AHL Playoffs, EHEC Playoffs, etc.

[Virtual Jarmo]

Just wanted to update everybody on what's going on.

First thing, I need some help from some of you guys. If any of you know of a program that can compare two players.ehm files side-by-side and tell you differences, please let me know. The Committee forgot about our promise to add 2x LE points to players who played in the Olympics. I will definitely do this before the playoffs, and I apologize to any of you who were in playoff chases where the LE points may have helped. I really have no idea how much benefit LE has in the regular season, but we promised 2x LE points in the postseason. So, if someone can tell me that program, I'd appreciate the hell out of it.

Next order of business. Ryan and I will not sim our own postseason games. We are men of character, but we do want to eliminate any doubt from GMs in the league or outsiders who may be interested in the league. We will devise a sim schedule once we finalize the playoff schedule, which I will do today and the playoffs will begin tomorrow. We will sim the playoff matchups alongside the NHL. Luckily, Ryan and I will play on different days, so the three of us should be able to devise a schedule. Just send all instructions to the email. Don't worry about PMing them.

That would mean that tomorrow night features the Eastern Conference 4 v. 5 and 2 v. 7 series. The West will be 4 v. 5 and 2 v. 7 as well.

Also, I hate to make everybody change their bracketology posts in the Sports Bar forum, but Montreal is the 7 seed. When EHM was made, the playoff tiebreakers must have been different. With identical records, Montreal won the head-to-head series. They play Boston. Ottawa plays Washington.

OK, on to the AHL playoffs. I will be making the savefile today. You guys can do this one of two ways. You can keep the EHEC config_teams.ehm and the AHL parent club (the team you GM) will have the AHL roster. Or, you can alternate the config_teams.ehm. I will be making the right config_teams.ehm and sending all current NHL players on those affiliates down to the AHL and making the AHL team the parent club.

Here are the matchups:
Eastern Conference:

1 Springfield (EDM) v. 8 Portland (BUF)
2 Albany (CAR) v. 7 Hartford (NYR)
3 Adirondack (PHI) v. 6 Worcester (SJ)
4 Hershey (WSH) v. 5 Norfolk (TB)

Western Conference:

1 Milwaukee (NSH) v. 8 Lake Erie (COL)
2 San Antonio (PHX) v. 7 Bakersfield (ANA)
3 Rockford (CHI) v. 6 Texas (DAL)
4 Manitoba (VAN) v. 5 Hamilton (MTL)

11 of the top 19 teams came from the Eastern Conference. Lake Erie makes it with a whopping 77 points.

I have been unable to put the effort I want in to the draft class. Over the past couple months, I've battled computer issues, job hunting, book writing, and a few other things. I tend to be a lazy ass too and really focus on getting things done at the last possible time they can be done. Thanks for that college. But, I definitely will give you guys at least a full month worth of scouting time.

I have had several questions about when the draft will take place. The draft will take place after the Stanley Cup finals. I apologize to teams not in the playoffs or teams without an AHL affiliate in the playoffs, but this is the only way to do it. As Mr. Gaw mentioned, the conference finals determine the final four of the draft order. For that reason alone, along with others, it leaves us with doing the draft in mid-June. I'll determine time limits to make picks and other things of that nature as it gets closer.

Most of you should know this already, but there is no trading among teams until after the Stanley Cup. I will probably open up trading a few days before the Draft, because unlike the real draft, we're not all together in the same room.

The summer is still up in the air. I have concerns about GMs staying around and remembering us over the summer, but I have also seen some of you wanting to take the time off. Odds are, I'll put together a poll of some sort next month and we can discuss what we want to do.

