League Status

[SCHL Commish]

Hello everyone,

I didn't know where to really post this thread, but I decided this was the best place. The other day our league turned six years old and it got me to thinking what other leagues have been around for the long hull and the neat features that have kept them going for so long. I guess this post is for all the commissioners just to put up there link to their site, how long it's been going on for, and the reason for your success. I think it will be nice to see all the leagues with the most stablity in one thread!

P.S. Thank you Simon for keeping this sim up to date and the best on the internet! Couldn't even imaige using the other one anymore!

[myRPHA.com]

Hey there,

The RPHA began in 1998 and is currently in it's 19th season. We had two 28 team leagues playing 5 playoff rounds until recently. We have downsized to 50 teams and are looking to switch to one combined 50 team league in Season 20 and making the move to STHS. Secrets to longevity I guess would be dedicated staff and passionate GM's. GM turnover is very limited and hardly happens. Our webmaster is amazing as well. We sim every day and each season takes about 7-8 months which includes a 6-7 week offseason, 2-week pre-season, all star game, playoffs and bi-annual international tournaments. The league uses completely fictional teams and players and uses a farm league, Junior league and AAA league for player development.

Over the years we have had GM meetings where GM's have actually traveled across Canada to attend. These gatherings can last 2-5 days. Due to these meetings and low GM turnover, many friendships have been born both among GM's and their respective families. The RPHA is truly one large family and includes GM's from North America primarily, but we have also reached Japan and Europe. An age group of 20-50 makes for great success as well. If I could suggest one thing regarding your GM's it would be this - listen to them, hear them out and include them in debate and decisions. Even if your staff makes the final decision, the opinions and ideas of a group of passionate GM's is unparalleled in value.

There are no plans to slow down any time soon and the next step in the evolution of myRPHA.com is the switch to STHS I believe. The most important thing to try and achieve is a competitive nature with a balanced fun factor. Rules need to be solid and foundational and if you are lucky enough to create a staff that shares your passion, you can entertain a lot of people for a long time. All this is not possible though without the support (or tolerance) of wives that "put up with" the entire thing. We firmly have our eyes set on 15 and 20 year anniversaries in the future and hopefully STHS is along for the ride.

[SimonT]

hopefully STHS is along for the ride.

I'll!

[Skyward Hockey]

Good thread to have here - surprised more didn't post their sim league stories.

The PFHL started in 2002 with Aaron Sanderson at the helm as commish. The league folded in 2006 when Aaron got settled down with a wife and kid. At the time I was a GM (been there since the beginning) and went on my own way along with the others. In the fall of 2008 I decided to give a crack at commishing and brought the P back out of mothballs. Aaron and others came back to help out and before you knew it we had 30 GM's back in the league. Most of the old hands returned as well.

Since then, we've had some awesome highs and some lows - we still have a solid group from the olden days. But we truly have 30 committed guys that are amazingly active, and any new guys that come in feed off that and have fun with it. We are a very serious league - we like to say we're the best in the sim hockey world. What makes that happen is the quality of GM's we have along with the great support of veteran sim hockey guys like Aaron, Patrick King, Dan Bacon, Russ Butturini, and many others.

The reason we've been successful is the dedication of the GM's. I try to throw in some fun activities and other things along the way as well. Here are some things you just don't find in other leagues:

-- A true dedication to realism: Hard to find many leagues out there that stick to an NHL-type schedule. We sim one season a year and have the most realistic off-season and in-season FA negotiation programs around. We also have a prospect creation system designed by a Canadian junior hockey reporter who gives us as realistic a prospect as you can get.

-- Interviews and video features: We just capped off our 2010 trade deadline with an all-day video stream from my house. From 10am to 11pm, I covered all the trades happening and updated the sim and website every hour. We had 30 trades that day, and all but a few GM's were online throughout the day.

-- MSN activity: We have half the league online at just about any time of the day. We have GM's from Sweden, Canada, the States, and more - just a great atmosphere.

Take a look yourself.

http://pfhl.vetsson.net

[Icepilot]

The IHL will be entering it's 9th year. The last 2 years we have been using the STHS and used the Web portal last season.

