LNHL Rule Book
Copyright 2006 LNHL


Table of Contents

A. General Rules
1. League and Forum Conduct & Expectations
2. Warnings
3. Absences
4. Use of Player Scout

B. GM Duties
1. Sim Schedule
2. Lines
3. Training
4. Goalies
5. Rosters
6. Staff
7. Scouting
8. Ticket Prices

C. Contracts for players on your team

D. Salary Cap
1. Procedures and Penalties for Violating the Cap
2. Team Budget vs. Salary Cap

E. Waivers
1. Placing on and claiming off waivers
2. Releasing players

F. Trades
1. Procedure
2. Con Drops

G. Unrestricted Free Agency
1. Procedure
2. UFA Staff

H. Underage Farm Players

I. GM Points

J. AHL Rules

K. Draft Rules
1. Procedure
2. Autopicks
3. Trading During the Draft
4. Diamond in the Rough

L. Team Captains



Section A. General Rules


1. League and Forum Conduct & Expectations

All GMs are expected to:
- remember that the LNHL is first and foremost a FUN league
- have EHM 1.16
- send in lines or an email before every sim
- be active in the league message board
- participate in drafts, activity checks, meetings and other league business
- respect the decisions of the league commissioners, forum mods, and Trade Committee members

Unacceptable behaviour includes:
- excessive foul language or inappropriate comments
- insulting or badmouthing fellow LNHL GMs, forum mods, TC members, or commissioners
- dishonesty or attempting to cheat

2. Warnings

GM’s have three (2) chances or warnings before being removed from the league. However, league commissioners reserve the right to expel anyone without warning for a serious rule or behaviour infraction if it is in the best interest of the league.
- the first warning will be emailed or Pmed
- the second warning will be emailed
- the third waning will actually be a notification of dismissal from the league, and it will also be posted on the forum

If any GMs or Mods feel that a fellow GM should receive a warning, they should PM either of the league commishes and stat their case, at which time the commissioner will decide whether or not a warning is necessary.

3. Absences

All absences should be posted on the board in the appropriate thread in the forum. Failure to do so could result in a warning, or dismissal for inactivity. Likewise for activity checks, failure to post could lead to dismissal for inactivity.

4. Use of Player Scout

Use of Player Scout is permitted in the LNHL. It should be used only as a scouting tool, and although there is no way to regulate it, it is suggested that GMs attempt to see the bigger picture and use it as such, rather then as a crutch.


Section B. GM Duties


1. Sim Schedule

The sim schedule for the LNHL is currently every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. On each sim during the regular season, 5 days will be simmed. During the playoffs, each sim will encompass 2 days.

2. Lines

- lines for both NHL and AHL teams are acceptable, expected, and encouraged
- lines must be sent to lnhlcommish1@gmail.com before every simulation (Mon, Wed, Fri, Sun @ 4:00 PM EST approx)
- computer lines will be used for teams with no lines, invalid lines, or due to injury - invalid lines include lines that contain injured players, players no longer
on the roster, or players that have been promoted or demoted from the pro team and are not currently on that team’s roster
- the “Hit & Grind” tactic is restricted to 1 line only per team
- the “Run & Gun” tactic is also restricted to 1 line only per team

When sending in lines, please include the name of your team as well as whether they are the farm or pro lines each time. For example:

VancouverPro.lns and VancouverFarm.lns

Please compress the lines files into an archive using WinRar before sending. If you are unsure of how to do this, please post in the “Questions and Suggestions” section of the forum and someone will assist you. In case of emergencies, typed lines are acceptable also.

Penalty for Misuse of lines:

Regular Season
-1st offence-
Starting goalie and top OA player sit for one game

-2nd offence-
Starting goalie and top OA player sit for 5 games

-3rd offence-
10 games for both, GM points lost and up to dismissal

Playoffs
-1st offence-
Starting goalie and top 2 OA player sit for two games

-2nd offence-
Starting goalie and top two OA player sit for 5 games

-3rd offence-
Goalie and top two OA players sit for rest of the post season, GM points lost and up to dismissal

3. Training

To adjust a player’s training, please write out your request and send it in along with your lines in a league email. Please specify whether the players in question are on your Pro or Farm roster. The training of your players is your responsibily, and will not be managed by the person handling the sim.

