Season 4 is here. Teams, settings, schedule, etc

Season 4 is here. T

Please take the time to read the entire thread, every word, before replying. It took me a while to type this (and alot of thought), at least read it and don't skim.

Schedule and weekly format:

The format will be similar to last season, only twice as long. Instead of a 10 week season, we will be playing an 82 game, 20 week season! Each week begins on Sunday morning and ends the following Saturday night.

Each team will be required to play a minimum of their 3 scheduled games for that week. If a game is not played during the week, both teams will receive a penalty which will be shown in red on the scoreboard. This is more or less a reminder that you have a game overdue. You will then have a 1 week grace period to make up that missed game. If it still remains unplayed after that time period, both teams will be given a loss and the game will not be able to be made up. It doesn't matter who's fault it was, or who didn't make themself very available. Both teams get a loss, end of story (more on this later). Keep in mind that if you have an overdue game, you still have your 3 games from the current week that will need to be played as well, so try to always get those 3 games in each week.

20 weeks and 3 per week make up only 60 games, so like last season we will have a group of games that will be deemed "wild card" games. There will be 22 of these games for each team, 11 of them being available during each half of the season. During each 10 week half, you may play any of those 11 games at any time. Play them all during week 1 if you like, wait until week 10, or just space them out once per week. This gives you some flexability to your schedule so that ~25% of your games are not on a set weekly type of schedule where they must be played or you'll be penalized. The 2nd half wild card games (another 11), will be available to be played during weeks 11-20.

Your 82 game schedule will be just like the real '03/'04 NHL schedule as you will play the same opponents, the same number of times. However, our schedule won't be played in exactly the same order as the real guys, but who you play will be exactly the same (ie. divisional teams 6x, conference teams 4x, and 18 non-conference games... 3 of which you'll see twice)

Playing ahead of schedule
Like last season, you will be allowed to play games past the current week if you meet the following conditions:

1) All of your games from the current week, and previous weeks, must be completed.

2) You can only play the past the upcoming week if you have at least 2/3 of those games finished. IE. If it's week 5, and you have all 3 games from week 5 finished (see rule 1), as well as 2/3 games from week 6, then you can play your week 7 games (but no further, unless you complete that 3rd week 6 game which would enable you to play week 8 if 2/3 of 7 get done. Confused? Good. Just ask me before you play ahead, that's simplier.

Dates:
Our season will start October 5th (tentatively, assuming Season 3 playoffs are over) and end sometime around the end of February. During the holiday season, we might take a week off as people will be traveling. We'll make that determination when the time comes. We might be ahead of schedule at that point, so we might not have to worry about it.

Settings:
Game Type: Exhibition
Difficulty level: All-Star
Period Length: 6
Camera: 3/4 camera (unless they patch and give us something better, ie 3/4 zoom)
Offsides: On
Icing: On
Two-Line Pass: On
GameSpeed: 1 (0-10 scale)
Penalties: 4 (0-10 scale)
Ref. collisions: OFF/none (default setting)
Line Changes: On (manual, semi-auto, auto doesn't make a difference... anything but OFF is fine.)
Individual controller setup stuff: your choice (ie. auto/manual shot aim, pass aim assist, auto puck grab, etc)


Missed games
As I detailed above, missed games will be allowed to made up within 1 week of being overdue, after that they are basically counted as a loss for both teams and the game can not be made up (you'll get a "missed game" in the MG column of the scoreboard, in red). Also, you will receive -1 points for every missed game. Obviously, things are going to crop up between now and March, as people will be taking vacations and what not. As long as you let us know when you will be gone for an extended amount of time, we can make arrangments and avoid those penalties. If it's only a 1 week vacation, that will be easy enough to play those games ahead of time so that you don't miss any games. Vacations are really the only exception here. Missing games because you had a tough work schedule, or a weekend wedding, or finals, or you had to work, after school sports, etc etc will not matter. If you think that you might not have the time to play 4 games per week (on average, with the wildcards included), then please say so now. Repeatedly missing games, having automatic forfeits/losses because a game went unplayed, or being generally very hard to get ahold of will get you replaced by someone on the alternate list. Last season, we had very limited problems with this, I hope that Season 4 will be the same.

