GM Activity

[SharksGM]

Well, I'll be blunt. It's pretty low at the moment. We're now down to 22 GMs, with open positions for ARI, CBS, FLA, OTT, PHI, PIT, STL and WAS. A year ago at this time we were fine - though we had a couple of available teams on average, we were getting a decent applicant every month or two. The applications have dried up in the last few months, unfortunately, and the response rate declined. Don't ask me why someone would apply and then not actually join when offered a spot a day or two later but it happens. We can get by with a few inactive GMs here and there but we're pretty rapidly approaching having to have two teams per GM and I don't think that's really going to work in the long term.

Anyway, I'm kind of out of ideas at this point. There seems to be a healthy community of online leagues for NHL:EHM on Discord and some others using SimonT's hockey sim but not many freeware EHM leagues left. I think we've done as much as we can with GMO to make managing as easy as possible, other than minor things like tracking draft picks and injuries online. Any suggestions?

[DevilsGM]

I think it is just that there is a dwindling player pool and few new people such as myself picking up the game. In terms of increasing the number of GM's I only see 2 possibilities.

1 advertise everywhere
2. Cannabolisr another league.

[The-Boss-GM]

Shorten the offseason.
I know your model is to mirror the real league but the off-season is a grind.

I don't know your history, but I bet you lose the most people during the transition.

[ColoradoGM]

I think there is a lot of great things about this league, probably the biggest thing I like is the GM Office, best thing I have seen in a league. I have great respect for the people that run these leagues so I certainly do not want to criticize. I think the pace of the league does hurt it. I agree with the offseason being long, especially if you have a weaker team. You have almost no reason to log in for a few months. I also think the pace of the league is a bit slow as well. Have you ever considered simming 2 days at a time? I have no idea if that is practical or not, but having each GM play at least 1 game every day or two will increase interest in my opinion. I think 2 seasons per calendar year would be a solid pace for the league as well, just my personal opinion. Either way, you guys do a great job running this league.

[DevilsGM]

I think a pace of 2 days could spice things up a bit. Flip between made up and real prospects. If we time it right we could do like 1 month for each offseason and then speed up the rest of the season by an x factor

[Calgary.Flames]

All of that is true but I think randomly created prospects will also cool down some people here, me being the first one. I take the off-season as a break because it’s all business when October comes around.

Keep the comments coming, guys. Thanks.

[DevilsGM]

Pre-Season & Regular Season: Mid-September --> Mid-April: 7 months
Playoffs: Mid-April --> Early June: ~2 Months

If we run regular/pre-season at 2x speed that is 3.5 months. The playoffs can be simmed at the pace of the GMs, lets assume 48h x (~6 games x 4 rounds) ~= 48 days or ~1.5 months. 5 months in total which leaves 1 month for off-season with draft and free agency.

I think a 2x speed would be realistic under these circumstances and wouldn't be too far off from the initial intent of the league. We would have to generate additional prospects for the drafts but I'd be willing to offer assistance with that kind of endevour.

All of that is true but I think randomly created prospects will also cool down some people here, me being the first one. I take the off-season as a break because it’s all business when October comes around.

Keep the comments coming, guys. Thanks.

This would produce two shorter offseasons, 1 in the regular July-September (depending on how we align it) and the other in the winter months around christmas

[Edmonton Mike]

If moving at a faster pace is what we need to do to get people to join the league -and get them to stay- then I think we should strongly consider it. But is our pace really the problem or is it EHM that doesn't attract people anymore?

As far as drafts go, personally, I couldn't care less if the top prospect of the 2019 class is named Jack Hughes or Hockey McPlayer. But I don't watch hockey so maybe that's just me.

[SharksGM]

I'm really not keen on doing twice as much work and making up fake prospects.

[Dallas Stars GM]

I will look around and find more guys. Hopefully they will be active and they will stay in the league.
Off-season is really dragging for too long, but I think there is no other way. Maybe we could have
competitions during the off-season with some rewards. We should come out with something to make
the off-season entertaining somehow. Any ideas?

Created teams competition, tournaments?
Articles?
Guessing game?
Rewards for prospects?
For veterans?
Favourite players?

All of us have to ask our friends and colleagues and everybody we know and also those that we do not know to
get some new people to this awesome league.

I am against any drastic changes. Keep the way it is. Slight changes are good - here and there but we have to keep some consistency.

[TorontoGM]

I have no interest in a sped up version of EHEC. The pace suits me perfectly and I really don't think putting more work onto the shoulders of our wonderful league staff is a good idea.

I have a friend who might be willing to join, I'll bug him about it.

[Edmonton Mike]

I guess this is a good time to say that Edmonton is def available if a couple new GMs magically appear and one of them wants to run the Oilers. I took them back 2 years ago to help, when Julien asked me, but this is def not something I plan on doing long term.

Until then, business as usual in Edmonton. Well at least until this season ends.

[IslandersGM]

THis is the longest league i've been a part of and it keeps going! I think that making quicker seasons would diminish some of the selling points. Many of us were in leagues that did quick seasons and where are those leagues now? Many had to reboot and reset players because leagues go so far into the future i think they were hard sells to new comers.