The other league i sim for is entering it's 20 season. Was using the other sim until i took over the simming of the league. Have added the web portal to it's history for it's 20th season.

[QSHL]

The QSHL has been around for 6 seasons and a half now (October 2003). We're closing out on our 16th season. We use a fully fictional, 16-team league.

The initial commish had to leave at some point and some GMs carried it over until I took fully control of the league in our 11th season. We switched to STHS V1 for the 12th season and we'll move to STHS V2 next season.


We're all Montreal-based GMs who have known one or another member of the league. It's mandatory to enter the league : being recommanded by one current member.


All our drafts are held at one of our member's house. We usually have a turn out of 14 or 15 members out of 16, but believe me, if they could, we'd all show up.


Keys to success : originality, listen to your members, involve as many people as possible to small tasks so everybody feels like they're part of the league (organise all-star games, get involved in international tournaments, be in charge of making up new players names or new coaches names, organise the trophies, etc.).



While we're at it, I'd like to thank the CSHL (Canadian Stats Hockey League), who was of a great inspiration for both Dan and I when we created the QSHL. This league is awesome too, and I tried to convince it's president to switch over to STHS. I hope they will, sooner than later.

And a quick hello to Steph from the RPHA. I used to have a team in your league, a long, long time ago. I was the founder of the Chateauguay team (Knights? Cavaliers? Can't remember the name). I created such legendary names such as Djipy Rulz, Capitaine Lulu and others that still feature in your all-time top scorers. I always peek into these once in a while. I'm happy to see the league is still running and that you're switching over to STHS.

[myRPHA.com]

David? Is that you?

[QSHL]

Nope. Sorry. I guess David is the name of the guy who took over after I left half-a-season into it.

I'm Alexandre.

[myRPHA.com]

I stand corrected, my apologies. Nice to hear from you again Alexandre. Glad to see you are still involved in sim league hockey. Yes it's been a wild ride for us and we are still going strong. STHS is just the next chapter in the RPHA legacy. It is being welcomed with cautious optimism (fear of the unknown), but open arms for the most part.

[myRPHA.com]

Oh, and I forgot to mention, it was the Chateauguay Guerrier.

[shamrocks]

The WHL is only in its 2nd season but it was created after the XHL folder after 10 years. I joined the XHL in 2001 as just a GM but immediately got involved with web designing for the league. The Commissioner had to leave for personal reasons and then I took over for a few seasons prior to it folding. Prior to folding I spoke with the majority of hte league's GMs and we decided to start up the WHL (http://www.whlsim.net). So although we are only in our 2nd season, it feels more like our 11th year.

Certainly been a blessing having the STHS and Portal created as the XHL originally used Xbox to sim games and all stats recorded and posted online (a very long and painful process). lol.

We have some turnovers but usually have a solid 28 dedicated GM's. Always looking for guys to join the waiting list.

Wishing all you commissioners out there the best of luck with thier leagues.

[Président ANHS]

The ANHS (Association Nationale de Hockey Simulé) started out in March 2000. After I joined my first league which folded after one complete season (which was so often the case back then) because of a bad setup for free agent signings, I decided to create my own league. When I asked the commish of that league if I could take the rule set he had for the league to setup mine, I knew I had a great start. That league had great rules, but very poor FA management possibilities. So I set up my own league, created a better way of signing free agents for the end of our first season, and 15 seasons later, the system still works great and the league is in great shape. The league started out with NHL players but starting with the very first draft after our first season, we started retiring NHL players and creating fantasy players. So right now, the league is completely fantasy and about 97% of original NHL players have been retired.

After the first season though, the league came into hiatus because my computer was unusable for about 6 months. Since I had just moved into my first apartment, I didn't have the money to buy another one so I had to wait a while before I could restart the league. Fresh computer, league files intact and ready to start up, I had about 15 of my original GM's stay and we even did a 2 team expansion to make the league 30 teams.