Extra Practices can be scheduled in much the same manner, please request it in your league email. There will be no open ended requests for extra practice, a GM must request it each and every time they want it.

4. Goalies

Goalies can only play 75 regular season games over the course of an LNHL season . The responsibility for monitering this falls on the GM, and the penalty for going over is that the offending goalie will be sat for the rest of the regular season and the first two games of the playoffs. If the goalie’s team fails to make the playoffs, they will then sit out the first 2 games of the next regular season.

5. Rosters

- each roster must have at least 4LW, 4 C, 4 RW, 6D and 2G
- pro rosters must have at least 20 - 23 layers playing at any given time
- farm teams can have as many players on their roster as you like
- if a pro roster is short players, it is up to the GM to request that appropriate players be called up to fill out the roster via league email
- if no such instructions are sent, the person in charge of simming will recall the best player available that is waiver exempt and fits the positionary needs of the team
- if teams have more than 23 players and no instructions are received, the lowest OA rated, waiver exempt player will be demoted, although sometimes that will not be possible and a player must be sent down that has to clear waivers.
- during the Preseason, the number of players on your pro roster is unlimited.
- if farm teams do not have enough players to fill out their roster, players will be fast signed

6. Staff

- all Pro teams must have a minimum of 1 Head coach, 2 Assistant coaches, 4 Scouts, and 1 Physiotherapist on staff.
- GMs can fire staff members, but must have the minimum number of staff members at any one time

7. Scouting

- At least 3 of your scouts have to be assigned somewhere for every sim.
- to change where a scout is assigned to, send in instructions along with your lines in a league email.

Please don’t assign your scouts to your short list. The person responsible for the sim will not assign players to your behalf to the shortlist, so it is a waste of a scout.

8. Ticket Prices

The maximum ticket prices for:
- A seats is $55
- B seats is $40
- Box seats is $150

The minimum ticket prices for:
- A seats is $40
- B seats is $30
- Box seats is $130

You may change your ticket prices whenever you like, just send in instructions along with your lines in a league email.



Section C. Contracts for players on your team


Before submitting an offer via your league email, please test your offer to player(s) in your own EHM to make sure it works. That saves a lot of wasted effort on the part of the person responsible for the sim.

When emailing your offers please use this format:

Player’s Full Name
Yearly Salary
Signing Bonus
Years
NT/TO/PO/TW

The highest a player can be offered is 8 Mill for 5 years with a NT/TO.

Please limit contract offers to 3 per sim.


Section D. Salary Cap


1. Procedures and Penalties for Violating the Cap

The salary cap for the LNHL is set at $50,000,000 for the 2006 and 2007 seasons. The cap can and will be reviewed in the future by the commish and co-commish, and may be adjusted to suit the needs of the league. The cap will be enforced throughout the season by the league treasurer.

If, at any point in the season, a team goes over the salary cap, the following is the procedure:

1. The league treasurer will notify via PM the GM in violation of the cap, and the GM’s name will be posted on the Official Warning List section of the Rosters/Finances thread on the league board. The offending GM will have have 2 sims to fix things upon notification. So, for example, if you get a PM on a Saturday night, you have Sunday's sim and Monday's sim to make things right via trades or releasing of players.

2. If the GM in violation has posted an absence, the countdown will start at the end of the duration of the posted absence.

3. You are not allowed to sign free agents until you are under the cap, and any posted offers will be considered invalid..

4. If you fail to make it under the cap by 2 sim dates, the commissioner in charge of simming will bench your highest rated OA players until you are under the cap for 1 more sim date. For example, let's take Anaheim. If they happened to be 7 million over the cap, Giguere (80 OA, 4 million) would be benched, as would Sykora (78 OA, 3.1 million) so that you are under the cap. They will not be able to play for the entire 5 game days of that sim.

5. If after this one sim date, you can still not make it under the cap players will be released to free agency until you are under the cap. For example, again using Anaheim, both Giguere and Sykora would simply become free agents so that Anaheim can be under the cap. The offending team would also be responsible for shouldering the buyout costs of the players in question.