My summers take me away from my wifi but it's a needed break. I don't plan on going anywhere and if there is something more I can do to help out i'd be interested. I'll check around at work too and see. My Assistant Principal is a Flames fan and I know there's at least a couple of Canadians fans in the building.

I think the general reason is it's a freeware program that isn't easily found by people anymore. IF there was a way to boost it's presence again - a so called re invigoration or re interest in the game then I could see us benefiting from the game a day experience.

[RangersGM]

Maybe we could have competitions during the off-season with some rewards. We should come out with something to make the off-season entertaining somehow. Any ideas?

Created teams competition, tournaments?
Articles?
Guessing game?
Rewards for prospects?
For veterans?
Favourite players?

I really like Martin's ideas, and I think this kind of stuff could help with offseason engagement. I know I really enjoyed the divisional review posts this year.

In terms of the length of the season, I'm a fan of matching the real NHL's pace, and it's a part of how I initially became interested in the league.

That said, I think we could benefit from starting up the off-season activities a little quicker.
If we started the draft earlier in the summer, it would allow us to better compensate for how long it takes to run through it, and in turn we could start free agency much earlier as well.

I have a few friends I'm going to pitch the league to, and hopefully I'll get some bites.

[Bernyhawks]

I believe the league model is perfect.

Would a re-start with new teams and an updated roster allow us to fill up with new people and have a chance to build a new core with more GMs that stick around because they are attached to their original team? Always hard to join a team that has all players traded and random studs that nobody knows a la Granberg

[DevilsGM]

I don't think a restart is valid. Any time you join a league the players are strange to you, and there is always going to be inaccuracies in regards to how players develop.

As for summer competitions and stuff I'm all for it. In the other league I was in we used to have media points for writing stuff or entering compeetitions and you could claim rewards like

• Getting an additional underager
• Cap free buyout
• Height boost to player
• Other attribute boosts
• Injury time reduction

[SharksGM]

We did occasionally have rewards for writing things and I'm fine with that. I generally want to give more agency to GMs to guide how their players develop. I was thinking of some kind of boost to successful AHL teams and also a choice of POT/CON boosts to goalies to try to boost save percentages. I haven't really had the mental energy to come up with good practical implementations of any of the above so I'm all ears. Or eyes, rather.

[Jets GM]

Does Arizona have a GM?

[Calgary.Flames]

No, they don’t.

[Vik (Habs)]

Looks like Tomas Vincour was fast-signed for below league minimum, it went unfixed, and Arizona is now making use of that to stay under the cap.

That non-GM is being pretty wily.

[Vik (Habs)]

Some more fast-signs below league minimum:
Paul Carey
Taylor Stefishen
Craig Smith
Philippe Cornet
Nick Oliver

[The-Boss-GM]

One incentive you guys could use is "extra practices"

I don't know for what or how but I feel like they would definitely be coveted and it's a nice little bonus that doesn't skew things too much like cap leverage or draft picks.

[Calgary.Flames]

We had that before and got rid of them.

The game let’s you schedule only one XP per day and it’s a much longer process if you want more.

First come first serve isn’t an option and adding time to sim each night isn’t really cool either.

[The-Boss-GM]

We had that before and got rid of them.

The game let’s you schedule only one XP per day and it’s a much longer process if you want more.

First come first serve isn’t an option and adding time to sim each night isn’t really cool either.

That's a bummer.
I have no idea how you guys sim but I wouldn't want to add steps

[DevilsGM]

I imagine anything in the GM office is automated while the rest has to be inputed manually.

[SharksGM]

We could do one XP per team per month, I suppose. I do get frustrated at ridiculous schedules resulting in half of the team slumping.

[Jets GM]

We could do one XP per team per month, I suppose. I do get frustrated at ridiculous schedules resulting in half of the team slumping.

No way. EP are a dirty word and I will ignore any and all request when I am simming.

[Dallas Stars GM]

One XP a month sounds like a smart idea for everybody involved, I guess.

[Jets GM]

Hey everyone, here are links to where I have made a recruitment post:

Reddit : https://www.reddit.com/r/EHM/comments/9 ... e_seeking/
GM Games: http://forums.gmgames.org/topic/1327-ea ... entry37423
Hockey Virtuel: https://www.hockeyvirtuel.ca/threads/ea ... post-15451
EHM the Blueline: https://www.ehmtheblueline.com/forums/v ... 00#p238700
HFBoards: https://hfboards.mandatory.com/threads/ ... -151766133

Feel free to copy my post and paste it elsewhere....

Any other ideas about where this could be posted to recruit GMs? I only received 2 applications since this push and it does not look like they will materialise into new GMs.

I would also encourage GMs to create accounts and post in the threads linked above about their experience with EHEC and how its the greatest EHM league off all time.

The health of the league and our ability to continue is contingent on having an acceptable level of active GMs. At this point, with 22 active GMs, we are beginning to teeter into uncharted (dangerous) territory.