Scoreboard, calculator input
The winner of each game is required to enter the scores and stats into the scoreboard calculator when your match is completed. A seperate thread will be created detailing how to do this and what stats need to be recorded. There will also be a game notes section where you can add some comments if you like. The most important thing I can stress here is that you are not allowed to leave the game until both you and your opponent have made it to the menu that gives you the option to "exit" the game. Do not disconnect, power off, or do anything else until you both reach that point. If you do exit before then, the stats of the game will not be able to be viewed and recorded. So it's important that you verify that the person entering stats (winner) is in the stats page and then you can exit back to the main menu. Once you've verified that the winner is taking down stats, then please leave the game (so you don't cause a disconnect error or something). The calculator itself is very intuitive. Click "input score" on the main NHL page, then select which game you are entering from the drop menu and type in the total number of goals scored for that game (hit select). Next, fill in the shots, goals, SH goals, PP goals/attempt, hits, PIM, one-timer goals/attempts for each team at the top. You can also add some text to the "game notes" section if you wish. Next, enter in the scoring summary for each goal scored, the goal scorer, assists (if any), the period and time it was scored, and the situation (Even strength, pp, sh, empty net). For the goalie stats, the shots and GA should automatically be entered for your #1 goalie. If you made a goalie change, then you'll have to enter each of your goalie's individual stats and note how many minutes each goalie played. The minutes should be left with an astrick (*) if they played the entire game. If the goalie was pulled early (empty net) then deduct those minutes and enter the actual time (ie. if I pulled him with 2min left, enter 58 for the time played). If the game goes into OT, leave it on * and the calculator will add the OT time automatically to the 60min of regular play.

Conduct, Sportsmanship, Misc.
I don't think I need to tell you guys that vulgarity, name calling, cheating, quitting a game, disconnecting intentionally, shutting off your XBox, pulling your goalie in the 2nd period, etc etc is not allowed. Reports of such conduct will result in a quick removal of your league membership. Harmless trash talking is one thing, but please respect your opponent and treat them as you would want to be treated.

Lag. We all have broadband, and this game doesn't seem to be a bandwidth hog at all. However, if you do not have 100% access to your broadband connection, I would ask that you do not play the game until you can be assured of that. That means, if your wife, brother, parents, child, sister, etc might get on the computer and start checking email or using AIM, or browsing the net, you should reschedule your game until the broadband is all yours. It should also be said that turning off ALL internet applications is vital to a smooth online experience. If you leave MSN Messenger, AIM, ICQ, Trillian, Outlook Express, your browser, etc running on your computer, it can and will cause lag (or at least make voice chat very choppy). Please turn this stuff off before you play your games!

Divergence errors, disconnects, connection issues, etc. Because the game will kick you back to the main menu if any of these should occur, it would be hard to recreate the same circumstances as when the network problem happened. If a game is not completely finished, it needs to be replayed in it's entirety. Please make note of this on the game notes (ie. 2nd try, first game disconnected, etc) as we want to keep track of the connection problems and make sure it's not being abused by any particular people.

Voice chat. It is an official requirement that ever league member use their headset while playing league games. If not just to chat with your fellow gamer, at a minimum you need it to talk and hear each other if something should come up (ie. phone call, door bell, etc). The voice chat feature is what makes these games great, and it helps build comradery with fellow members. So please use it and get to know each other. If you don't like to talk, or maybe you can't because it's late at night or whatever, you still are required to wear the headset and be able to listen. Have the common courtesy to tell your playing partner "I can't talk right now" if that is the case.

Instant Messengers. Please try and make yourself available on AIM, MSN, ICQ, etc and add all of the league members to your buddy lists. Most of use one or all of these chat clients and it is our primary tool for getting our games scheduled, lined up and started. You can use the forum and PM's of course, but the chat clients are "instant" of course.

Teams:

The following is the list of team/owner assignments for Season 4. I tried to get everybody one of their top 5 choices, and it was very difficult, and you can read in the signup thread some of the reasoning behind which teams went with whom.