A slip-up like this could potentially cripple your entire franchise for years to come. The other big thing that happens when you go over the cap is that you may have to start settling for trades that may not totally be in your favour, just to get under the cap. Basically, don't go over the LNHL salary cap.

Any trade or free agent signing that puts a team over the salary cap will be nullified, and in the case of free agents, the player will go to the next highest offer that was posted.

2. Team Budget vs. Salary Cap

A specific team’s budget can be found on the Finances screen of EHM, under "Player Budget", in the Income section.

If a teams players' salaries exceeds that team's player budget, they are not restricted and penalized in the same fashion as if they had exceeded the salary cap. Technically, the team is still able to function at full strength. The one downfall is that you cannot sign or bid on free agents if you have exceeded your team budget. The LNHL does allow fastsignings for teams that have exceeded their budget, and they are not viewed as free agent signings in terms of team budget violations. Also, teams may still trade and resign players without concern of violating their team budget.
In regards to signing players you already have on your roster, such as prospects you have already drafted, the only number you have to worry about is the currently $50 million salary cap. The number that you have to worry about there is in the Finances tab of the game. It is the number in the This Year column, in the Player salaries row of the Expenses section.

- using Minnesota as an example, their player salaries are 39,459,500.

- using New Jersey as an example, their player salaries are 48,509,429.

As you can see, a team can exceed their team budget by spending on their existing players, just not on free agents.

In regards to signing UFAs, a team cannot exceed their team budget in order to sign UFAs. That is the number that a teams Board of Directers allows them to spend. It is located on the Team Info tab of the game, and is the number not in brackets in the financial information part of the page.

- using Minnesota as an example, their player salaries are 32,179,000.

- using New Jersey as an example, their player salaries are 68,732,929.

So, in Minnesota's case, they are able to resign the players they have to the point where their team salaries reach $50 million. However, once their player salaries have exceeded their team budget (at $32 million), they are no longer able to bid on UFAs.

In New Jersey's case, they have a team budget that exceeds the cap. They cannot exceed the $50 million cap, however, so they can only bid on UFAs until they reach that cap.



Section E. Waivers


1. Placing on and claiming off waivers

- when waiving players, (promoting or demoting players who, due to number of games played or age, must clear waivers before they can report to their newly assigned team) you must post it in the Waivers Section of the forums
- this process will also be monitered by the co-commish, who will post players missed by their GMs
- players in the game who must clear waivers are often marked with a slash through their name
- there will be no corrections made if a player is mistakenly sent down as per a GM’s instructions and has to clear waivers
- to claim a player on waivers, a GM must post a claim within 72 hours real time of the player being posted on the Waivers thread
- in case of multiple claims, the player will go to the team that is lowest in league standings at the time of the player being placed on waivers
- on the offchance that there is a tie among the two lowest ranked teams placing a claim, the team with the fewest wins will get the player
- if a GM claims a player, that player cannot be sent to the farm for a minimum of one week real time
- if a GM violates this rule, the player in question will be released outright and the GM will be unable to make a claim on a player on waivers for three weeks post notification of the infraction

2. Releasing Players

Released players become free agents no matter what. In order to do so, just send in instructions along with your lines in a league email.

Although it is not necessary to post these transactions, some would consider it a courtesy and it can be done so in the Waivers section of the forums.


Section F. Trades


1. Procedure

All trades should be posted in the Trades section of the forum boards by the participants in the deal, along with a brief description of their motivations and the CON ratings for the involved players. For a trade to be inputted, it must be confirmed by both participating GMs, and get three (3) approvals by members of the Trade committee. One rejection by a member of the TC does not mean a trade is rejected or requires reworking. In the case of a 3-3 tie or lack of votes on a time sensitive trade, the league commish or co-commish may cast a deciding vote.

Any votes by TC members should not be debated, although participants reserve the right to respectfully answer any questions a TC member might pose. TC members and their decisions should be treated with repect, and they should in no way be coerced or bullied into voting a particular way, although PMs requesting that a trade be reviewed is acceptable.

