I would appreciate some help, because I am new to SIM hockey. I normally play SIM baseball, and there are a few ideas that I would like to incorporate into a Hockey league. The first is" name your own theme." The theme can't be statistically based, or monetarily based, and it must be limiting in some reasonable way. Something like players from a certain geographical area, or with certain letters in their names, I would like the salary cap to be low enough to ensure that we won't have a set it and forget it league, but high enough to allow us to draft the players we like. I would tend toward no MLers, I'm uncertain about injuries, players out, PI, etc.
  The second idea has to do with a team you HAVE to manage on a daily basis. That would entail a low salary cap, and limits on the number of games a player has played, such that you'll have to shuffle players around regularly. Possibly even limiting statistical categories, such that the players would be less than (for example) 15% SP, D below a certain number, goalies below a certain save %, things along those lines. Included might be some u-pic MLers, subject to the same general rules.
   Please help me out with some opinions, and if the common opinion is that someone with more hockey experience might be better as commish, I'm OK with that. These ideas are popular and fun in baseball, and they ought to get the same reactions here.
   On an unrelated topic, I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in Jan. '11. Last Thursday the oncologist informed me I am in complete remission. That was an excellent Christmas present, and I wish you all at least some equally good news in the New Year. Many prayers have been answered in my behalf, again, i hope the same for you.

Congratulations on the wonderful news from your doctor!!!

The name your own theme seems pretty neat.  You could reserve the right to veto any theme that was
too broad, such as "Every Player Must Have At Least One Vowel In Their First AND Last Names", or
"Every Player Must Have Been Born In Canada".

As for your daily management theme, I would recommend that you check out the Waiver Wire theme
leagues run by chuckinrlp.

I think they are the closest we can get in Sim Hockey to manage-every-day.  A new one started recently,
but I would suggest joining the next one he starts.  (I don't know if what he does could be improved upon.)

I am not crazy about WW theme leagues for two reasons, 1) they deplete the WW for other payers, and 2) It makes for too much uncertaincy. I am thinking more along the lines of drafting players with a max of 50% GP, and other restrictions that would force us to use players we would not ordinarily use. Something that would get us all out of our comfort zones. I have played 5 ex seasons, and I am 40 or so games into an OL season, and I am already sick of seeing the same defensemen, Warren Young and Owen Nolan..

I understand (and share) your desire for a varied player pool.

Someone was running a series of Blacklist leagues a while ago. 
They got a list from admin of the 500 most commonly used seasons for hockey, and blacklisted them.
(This was a lot of work on the commissioner's part.)

In season 2, I believe they blacklisted all of the seasons from anyone who had a season on the top-500 list.

In season 3-on I think they blacklisted anyone who was used in the previous season?  I am not sure about this,
but I think I am correct that the general idea was an increasing banned list each season.  I think the salary
cap went up a bit each season as well.

In terms of your injury idea, that is a neat one, but the hockey sim only gives us 3 skaters on our scrub list. 

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You could run a league where you blacklist a bunch of the players you think are too commonly used.

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Some people have run leagues where each owner gets to blacklist 2 or 3 players when they join up.

Black lists do serve the purpose, but I'd rather see people step out of their comfort zone on their own.

Congratulations on your good health news! May your future continue to be as bright.

On the theme league front, how about limiting the goalie s% and gp% to 89% and 40% respectively. Then maybe 70% max gp% on skaters with a max 4 out. This could potentially create some interesting roster decisions on a daily basis. 

that isn't bad at all. I got into gollum's league, all BA MLers, I love it