The league went from 28 to 30 to 32 to 28 to 24 teams along the way. We have removed teams because we figured involvement from other GM's was not always at its best with a bigger league and felt like 24 was a good number. Half of our GM's have been around since Season 5 or before (so about 7 years in reality and 10 simmed seasons) and the majority of the other GM's have been around since season 10. GM losses are very rare but do happen.

The past 4 years have been very hard in order to maintain interest in the league. I took a full year break because I was really "tired" of running the league and didn't want to go on doing it half-assed. So I stopped. That year off was very beneficial. Beneficial enough that I restarted the league right before I went back to school full time at 32 years old while still working a full time job on weekends at night. Through all that, 90% of my GM's stuck by me, stuck by the problems, stuck by the ups and downs, the breaks, you name it. This is why I consider that I have one of the best core of GM's in the community as they would not have stayed were they not passionate about the game and the league.

My motto has always been that any league is just as good as the GM's want to make it. If your GM's are interested, passionate and love the game, the league will remain for a long time. Because they will be ready to do anything and make suggestions in order to make it better and help everyone to have a good time.

Right now we are on the verge of signing free agents for the beginning of our 16th season. We are going into our first official STHS season after about 10 test seasons. We are very excited but also very cautious as RPHA commish said it because everyone has a bit of fear of the unknown, specially with very stable FHL leagues. A lot of changes to our rules had to be made to adapt to the new sim, but overall I think it will only make the league better in itself.

Aside from the Pro league, we will be running a full farm for the first time in ages. I did it for 2 seasons using FHL but gave up as it became very hard to manage 2 league files with players in both leagues. We also have a junior development league from which we draft our young players.

Hopefully I will be able to get back into gear with regular sims and be able to run the league as smoothly as I used to when I started 11 years ago. If that so happens, we should be making it to Season 20 about this time in 2013.

Thanks for reading my league's story and best of luck with your leagues all around!

[WCHLcommish]

Some pretty awesome stories in here.

Mine's not as glamourous, but I'm still proud of the WCHL. We started in September, 2003, and have been going full time ever since, minus an approximately shut down of two months due to computer issues.

We are now just completing our 13th season. I had only heard of 1-2 other leagues running as long/longer than ours before I stumbled onto this thread, so it really speaks volumes to how hard it is to find a dedicated sim league out there. I'm in two other leagues, both have been running 5-7 years as well, and I will only seek out leagues that have been running for several years if I am interested in joining another league. To bad so few GM's out there seek out leagues based on their stability, rather than what team they can control or what players they could have.

I have been with the WCHL since its inception, but have been the commissioner for just two seasons now. A friend of mine was the commissioner for the first 11 seasons, but stepped down due to family issues, mainly the birth of his second child. He still remains as a GM though, and about 10 of our GM's have been with the league for most, if not all, of the 13 seasons we've done.

I am looking forward to keeping the WCHL running for many years to come and hoping that the GM's we have in place will remain with us for the long haul, as many friendships have been attained by this league so far.

Congratulations to the other GM's/commissioners who have posted in this thread already and give yourself a big pat on the back for your dedication. It doesn't always take a lot of time each day, but it still requires you to show up everyday, and that means something.

Keep up the good work and I know I'll be looking over your respective league sites to see what you are doing so well. Maybe I'll even apply to join

Trent Allen
WCHL Commissioner
http://www.wchlhockey.blogspot.com/

[Président ANHS]

It doesn't always take a lot of time each day, but it still requires you to show up everyday, and that means something.

Regular season duties aren't the hardest to accomplish. It is mainly the off season that can be a b*tch to accomplish as there are a lot of things to do and they take much longer than simming a day's worth of games in the regular season. But overall, even though it's a lot of work, I like the off-season work a lot more than regular season, specially since it's the time of the season at which you can really see which GM's are really active in your league.

[QSHL]

Totally agree.

The only task I keep for myself is the manual rerates of all 800+ players.

It's friggin' long, but it allows me -- having a fully fictional league -- to amplify some guys and drastically modify others, thus promting my personality team to come up with good ideas to justify these.


Free agents is great. We have 4 dedicated GMs who cover up for me and do the whole thing through 5 different rounds of offers, counter-offers, etc.

Daily simulation is smooth.