Trades involving conditionals also require the approval of the commish or co-commish before being locked and inputted, and once they have been it is up to the participants of the deal to post and then live up to the conditions of the deal in the Conditionals section of the Trades forum.

2. Con Drops

The reason CON ratings are posted when a trade is made is so that in case of a large CON drop after a trade, the player’s file can be fixed back to its original level.


Section G. Unrestricted Free Agency


1. Procedure

a. All ufa offers will be posted in the "UFA Player Bidding" section, with the player's name as the title

b. Offers should follow a format similar to this:

Devils offer Chris Campoli

450000
61600 bonus
3 years
TW TO

c. At that point, all other teams able to bid on free agents can respond. There is no limit to how many times a team can make an offer.

d. 72 hours (3 full days) after it is first posted, the thread is locked

e. The commish will then enter the best offer. He will take things like TW & TO into account when rating offers. for example:

450000
61600 bonus
3 years
TW TO

is less than

450000
61600 bonus
3 years
TW

*****

500,000
61600 bonus
3 years
TO
(total value: 1,561,600)

is more than

800,000
61600 bonus
1 year
TO
(total value: 861600)

*****

450,000
500,000 bonus
1 year
TO TW
(total value: 950,000)

is more than

500,000
61600 bonus
1 year
TO TW
(total value: 561,600)

f. No TW contracts for offers over 2 million per season

g. No limit on FA spending as long as you don't go over the cap/buget

h. UFA players CAN NOT be traded within 6 months

i. Max of 15 players can be listed and open on the UFA board at any time, any more then that will be locked until that backlog has been reduced.

j. Teams that have exceeded their team budgets or the salary cap cannot bid on UFAs. Any offers they make will be null and void.


2. UFA Staff

Free agent staff follow the exact same procedure as UFA players.



Section H. Underage Farm Players


GMs will be given the opportunity to assign a maximum of 2 underage players to their farm team at the start of each LNHL regular season. An underage player is defined as a player who is 19 years or younger at the start of the LNHL regular season.

- if you have traded or released either of your underagers, or they will be 20 years of age or older at the start of the next season, then you can pick replacements at the start of the next season.
- if you trade or recall an underager during the season, you cannot name a replacement from your prospects list. You must wait until the next season or trade for an underager.
- you cannot trade for an underager (a player under the age of 20 that has been assigned to a farm team) and then assign him to your farm team if you already have two guys on your farm team that were underage at the start of the season. You cannot trade for an underager and then assign him to juniors either.
- an underager can be recalled to the pro team, but then cannot be either assigned to junior or sent back to the farm until they start an LNHL regular season at an age of 20 or over. They also cannot start the next season as an underage player on the farm team. Essentially, once an underager is recalled, he must stay with the pro team until he is either released, traded, or comes of age.
- if one or both of the underagers a GM assigned to their farm team the previous season are still underage at the start of the next regular LNHL season and have not been recalled to the pro team, they must remain as the team’s underage players. They cannot be exchanged for other underage players on a team’s prospect list.



Section I. GM Points


Here is how to get GM points:

Team Webpage: 0.5 Point
Team News: 0.5 Point
Helping League Advertise (Link needed): 1.5 Points
Running the AHL Playoffs: 2.5 Points
Helping the League: 2 Points
Volunteering: 1 Point

You must use your GM points before the start of the upcoming season or you will lose your points.

The Best a player’s Pot/Con can be raised is by 8.
The highest a player’s stat can be raised is 100

15 GM points = 1 Pot or Con increase for 1 player
15 GM points = 1 Ceiling increase (I.E. from 45 to 55)



Section J. AHL Rules


1. The top 16 teams in the AHL at the end of the regular season with move on to the playoffs.

2. AHL playoffs will be run similarly to the NHL playoffs, having 7 game series, and top versus bottom pairings, East versus West.

3. Players must have played in at least 15 AHL games in order to qualify for the AHL roster.

4. There will be a separate NHL and AHL files during the play-offs.

5. Teams will send in their lines and instructions to: gravydevil@hotmail.com

6. Team tactics such as H&G and all other basic rules will be followed the LNHL.

7. No player can play on both the NHL and the AHL playoffs at the same time.

8. Underagers who have been called up at all during the season will not be eligable for the AHL playoffs, just like the regular season.