Unless something drastic changes, Ryan and I will be largely (or completely) unavailable May 12-14 (11-14 in my case). We have known each other for nearly 10 years now, and we will be meeting in person for just the second time. I'll be north of the border in Niagara Falls/Toronto. If any of you guys want to make the trek down to the Falls (if you can), I'm sure we can get together and have a beer or two. I'll likely only be in Toronto to save Ryan money on a shuttle by picking him and his wife Jennifer up from the airport and taking them back. There's a chance I may spend a little more time there, but it's unlikely. But, if any of you guys have the means and want to get together with your Committee members for a beer, I'm sure we can send the women shopping for a few hours. I'll also be meeting Nick for the first time on May 11 when him and his girlfriend come down to Niagara Falls on the American side.

If I think of anything else to add to this post, I'll do so. I hope to be uploading the AHL file and the updated playoff file by 7 or 8 tonight at the latest so I can hunker down to watch the season premiere of Deadliest Catch without things on my mind.

To those of you who did not make the postseason, thank you for everything you've done so far and I really hope you continue to check in through the duration of the playoffs. I know that this is one of the hardships of our realistic schedule, but continue to come around and banter about the real-life NHL playoffs. Obviously, there are plenty of people around here to talk hockey with.

To those of you who did, best of luck and make sure to send in your lines every day.

Thanks everyone.

[Virtual Jarmo]

Alright, here's an update on today.

I went through and edited the schedule and realized that EHM didn't recognize the schedule changes meant that MTL was the 7 seed and OTT was the 8 seed. So in the playoff tree, it had BOS v. OTT and WSH v. MTL. I simmed ahead to see if this would become an issue and Ottawa beat Washington in Game 1 after BOS had won Game 1 of their series against MTL. What happened then was that the Playoff tree read the BOS-OTT series as 1-1 and the WSH-MTL series as 0-0.

To avoid this problem, I re-loaded the save file and changed one of Montreal's losses to an OTL in teams.ehm. So far, this has fixed the problem.

The way EHM generates the playoff schedule is as necessary. So, one of the three of us will have to manually edit the schedule as it goes along. If you want to sim ahead the entire series, you can either do so with the way EHM generates the games, or you can edit it yourself so you aren't playing a back-to-back at some point during the series.

If anybody wants to know how to do that, just let me know. If you're going to sim game-by-game, you'll have to wait for us to edit the schedule. Right now, the first four games of each series are set. The new savefile is updated and uploaded.

[Tuo-SabresGM]

I'll also be meeting Nick for the first time on May 11 when him and his girlfriend come down to Niagara Falls on the American side.

Can't wait for the showdown, er, meeting. It's been a long time coming, hopefully it won't be too bad weather-wise *knock on wood*. I'd make the trek to Canada as well and meet up with Ryan, but alas, no passports (stupid new laws).

..so I can hunker down to watch the season premiere of Deadliest Catch without things on my mind.

Fuck yea

To those of you who did not make the postseason, thank you for everything you've done so far and I really hope you continue to check in through the duration of the playoffs.

Thanks everyone.

I'd like to 2nd those remarks. A solid core of GMs (and quite the large core we have!) is necessary to the success of any online league, and its even more prevalent here. From helping out with the cap numbers, those that form the "extra" trade committee, the numerous team articles written, the friendly, competitive banter and rivalries.. the list goes on, and everyone here has contributed to that in some way. Let's be honest, if this were 10 years ago, things would be a lot more active between the game being constantly tweaked by Riz, and less time constraints on all of us, but you gotta roll with the punches, and I'd say this thing has been pretty successful thus far.

[Penguin]

Huge success boys.

If I'd be in Niagara Falls I'd pay you guys pitchers and strippers that's how good I value your work!

I'll do my best to find GMs for Atlanta and St.Louis before the Draft.

[Virtual Jarmo]

The AHL playoff savefile is a work in progress.

While looking at the AHL this year, Zach Boychuk of Albany (CAR): 65 G, 75 A, 140 P, +70. Teammate Brandon Sutter was +82. Insane.

[Oilers_GM]

just tossing this out there but as an option for the summer - to run an ESMS soccer sim. we could use NHL players create their attributes ect. it's a text base game and you don't even need the zip because it's typically one file as I recall. There are a few online leagues going www.snifl.com is the one I was part of for a number of seasons. I left only because i wanted a change.

