Robin:
4 pools of two teams that play each other in a 6 game round robin to determine the winner... the winner of each pool makes the playoffs.
Playoffs:
Two semi-finals have seven game series' to determine the finalists... the losers of the two semi-finals play an exhibition game to determine the winner of the bronze medal, and the winners of the two semi-finals play another seven game series to determine the winner of the competition.
Round Robin pools are selected as follows:
Pool A:
1st place from the last international tournament
8th place from the last international tournament
Pool A:
4th place from the last international tournament
5th place from the last international tournament
Pool A:
2nd place from the last international tournament
7th place from the last international tournament
Pool A:
3rd place from the last international tournament
6th place from the last international tournament
For each international tournament, each team selects 15 forwards, 8 defenseman and 3 goalies to compete... these players must all be rated by DVHL unless it is not possible to select enough players to fill out a roster that are rated by DVHL... in that case, the commish will create enough players to fill out the roster. These players will be rated 50 in all categories. Players must be submitted to the commish by the following dates:
Olympics: January 26th
World Cup: August 26th
World Championships: May 26th
Awards
Gold, Silver and Bronze Medals - Awarded to the teams that finish 1st, 2nd and 3rd
*MVP - Awarded to the tournament MVP
*Best Forward - Awarded to the best forward in the tournament
*Best Defenseman - Awarded to the best defenseman in the tournament
*Best Goaltender - Awarded to the best goaltender in the tournament
Tournament All-Stars (1st team only) - selected by the commish
* Denotes that the award is selected through a process:
1) the commish decides on three nominees to submit to the owners
2) the owners vote on these three nominees
3) the nominee with the highest total of votes wins the award