FRANCHISE HOCKEY RULES 2008-09
updated August 11, 2008

Summer of 2008 changes to the rulebook are in red

Entry Fee:

$27.50.  Includes $25 + $2.50 for Officepools per year.

Prize Money:

$125 for first, $50 for second, $25 for third.  

Roster size:
30 players on each team

-15 forwards
-6 defense
-2 goalies
-7 player bench (any position)
-prospect team (unlimited, two added each year)

Your 15/6/2 roster is your active roster, where your points come from. The bench consists of players at any position and can be moved onto your active roster at the end of every month during the season until the end of February.  Each team has 3 additional roster moves they can use at any time during the season.  Your prospects are drafted as Calder eligible players and can’t be placed on your bench or active roster until signed to a contract.

Scoring is goals plus assists for all skaters. Goalies at 2 for a win, minus 1 for a loss and bonus of 3 for a shutout. OT and shootout wins and losses count the same as regulation wins and losses.

The in-season player rosters may not drop below or exceed the range of 27-33 players.

Prospect Draft: 

Every season we will hold a prospect draft.  The draft will take place before the auction. 

The draft will be two rounds.  Draft order will be determined by a separate lottery for both rounds.

The first place team picks 8^th in each round.

The second and third place teams receive 6 ballots or “titties”.
The fourth and fifth place teams receive 5 titties.
The sixth and seventh place teams receive 4 titties.
The eighth place team receives 3 titties.

To be eligible as a prospect, a player must be drafted or signed as a free agent by an NHL team and must qualify for the Calder trophy. 

Calder Trophy eligibility: A player cannot have played more than 25 games in any single season, nor in six or more games in each of any two preceding seasons. Also, a player can be no older than 26 before Sept. 15 of the year he's eligible. 

There is no cross-over, a player is either Calder eligible and available in the prospect draft or not Calder eligible and available in the auction.

Farm team costs are $1/1/3/3/5/5/7/7, with the dollar value corresponding to the number of years he’s been a prospect in the league.

Effective the summer of 2008 draft, all prospects drafted will only be eligible to be signed up to 5 years. Any prospects drafted in previous years will still have a 7 year maximum. Prospects selected in the summer of 2008 will only have a 5 year max.

Once a prospect has played 100 NHL games, he must be signed to a contract or released.  This also applies only to prospects drafted in summer of 2008 and later.

If you chose to bring your prospect onto your active roster or bench, you must sign him to a contract. The prospect’s contract price is the same, regardless of how long he’s been protected. The cost structure is:

YEARS   PRICE

1       $1

2       $2

3       $3

4       $4

5       $6

6       $8  (applies only to 2007 prospects and earlier)

7       $10 (applies only to 2007 prospects and earlier)      

These costs are a flat rate paid over the length of the contract. A six year deal costs $8 per season for six years.

You can’t bring prospects up during the year, only as a contract before the auction.  You may keep a player as a prospect as long as you wish.

*Sydney Crosby, will be selected in the 2005-06 auction, not the prospect draft.

Restricted Free Agency:

Any player who was signed to a one year contract or has come to the end of his contract is eligible for RFA. This phase will take place several weeks before the auction. All GMs may place bids on up to seven RFAs. The minimum bid on a player is his current price. A bid must be accompanied by a one, two or three year offer. A list will be compiled and published of the bids, ranking them for each player from highest to lowest. Dollar value on the bid will determine the ranking, a $14 three year bid is beaten by a $15 one year bid. However, the years will break ties for bids of equal dollar value.  If two identical offers are made, the GM who finished lower in the standings the previous season acts first.

The first place team GM will go first (actually a disadvantage) and for all his bids that were the highest for any given player he will have the option to proceed with the official bid on the player or remove his bid. If he chooses to remove his bid, the second highest bidder becomes the top bidder. All bids he chooses to proceed with will be presented to the current owners of those players, in the order he chooses. The GM may submit one offer, determine the outcome, then decide whether or not he wants to proceed with his next offer or retract the bid. The reason for this is that a team may be looking for one goalie and place offers on four goalies. He only wants to sign one, so will make offers until he gets one, then retract all other offers.

If an offer is presented to a GM, he has two choices: give up the player, or pay the price offered to the player. If the GM matches the offer, he can sign him to the number of years specified in the offer or increase the deal up to a maximum of three years.  The matching GM may only increase the number of years, not decrease.

Once the first GM has finished retracting bids, placing bids and had all his offers matched or declined, we move to all the 2nd place GM’s top bids. The process continues until we reach the last place GM, then we go back to the first place GM who may now have some new top bids due to other GMs retracting their offers. The cycle continues until any player with a bid on him has either had an offer made or has had all preliminary bids retracted.

No trades or agreements involving RFA actions at any time.  No trades or discussion of trades or bids during RFA.  No trades of any kind during this period.  The ban will start when an email is sent to all GM's and will conclude with the completion of RFA.  Discussion includes, but is not limited to: suggestions of which players/teams/amounts to bid or to bid on or offering advice on any RFA decision to another GM.

 

The intent of the rule is to preserve the function of RFA.  That being, one GM deciding for himself the appropriate action for his own team in all RFA decisions.  One team can no longer pursue their agenda through the actions of another team.  Any violation of this is up to the discretion of the co-commissioners.

Contract Extensions:

If a player makes it through free agency and hasn’t had any offers made on him, he may be signed to a contract extension. Contract extensions are for one or two years. Extension price is the same as original auction price.