******** PLAYER ELIGABILITY RULES ***********
(these are the only exceptions to rules #3)

1. Players that have been on the farm all year and have not played in the pro, but have not played in the AHL, are acceptable

2. Fast signed players, if you need to fill spaces, are acceptable

3. Newly signed prospects are able to play as long as you have had the rights to these prospects all year.

4. All recent UFA signings can play only if they are under 26, under 69oa, and signed to more then 1 year contract. TOs and POs don’t count as a year in a contract in this case.

5. Any player being called down to the AHL with NHL experience may not have more then 25 games played in the Pros this season to be eligible for the AHL playoffs.

6. If a player is called up or sent down during the NHL playoffs, the lines for the AHL playoffs must reflect that.



Section K. Draft Rules


1. Procedure

The draft will commence on the forums right at the start of the playoffs. The draft commissioner will post the draft order, and this will signal the beginning of the draft. The draft commish will oversee the draft, and has the right to create and adjust rules, and can only be overruled by the commish or co-commish.

The GM with the first overall choice will have 24 hours to make his selection from any player in the draft pool found in the EHM game file. As always, the players.ehm file is allowed.

Once the first player has been chosen, the next GM will have 24 hours to make his pick. This trend will continue for the duration of the first 3 rounds.

For the 4th and 5th rounds, each team gets 8 hours in the open business hours. Now, what I mean by this is that from 12:00 AM - 8:00 AM EST, your time clock is not on.

So, let's say I have the 2nd pick in the 4th round. The first pick gets made at 10:37 PM. I would get until 2:37 PM to make the pick (10:37 PM - 11:37 PM = 1 hour, 11:37 PM - 8:37 AM = 1 hour (the time clock isn't started until 8:00)

Similarly, if the first pick was made at noon, I'd have until 8:00 PM to make my pick...a normal 8 hours.

If you happen to be absent at the time of the draft, a pre-determined list of players you would like is probably your answer. It is also acceptable to send a request for something like “top ranked LW” or “best physical defenseman available”. Please submit your list to the LNHL draft commissioner. However, if you do not leave a list and your pick is not made in the allocated time slot for that round, your selection will be auto-picked.

2. Autopicking

Auto-picking consists of the draft commish selecting the top-ranked CSB player at the sim of the first pick of the draft that is still available. This ranking changes from sim-to-sim, so the very first set of rankings at the start of the draft will be used. Position, need, and skill will not be taken into account while auto-picking occurs. Do not let your selection be auto-picked; it is simply a bad idea.

Similarly, the CPU teams will all have their choices auto-picked in similar fashion.

Furthermore, there is a penalty for having your team auto-picked for. The next round, your time bank will be half of what you had in the previous round, unless you miss the 3rd round pick, in which case your 4th round pick would be the standard 8 hours.

So for example, if you miss your 1st round selection, you would have 12 hours to make your selection in the 2nd round. This keeps the time flowing so that we are not waiting for anyone.

3. Trading During the Draft

Trading of players and draft picks is allowed over the course of the draft, but as the draft and the playoffs coincide, if players on rosters switch teams the changes won’t take place until after the conclusion of the playoffs. Players in the last year of their contract cannot be traded as EHM will not allow it. If a pick is involved, the trade must gain proper TC approval before the pick can be exercised by the team it has been traded to. If a trade fails to gain approval before time expires on that pick, it will be autopicked on behalf of the original owner of that pick. A pick that is still awaiting TC approval can be used by the original holder of the pick if it is a situation where the pick is close to being autopicked.

4. Diamond in the Rough

At the conclusion of all 150 picks, a random draft will be held, and 5 select players of the 150 will receive a POT boost of 1, a CON boost of 10, and their two lowest ceilings will be boosted by 10. This will allow for more star players in the league for years to come.

One restriction on this random draft will be that no more than 2 players on one team may receive such a boost, so that balance can be maintained.



Section L. Team Captains

Anyone on a team can be a captain. Even goalies. Especially goalies.