This simulation program has been around since 2005 has the Owner of the Program has made immense improvements and add-ons to make this experience worthwhile for Hockey Enthusiasts. Its based on Ratings that can be created from real stats for basically any league. Also in the settings there are numerous features to make this experience as real as possible for a General Manager to manage a Team as well as settings for certain stat categories to replicate the Real life NHL based on the ratings used in each unique league.

Rating Categories (Skater and Goalie):

Roster Page - Skaters - Full Ratings

PO = Position
CON = Condition
IJ = Injury -- HO = Holding Out
CK = Checking
FG = Fighting
DI = Discipline
SK = Skating
ST = Strength
EN = Endurance
DU = Durability
PH = Puck Handling
FO = Face Offs
PA = Passing
SC = Scoring
DF = Defense
PS = Penalty Shot
EX = Experience
LD = Leadership
MO = Morale
PO = Potential
OV = Overall

Roster Page - Goalies - Full Ratings

SK = Skating
DU = Durability
EN = Endurance
SZ = Size
AG = Agility
RB = Rebound Control
SC = Style Control
HS = Hand Speed
RT = Reaction Time
PH = Puck Handling
PS = Penalty Shot
EX = Experience
LD = Leadership
MO = Morale
PO = Potential
OV = Overall

ICHL RATINGS:

We are in the process of creating a version of the Ratings for this league which will be ready for the start of the draft (TENTATIVE START APRIL 30^th, 2022) – Plan is to have an AUTO – Updated ratings page on another website and significant testing will be done to be assured the sim program will replicate the real NHL as much as possible based on the settings in the Program. Once in place this will be an on-going feature. As an NHL Rerate league the ratings will change season to season based on the real NHL and its players Stats keep that in mine when figuring out trading and strategic plans. NHL Stats are current on this site (https://icecloudhockey.com) under each player’s Report page and on this site (https://statcloud-hockey.com).

SIM ENGINE: 2.1 Engine (Original Idea) 1.5 Engine (Backup Plan)

BOARD OF GOVERNORS:

Commissioner: Nicholas Caughell – wingnutsgm (DET) (email: icecloudhockeyleague@gmail.com)

- Responsible for anything not covered in the below positions.

Simulation Manager: Nicholas Caughell wingnutsgm (DET) (email: icecloudhockeyleague@gmail.com)

- Responsible for Sim Tests and overall Simulation of the Season / Offseason.

Trade Committee Member 1:

Trade Committee Member 2: Lutos – Leafs (Lutosw@gmail.com)

Trade Committee Member 3: Nicholas Caughell (email: icecloudhockeyleague@gmail.com)

- Responsible to review trades and answer about any possible GM issues with Trades as they come up during the Season and Offseason.

Recruitment Manager:

- Responsible for recruiting new GMs for the league, answering initial questions that new GMs have and getting the GMs setup on the site / Chat Server.

Ratings Manager: Kaylen – COL (email:…………………….)

- Responsible for Ratings creation every offseason, answering questions about ratings and resolving issues if any.

OFFSEASON SCHEDULE:

July 1 – Start of the Offseason

- ICHL Draft

o 6 Round Draft involving top 192+ players from the Real NHL Draft that normally is held in June at some point. Every GM will be picking there own future Prospects in this Draft.

- Adding Prospects to teams / Setting a Free Agency Date

o Free Agency will include any player not sign by each individual GM or Released players – Quite often the NHL Teams in real life sign players from other leagues if warranted these will be added to the FA Pool as well as any Prospects not pick but do well IRL.

- Free Agency

o Will be set up by first Name for example A-F, G-M, N-S, T-Z and will run over 4 24-hour periods with a 24-hour period in between for entering newly acquired players to teams.

o During the FA period Trading will be turned off till finished

o This pertains to UFA / RFAs on the same day as noted above.

o This includes UFA and RFAs.

- Free Agency – Auto Sign Period

o This part of FA is to sign any remaining needed positions for the Farm Team or typically 4^th line players and scrubs that aid as extra players in case of injuries in the Regular Season.

- Scheduling the upcoming Season

o We will be using the real NHL Schedule this will be entered into the program as it comes out during the offseason – Preseason will be a random Divisional schedule created by the sim program and will consist of 14 games per team

- Preseason Start

o Will run approximately when the NHL runs its Preseason pending the start of the Regular Season

- Regular Season

o Will coincide with the Start of the NHL’s Regular Season start.

- Extensions

o Extensions will open on January 1^st every season.

- Trade Deadline

o Approximately 80% of the Regular Season Schedule

- Playoffs (Will Start as soon as the Regular Season Ends – with a small break in-between)

ROSTER RQUIREMENTS:

- Since we are having a Pro Team / Farm Team roster requirements will be the following

§ 4 C

§ 4 LW

§ 4 RW

§ 6 D

§ 2 G

§ 2 Extra positions in case of injury

o Requirements will be that these 22 players will be under the Salary Cap

o Farm Team will have 22 players in the same format but 10% of there Salaries will count towards each Teams Bank Account but not Salary Cap.

o Total # of Contracts for the Organizations will be 54 players. All rated players/prospects will be put on each roster as the new Ratings come out approximately in May at some point.

o 5^th Goalie is recommended incase of a Goalie Injury which is rare but exhaustion may sometimes be an issue if goalies play too many games in a row – Typically on B2B games most GMs would be recommended to play there back-up once.

PROSPECT / ROSTERED PLAYER DETERMINATION:

- Any Player that has played over 9 NHL / AHL games in Real Life after the Inception Draft will be determined to be a player in game.

- Prospects will be the latter meaning if after the initial inception draft any player that has played less then 10 games in the season that the Ratings are from will be considered a Prospect.

- It may be possible for some players to be considered a player one year and a prospect the next pending how it works out.

- Not based on Career Games (Only Season to Season Games)

- Any Player Rostered based on the Above will retain there current contract till it ends – Once this initial contract ends an extension will be Necessary – this is done on site under Extensions and is at the GMs discretion based on league averages at the Overalls in the Ratings

UFA AND RFA STATUS:

- This will be exactly the same as the NHL any player above the Age of 27 as at the beginning of the Regular Season will be considered a UFA for the upcoming Offseason.

- Any Player below the Age of 28 on the First day of the Regular Season would be considered an RFA for the upcoming Offseason

- During the Season each GM would have 3 Chances to extend there UFAs and RFAs at their discretion – if an UFA is not extended that player will go to Free Agency. If a RFA is unsigned you may retain their rights but are subject to other offers from other GMs in the league.

· Restricted Free Agents (RFAs), technically free agents that can receive offer contracts from teams throughout the league that can then be matched by the team their “player rights” are held by

· Unrestricted Free Agents (UFAs) that are under absolutely no team control and can dictate their destiny in the league, picking and choosing which teams they want to play for and what contract terms that they are going to play under

WAIVERS:

- Waiver Exempt Age is 27 and below with a salary of 3.0 Million or less for either a skater/goalie.

- If a player is put on Waivers that said player will be on Waivers for 24 hours and can be claimed by any other team based on the waiver order.

- Compensation will be $500,000 if a player is picked up off of Waivers.

- Waivers will be off in Offseason (after the Cup is rewarded till the start of the Regular Season Start Date).

LONG-TERM INJURIED RESERVE:

- Any Player at less then 95% Condition will not count towards your Salary Cap

- Once a Player reaches 95% the player is now playable and may still need less ice-time as that player reaches 100%

- GMs are responsible to have enough Cap room to fit this player into the line up at that point (95% Condition

- Recovery Time will be 1% per day (IE NOT GAMES). Under the Roster Page on site STATUS column is setup to tell us when a player will return to 100% and is setup as follows I/15 would meant 10 games till that player reaches playable status and 15 days till 100% Condition.

- Salary Cap is hard coded into the sim and if any one team is over the Salary Cap in the Regular season we won’t be able to sim any games until this is fixed by the GM responsible for the team.

LINE SUBMISSIONS / OVERALL GM ACTIVITY:

- Whether it is thru Weblines or the STHS Client it’s the Responsibility of Each GM to look after this aspect as an injury occurs or every ten games played – Line Submissions autosave the line up and roster for 10 games until there is an injury or Trade.

- We all want an Active League – Line Submissions is part of this, delays in Simulation will have ae negative affect on this - general competition and rivalries are based on Active GMS and that means active Line Submissions.

- Trades are part of the fun of a league there is nothing more frustrating then asking about a player on a team in chat and not getting a response – typically responding 24-48 hrs within receiving a trade offer or chat message is acceptable.

- An Announcements Channel will be created and the Commissioner will be posing important information in there – pls pay attention to this – This information is mostly for the GMs of the League

- Extensions and Offseason is also important as we are trying to get our teams up to speed for the next season less activity during offseason may mean delays in starting the new Season – again would get frustrating when other teams would be ready to go.

SIMULATION:

- Sim will be at 5:00pm mountain time every night during the Preseason and Regular Season the Schedule emulate the Real NHL’s Schedule to par to end approximately when it does.

- Every Offseason there will be Sim Tests to determine the proper Settings so it emulates the NHL as much as possible based on each new set of Ratings that change every year.