After the completion of this one-time extension (or RFA signing), the player automatically returns to the auction pool.

Auction Day:

All teams start the auction with $300, less contracts and farm team costs. All teams must bring their roster up to 30 players.

The previous years champion will nominate the first player. Any player can be nominated at a minimum bid of one dollar (you can open higher if you wish). Note: players who are eligible for the Calder trophy may not be selected in the auction.

Bidding for a player, once nominated, proceeds as a free for all, until bidding slows and is eventually counted down with a going once, twice, three times, sold count. Once purchased by the highest bidder, that player’s price is deducted from the team’s cash that purchased him. We then proceed clockwise with the next nomination, repeating the above process until all rosters are full.

Bidding in increments of one dollar minimum. Can’t bid on a player if you can’t afford to pay him or if you have his position and your bench full.

Auction dollars become null and void once your 30th roster spot is filled.  Future cash cannot be traded during the auction. Once a team selects it’s 30^th player, they may re-enter the auction by trading away a player, but only re-enter with the cash that was freed up by the player’s salary.  No team can exceed 30 players on their roster until the auction is complete.

After the auction is completed, teams have will be given a deadline to email their contracts and active roster to [email protected]. This is neutral email address that will be used for roster moves, contracts, contract decisions and trades. Emails will not be read until after the cutoff time. The administrator will also email his moves to this address prior to the cutoff time. This is set up to ensure no one has an advantage by seeing other GMs moves prior to making their own decisions.

Contracts:

Contracts can be signed for up to five years, but minimum one year. Contract price is the same as the auction price for the duration of the contract.

Contracts may be bought out for the greater of $15 or half of the player’s salary. Dollar values will be rounded up. A buyout is for players signed to long term contracts that you don’t want on your team anymore. You do not pay the player’s salary, but pay the buyout amount and the player goes back into the auction.

Roster Moves:

At the end of each month, you can move players from your bench to your active roster. Deadline for roster moves is 10 PM PST on the last day of the month. Trades only take effect at the beginning of any given month. Points scored by traded players stay with their former teams.

Each team has 3 additional roster moves they may use at any time during the season.  Trades only take effect at month end. 

The deadline for moves is 4PM PST for current days games.  The exception is that the drop or the activated player’s team has not played a game earlier that day.  In that case, the deadline would be puck drop on the earliest game one of the players involved.

Trades:

Trade deadline is February 28th, 10 pm PST. During the season teams may exchange any combination of players, future auction cash, prospects and prospect picks. Your salary cap may go over $300 during the season, as long as your contracts that are signed through the next season aren’t over $300 (less one dollar per empty roster spot).

From the conclusion of the auction until the trading deadline, teams may not trade away more than $20 in future cash. If offers contain clauses that vary the amount of cash (GM's option or performance clause), the higher dollar amount will be used for the purpose of the $20 cap.  This is a net cap, so if you trade $10 to acquire a player, then receive $5 for a player, your cap amount is $5.

It is mandatory that RFA rights be included when a player is traded. Trading future rights to a player or trading a player but keeping his RFA rights is prohibited.

No deals may take place where a player who is currently under contract is loaned to another team or promised to another team in the future.

Any trade may be overruled by an appeal to the commissioner and the commissioner putting the trade to a vote. In the case of a vote the GM’s not involved in the trade will vote yes or no on whether the trade should take place. Please note this is only in extreme circumstances and is meant as a deterrent to fire-sales or pool throwing not as a safety net for poor deals.

Deadlines and Fines:

A GM that misses a deadline, regardless of the excuse, will have to choose between paying a $7 fine or face a pre-determined status quo outcome.  The alternative to the $7 fine will vary, depending on the type of deadline.

The fine will be collected at the next auction and re-distributed by giving one auction dollar to each GM (unless otherwise specified).

RFA Blind Bids- $7 fine or no bids.

RFA Tampering- Violation of RFA discussion/trade rule.  $15 fine payable by the offending GM to the GM that forwards evidence of the infraction to the co-commissioners.

Extensions, Prospects & Buyouts- $7 fine or no extensions, all prospects protected, no buyouts.

Contracts and Opening Roster-  $7 fine or all one year contracts and opening lineup is by dollar value and alphabetical (player’s last name).

Roster Moves- $7 fine or no moves.  If later than 1 hour, moves will not take effect until the second day of the month.  If a move is required due to a trade during the month and the GM doesn’t want to pay the fine, a random player will be activated from the teams bench.

Trade Deadline- Deals are not considered valid if the deadline is missed.  Trades must be confirmed by both parties.  If the trade is submitted by one GM in time for a deadline, the second GM’s confirmation is not necessary to be received by the deadline for the trade to go through.

Just an official note, that any email submission prior to any deadline can be revised or reversed by the GM at any time prior to the deadline.  It is not necessary to state this in the email either, it will be universal for any submission by email.  Any banterboard announcement will be considered final, with the exception of trades which require confirmation from the second team.

A reminder, when submitting roster moves to be extra careful that all your substitutions match up.  It’s best to go through your Officepools active roster and name the player you want OUT and the bench player you want to sub IN to that specific spot.  Be sure to account for all your trades.  Trading away an active player for a bench player requires you to state PLAYER A – TRADED OUT, PLAYER B IN.  In the event a GM submits his moves on time, but the moves are unclear based on the wording, or simply not accounting for a traded out player spot, Commish will contact the GM and attempt to get the right moves submitted.

Mid-season:

There will be no mid-season draft or acquisition of free agents during the season.