I can dig out the engine on my external and see if i can get a proto type league up and running. Best part is you can run with 30 teams or more too.


Just an option. I don't think any of the ESMS sites are still up and running. (Electronic Soccer Management System)

ah just checked there is an newer version that does use JAVA...
http://esms.andresdsa.net/tiki-list_blogs.php
http://asiloleague.altervista.org/jesms/downloads.html

I can take a crack at running it too though i'm not sure of what my summer is gonna look like yet.

[Virtual Jarmo]

I'll be posting the AHL file tomorrow morning after I get a chance to test it. It will have some instructions with it on how to not mess your EHEC file up.

[SharksGM]

Try this: http://www.scootersoftware.com/download.php . It's free for 30 days and seemed to work ok when I tried it.

Maybe I'll finish that players.ehm file converter thing, I never bothered to because I already code all day and it's the last thing I want to do when I get home.

[Virtual Jarmo]

So I'm trying to work out some kinks with the AHL file. I don't know if it will be done today. There are a few problems. The first of which is an easy problem to fix. Nick had experience with making the AHL postseason, so he made the file for us. But, the game read the NHL standings and the playoff matchups have already been locked in. It creates the playoff tree problem I had with the NHL file when it had the wrong EC playoff matchup. That, I fixed by going back to the savefile and changing MTL's record. The problem here is that the AHL flip has been done, but we're on April 13. So I can't really go back to the 11th before the playoff matchups were made and alter records.

What I can do there is just load the pre-playoff EHEC file and put in the new players.ehm and that problem is settled.

But, a different problem is causing me fits right now and I'm not quite sure how to fix it. Three teams, Springfield, Worcester and Hamilton are in the opposite conference of their parent club. What this does is force the EHM code to put them in the wrong AHL conference. So when it generates the playoffs, even if I change the records the way I planned to, those three teams will wind up in the wrong place.

What I might have to do to get around that issue is to change config_teams.ehm to the point where Washington becomes Springfield, Boston becomes Albany, the Rangers become Adirondack, etc., etc. so that the seeding works out. But then, I have to transfer the entire roster through players.ehm to be on a different team. That's what the Fhockey AHL playoffs page said to do, but in skimming through it, I totally missed it.

I'll be able to start on this today, but I've got to do some work outside on the house and yard now and I'll be out all day watching baseball tomorrow, so this might not be resolved until Friday or even the weekend.

Patience is appreciated. We'll get the AHL playoffs in order.

But, the NHL playoffs will begin tonight. We have not discussed who is simming yet, but it won't be me.

[Penguin]

No worries champ!

[Jets GM]

Just an idea to keep GM's from vanishing during the summer, GM's who stay on and make it to camp next season get a reward? Nothing major, maybe 5-10 CON points. You could put the same restrictions on it as your doing for the bracket pool. i.e max 3 points per player, can't be boosted over 70 etc. Just a little "thank you" for sticking it out during the dry season....but I'll be back regardless so it really doesn't matter.

[Oilers_GM]

yep thats a good idea - i think though that new gm's shouldn't be penalized so if they join up during the summer and stick or if they join as the new season is about to start they would/ should get the same thing.

[dave(isles)]

just a really dumb question when are we doing the draft

[Virtual Jarmo]

just a really dumb question when are we doing the draft

After the playoffs. Sometime in June.

[dave(isles)]

ok just checking....what the heck am i supposed to do till then ....all my players are signed my prospects are signed....man june is so far away.....lol

[DevilsGM]

We still do need to have a draft lottery so we know who has what picks, for the teams out of the playoffs anyway. I liked TB's idea of extra con for people who stick around and put some cap on it like maybe only for players below 50 con or some other kind of stipulation.

[TorontoGM]

The draft lottery would be a good way to keep things active, but is the draft even done?