Please do not ask to switch teams, the only way I'll switch teams is if both parties agree to it, this needs to be done ASAP before the season starts, after we begin, you are locked in for the entire season:

Eastern Conference

Atlantic
:hphi: XiNViZiBLE
:hnj: Stang6697
:hnyi: pop0331
:hnyr: goalie
:hpitt: NatralSelection

Northeast
:hott: SkaLicious
:htor: Tris10
:hbos: JoMarD
:hmon: tristenlog
:hbuf: Gurps66

Southeast
:htb: Raptor710
:hwas: XTREME
:hatl: CrazyCougar
:hcar: DrunkenTiger
:hflp: Derek92

Western Conference

Central
:hdet: IndigoVDub
:hstl: XBoxJon
:hchi: AK420
:hnas: Darthor
:hcbj: Deathblow

Northwest
:hvan: canucks33
:hcol: The Destroyer
:hmin: Golden Gophers
:hedm: airjordan604
:hcal: Skater

Pacific
:hdal: Marauders
:hana: DeNMan
:hphx: MixMasterMike
:hla: striker3771
:hsj: Virtual Assassin

Final Comments:
In closing I would like to make it very clear that we will not tolerate any members dropping out of the league. Anyone who drops from this league will never be asked back to this league and future membership in future leagues (ie. Top Spin, Links 2003, Inside Pitch) could be invalidated (ie. Krazy Ivan).

Please make certain that you can handle the huge committment that a 82 game, 5 month schedule will entail. If you think it might be a problem, there's no shame in backing out now... I'd rather have you do that than cause headaches a month or two into the season. I hate to end the post on a sour note like that, but just wanted to make it clear to everyone that this season is going to be "hard core" and we'll be taking our hockey seriously as always.

Due to the length of the season, you'll obviously need to renew your XBL subscription as it will extend past the time when our current subscription ends. If you don't intend to renew your XBL subscription, then please don't participate in the league as we don't want to lose an owner half way through the season.

I wish everyone good luck in the coming season, I for one am very excited about all the new changes and still believe we have the greatest hockey league out there right now!

All teams need to re-confirm for Season 4 by October 1st. If you have not re-confirmed by then, your team will be given to an alternate. Please do not rush into your confirmation though, if you are unsure about things (ie. your team, schedule, whatever), please wait on re-confirming... even waiting a week from now if necessary.

So, if you're ready to lace 'em up and dig into our best, and longest season ever, simply confirm your Season 4 enrollment below and I'll add you to the list in the 2nd post here.

 

Confirmed Season 4 participants:

1. :hstl: XBoxJon
2. :hnj: Stang6697
3. :htor: Tris10
4. :hnyr: goalie
5. :hnas: Darthor
6. :hana: DeNMaN
7. :htb: Raptor710
8. :hdal: Marauders
9. :hatl: CrazyCougar
10. :hbuf: Gurps66
11. :hott: SkaLicious
12. :hmon: tristenlog
13. :hdet: IndigoVDub
14. :hchi: AK420
15. :hcol: The Destroyer
16. :hflp: Derek92
17. :hvan: canucks33
18. :hedm: airjordan604
19. :hcal: Skater
20. :hphi: XiNViZiBLE
21. :hwas: Xtreme
22. :hpitt: NatralSelection
23. :hla: striker3771
24. :hsj: Virtual Assassin
25. :hphx: MixMasterMike
26. :hcar: DrunkenTiger
27. :hcbj: Deathblow
28. :hmin: Golden Gophers
29. :hbos: JoMarD
30. :hnyi: pop0331

 

HOOOAHH!!

You guys are all going down in a fierce way. I will win this season, let the ego-fest begin.

 

Rangers in!

 

Let the Preds spank fest begin. :wink:

EDIT: When do we get our little profile box updated with our new teams?

 

The Ducks are here, wow 82 games very cool.

 

oh yeah you know I am in
you can just put me in last place right now and save some time

 

Present and accounted for.

 

Nashville here.....oh, ehem...i mean Atlanta! Damn you Darthor....LOL! I've never played with any team but the preds so this ought to be interesting. Eh, I sucked with the Preds too, so whats going to change with the Thrashers...LOL!

 

from the Preds to the Thrashers, boy you are such a frontrunner, cougar!

 

Yer tellin me! LOL!

 

pish posh...

 

yea i'm in.

 

You'll get more offensive firepower so be careful not to hurt yourself. lol

I live less than an hour from the GEC BTW. :wink:

EDIT: I was looking at the settings and wondered if referee collisions are going to be on?

 

Go Sens Go!!

 

Good catch. Bring up anything else I may have left out of that mega-1st post.

Like last season, we'll have referee collisions on (full, puck and player).

 

hey i am in for season 4 with :hmon: