It is going to be impossible to satisfy everybodies dreams and desires in terms of the minor league setup.  An arbitrary decision has to be made on how it plays out, and to me its got to be one of two ways.  Either they go with the route that the MAJORITY of NHLers have gone to get to the NHL which is CHL---AHL---NHL or they go with a completely fantasy formula. HBD's minors system works and its fun.  There are multiple ways that a prospect can go from raw prospect to being an NHL pro, and there is no reason that they all cant be represented in our game here.  We can have US college scouting, we can have international scouting (primarily for Europeans) and we can have the primary feeder system (either CHL---AHL or the HBD copy of AAA---AA---A---RL)

We all can happily argue until the fat lady sings the ways that hockey players pursue their NHL dreams, but there can be no arguing with the fact that the CHL is easily the single biggest contributor of talent compared to other similar leagues like the ECHL etc...  The NHL chose to more closely align themselves with the ECHL because Gary Bettman is a horses a$$ and goes American over Canadian every chance he has.  Why is it that so many American NHL teams are struggling and he wont let any of them move up north?  And yet the second any Canadian team struggles he lets them slip down to supposedly greener pastures in the States?  Yah he didnt let Ottawa fall apart because his gigantic American ego didn't want to let one of HIS expansion teams go bust, that would be admitting he was wrong.  Not that I am saying a NHL team in Ottawa is wrong; far from it.  Just saying that is what is running through his tiny mind.

US college scouting would be for the draft or FA? Same for international scouting?

How can you have amateur teams (CHL) aligned with pro teams (AHL/NHL)? It just doesn't make sense, and it doesn't match how any of the other Dynasty games work. Either you have all amateurs (Hoops Dynasty/Gridiron Dynasty) or you have all Pros (Hardball Dynasty). I don't see WIS mixing them for a Hockey Dynasty, and personally, I don't want them to.

While the majority of players may go through the CHL, Europe and US colleges combined probably make up close to 40% of the player pool in the NHL/AHL/ECHL combined. That is not an insignificant amount. When you consider that they are all subject to the same draft as players in the CHL, how do you justify separating them? This isn't baseball where internationals are truly separate and not subject to the draft. If they don't keep it similar to RL, a lot of people will be turned off by it. That's what makes HBD so enjoyable - it is just like RL, and you control the entire franchise, minors and majors.

The CHL and ECHL are not similar at all - so please stop trying to compare them. The ECHL is made up of professional players. The CHL is for amateurs, kids who are 20 and under.  If you want to complain about Gary Bettman, go right ahead. But don't use the ECHL as a reason, it's been around a lot longer than he has.

I  agree with SAK on this.  You couldn't have CHL teams aligned with pro teams.  What could happen is, just like in real life, a kid gets drafted, and then after training camp (or six games), gets sent back to junior (NOT minors), or their European club team, or the US development program (do they still have that?), or wherever he came from for a year or two.  Once they age/progress/bulk up enough, they can play in a men's pro league (ECHL, AHL, NHL).  You could send the ones that are ready for it straight to the minors.  If you have a Sid Crosby or John Tavares, you could bring him straight to the NHL.

Posted by greeny9 on 7/13/2010 10:47:00 PM (view original):
When it comes to the minor leagues that I hope we will have in hockey dynasty I hope WIS is smart and uses the CHL and the AHL.  This idea of using all these american colleges as the feeder leagues is clearly not even close to what happens in real life.  The vast majority of N American born players played in the CHL, not in american colleges.  And the AHL feeds a lot more players to the NHL then those colleges too.

If you re-read my proposal, you will note that the colleges were listed strictly for a college-style Dynasty game only. If they chose to follow a pro-style game (ala HBD), then it would be strictly NHL-AHL-ECHL+.

Posted by shobob on 8/6/2010 1:57:00 PM (view original):
I  agree with SAK on this.  You couldn't have CHL teams aligned with pro teams.  What could happen is, just like in real life, a kid gets drafted, and then after training camp (or six games), gets sent back to junior (NOT minors), or their European club team, or the US development program (do they still have that?), or wherever he came from for a year or two.  Once they age/progress/bulk up enough, they can play in a men's pro league (ECHL, AHL, NHL).  You could send the ones that are ready for it straight to the minors.  If you have a Sid Crosby or John Tavares, you could bring him straight to the NHL.

I agree with both of you here. But the plain fact of the matter is that you have to use "artisctic license" or whatever you wish to call it because there are not 30 ECHL teams to make perfect matches for the minor leagues. Since my original proposal, the AHL has gotten its 30th team, so we can fix a 2nd tier with no problem. But the ECHL still only has 19 teams. So you are going to have to create 11 teams somehow, just like they created GD teams like Marquette which don't exist in real life, but exist in GD to make the numbers match.

How you go about deciding what those 11 teams are going to be, I guess, can be debated without end. I simply made a suggestion. It really doesn't matter one way or another. Choose CHL (Canadian or Central Hockey League), IHL, any of the lower level minor leagues. Hell, choose a couple teams from the KHL or any of the other European leagues. It doesn't matter. They are gonig to be "fake" teams in terms of real life affiliation. But IMHO, I do believe that we should use real life teams rather than just making stuff up out of thin air (the Toledo Mulletheads, Boston AAA/AA, etc.) I believe that people can "buy in" to their teams much better if they have a real life counterpart to relate to. You cannot expect users to form any kind of lasting affiliation to that "Boston AA" team. But I know in GD, you DO have users coach certain schools for various reasons (my girlfriend went there, I played there, etc.) If your Tier 3 Toronto team is the Brampton Battalion or Toronto AA, it doesn't matter. I just believe that owners will become more interested in the game (and thus make the game better for everyone) if they can relate to a real-life team.

And I definitely, absolutely do NOT want the HBD style city/team naming scheme. Use REAL cities and REAL teams. I promise you I will not play the game if they use the HBD style naming scheme. I have never played HBD because of that reason, and I won't play Hockey Dynasty if the take that route.

I understand where you are coming from sluggo...I play HBD and to be honest I've seen a LOT of really silly nicknames, owners have used. BUT people like to personalize their team a little..part of the fun. I mean you look at SLH in an open league.... not many actual 'team' names being used there!!!

So while it can be 'silly' and to be honest some of the names are downright 'stupid', you still have allow it. Cause in the final analysis...it's what the majority wants and they are after all trying to sell a product.

Personally, I wouldn't want to play in a Hockey Dynasty World with just Real teams (Boston Bruins, New York Islanders... etc), There are owners that do come up with some really good names.

I like the hbd team name and city format...even though some names are ridiculous.

I see no problem with the HBD naming scheme.   It also shouldn't matter if there are only 19 ECHL teams.  I would think that each NHL Dynasty team would have two minor league levels, end of story.  Call 'em what you like.   AHL and ECHL sounds good to me.   Sadlly, if your NHL team is the Maple Leafs, then your AHL team would be the AHL Maple Leafs and so on.  It would get confusing otherwise.  I'm pretty sure that in minor league baseball not all teams are named after their parent club, but that's the way we have it in HBD.  I have no complaints about that.

I think it's time to get some real news here!

if you're not playing the best sim on the site just because of the way teams are named, you are not only seriously missing out, but probably only one of a handful of people that feel that way.  some of the team names are annoying, but that's true in all the sims, not just HBD.  and it makes more sense to let people name their own teams in a fantasy league than it does in leagues using real life players.  :>

Almost 5 months and no news. Methinks this has died a painful death yet again.

actually mike mentioned recently in another thread that he's looking forward to getting back to the hockey sim soon, including hockey dynasty or something to that effect.  :>