[Virtual Jarmo]

The draft lottery would be a good way to keep things active, but is the draft even done?

How does the draft lottery keep things active? I download a simulator, I run it, I post the results. Can't say it really keeps things active. It's not like trading is possible for another 2 months.

And no, the draft is not done.

[DevilsGM]

It's not like it will make anything any less active.

[Oilers_GM]

I've not dusted off the soccer sim yet but i can in the next few days perhaps. We could plug NHL players in as soccer players and run a mini tourny that way.

The other thought i had was to run a mini EHEC season - you'ed have to run more than one day per sim as we are currently doing. Basically start the season over... we can keep teams again - make trades - but it doesn't effect the actual big long EHEC season/rosters. when things start up again in September we wrap up the off season league and continue where this file has left off.

so for example I could trade Hemsky in the off season sim and I'd still have him on my fall roster because it would be 2 different files.

[CapsGM]

I've not dusted off the soccer sim yet but i can in the next few days perhaps. We could plug NHL players in as soccer players and run a mini tourny that way.

The other thought i had was to run a mini EHEC season - you'ed have to run more than one day per sim as we are currently doing. Basically start the season over... we can keep teams again - make trades - but it doesn't effect the actual big long EHEC season/rosters. when things start up again in September we wrap up the off season league and continue where this file has left off.

so for example I could trade Hemsky in the off season sim and I'd still have him on my fall roster because it would be 2 different files.

Kinda like an alternate reality where Alexander Ovechkin doesn't stink?

[Femur]

Kinda like an alternate reality where Alexander Ovechkin doesn't stink?

or that same "reality" where Ovy is up for the Lady Bing...i nearly fell out of my proverbial chair when i saw that in the sim...

[CapsGM]

Kinda like an alternate reality where Alexander Ovechkin doesn't stink?

or that same "reality" where Ovy is up for the Lady Bing...i nearly fell out of my proverbial chair when i saw that in the sim...

It's a bit on par with Mike Green getting nominated for the Norris.

[Virtual Jarmo]

From here on, we'll just do whatever EHM generated for the playoffs since our seedings are different and whatnot.

Also, I've about given up on the AHL Playoff file. I can't get the god damn thing to work. If someone else wants to put one together, they can, if not, I'm sorry and I'll toy with it for next year.

[Jets GM]

From here on, we'll just do whatever EHM generated for the playoffs since our seedings are different and whatnot.

Also, I've about given up on the AHL Playoff file. I can't get the god damn thing to work. If someone else wants to put one together, they can, if not, I'm sorry and I'll toy with it for next year.

So Western conference starts tomor iirc?

[Virtual Jarmo]

From here on, we'll just do whatever EHM generated for the playoffs since our seedings are different and whatnot.

Also, I've about given up on the AHL Playoff file. I can't get the god damn thing to work. If someone else wants to put one together, they can, if not, I'm sorry and I'll toy with it for next year.

So Western conference starts tomor iirc?

If that's how EHM sets it up, yeah. There's no point in flip-flopping the games in the schedule from here on out.

[Jets GM]

From here on, we'll just do whatever EHM generated for the playoffs since our seedings are different and whatnot.

Also, I've about given up on the AHL Playoff file. I can't get the god damn thing to work. If someone else wants to put one together, they can, if not, I'm sorry and I'll toy with it for next year.

So Western conference starts tomor iirc?

If that's how EHM sets it up, yeah. There's no point in flip-flopping the games in the schedule from here on out.

fyi, EHM sets up LA/NAS and VAN/CHI for tonight not tomor.

[Virtual Jarmo]

fyi, EHM sets up LA/NAS and VAN/CHI for tonight not tomor.

Cool. We'll go ahead as planned tonight then.

Ryan said he'd sim tonight. I'll forward anything I've gotten to him.

[NashvilleGM]

Good to know.

Let's do it.

[Penguin]

Can we open the trading right after the cup? Pleaseeeeeeeeeeeee