- Injuries and Exhaustion Settings will be relaxed but realistic to emulate a little less for injuries and a little more than for Exhaustion meaning mins per game will be increased so D can play a little more ice-time than real life for example, so there are less Exhaustion Injuries.

GOALIE GAMES:

- Each goalie can only play a max of 67 Games vs 15 for Back-Ups

- If you play your Back-Up goalie plays once on a B2B there really shouldn’t be an issue to reach those marks.

SALARY CAP:

- Salary Cap Limit is $81,500,000 Million

- Farm Cap Limit is $50,000,000 Million however only 10% of the Salary will be accounted for thru the financial calculations to the Bank Account at the end of the Season

- All bonuses will be added to the initial Salary extensions over the term of the Contract – A Bonus is typically 10% of the total Contract Value (Term x Salary) x 10%

- Within the Regular Season all teams must be at or below the Salary Cap amount and above 58,000,000 as the Cap Floor

- Special Cap would be just any Retention of Salary negotiated in trades if Retaining Salary u must have enough room within the Salary Cap

- MAX Salary Retention is only 50% of the Salary Amount and the # of years must be discussed and communicated to the Commissioner in some way otherwise default is a 1-year Retention.

- Special Cap could also include 1 Buyout from the Offseason at the Discretion of the GM which is 1/3 of the Salary over the term left and Buyout portion would be half of the contract from the Bank Account.

ENTRY DRAFT:

- Will include 6 Rounds from each of the NHL Entry Draft and to take place every offseason

- OFF THE BOARD PICKS are unfortunately not allowed.

- Players that are Signed from Jr leagues/other Professional Leagues and any prospects not picked in the Initial Prospect Draft will be looked at as Free Agents once they have ratings.

- Drafts will take place in Discord and on site – A Player List will be released once the Draft in question IRL is completed

- Typically, there will be a Clock time / Schedule and in a Entry Draft ONLY you will get and Best Draft Pick Available if you miss your pick.

RFAs and OFFER SHEETS:

- If and only if the 3 Chances to extend are exhausted will a player turn into a RFA if under the Age of 28 as at Oct 1 every season but 1 year back from the Current NHL Season.

- If 1 chance or more is left during offseason this player will be unfortunately an UFA and available to be bid on by all GMs

- RFAs are unfortunately subject to offers by other GMs during the FA Period however can be matched by the GM that holds their Rights – if they can fit that player into their Cap Situation.

- If a RFA doesn’t receive an offer during the FA Period they would then be eligible for Arbitration

- Arbitration is a 1-year deal based on average Salary at the Overall of the Player in question at the time.

- If a GM declines any offer by another GM during the FA Period that team will receive compensation based on the current NHL Rules for Compensation (which is basically Picks based on the Salary Offer made)

- In order to put in an Offer Sheet on a player u must have the correct Compensation based on the Salary offered if this is not the case when the winning offers are determined then the Offer will be void.

- Determination of winning offers (top 3 highest offers will be looked at) Odds will be created based on dividing the total contract value of each offer over the total of the 3 contract values and a Random Number will be drawn from Random.org.

EXTENSIONS:

- Extensions are done thru the site once logged in there is a Extension page for Skaters and Goalies – only Players that need extensions will show up here and must be extended over the Regular Season period only and have 3 chances attached to them once exhausted may be either a RFA which have rules about in the above paragraph or a UFA that would go to Free Agency in the Offseason but can be traded as a rental no further chance will result once traded.

- Extensions are based on League Averages for the Players Overall and the Term and Dollar amount offered, Motivation the players has, Ice Time the player has been getting and any options u add like Bonuses NO Trade One Way Can Play Farm and or Can Play Pro.

- These Options create odds and a Random number will result on site this number must be inbetween 1 to the odd amount to complete a signing.

- Max Extension in length is 5 Years but u can choose any number 1-5 except the odds may change

- The salary amounts start at 80% and step up by 10% up to 150% based on the League Average and is at your discretion.

FARM MAX OVERALL:

- Farm Overall of 69 and lower for Skaters and 78 and lower for Goalies - with both at a max Salary of 3,000,000

- This is to be able to control to a certain extent the AHL / FARM results and to differentiate a Pro and Farm player in the draft so to speak

- This would be a Maximum for farm though players that have lower OV can still play up

TRADE COMMITTEE AND TRADE REVIEW PROCESS:

- We will be looking at every trade for fairness and anti-tanking

- Florida (Tyler), Toronto (Aaron) and Detroit (Nick) are the Trade Committee.

ALL RULES CAN BE SUBJECT TO CHANGE ONLY IF A MAJORITY WINS IN A VOTE – OTHER RULES MAY BE ADDED BUT WILL BE EITHER VOTED ON OR DISCUSSED AS A LEAGUE