CCHL Off-season getting underway!

 Welcome back to the Commissioner’s Corner, and now that the expansion draft is a thing of the past, we can review a whole bunch of stuff related to it and the upcoming months.

First, full credit to each CCHL General Manager for their expansion protection lists.  With all due respect, when we made the expansion rules, we could not have imagined how well each team would manage those rules and use them to their advantage.  It created a situation where so many UFA players were exposed, the teams could not fill out a roster without the exemption of allowing them three UFA player re-signs for this season only.  This was important for roster numbers but to also avoid making these teams completely disadvantaged coming into the season.

On that note, I think the expansion teams did a very good job of taking the best players available to them.  It presents them with an opportunity to be in a lot of games next year, or to move those players for future assets.  It has set them up nicely for the future in my humble opinion. 

Trading will remain closed for another week, and we’ll announce exactly when it opens later in the week.  The reason for the trade freeze right now is to give Bobby an opportunity to switch over team payrolls for the upcoming season so we are not in full scramble mode after an off-season of trading.  Once it does open, it will only open for a week as we get into the free agent season after that where rosters must be frozen to manage the process.

RFA/UFA re-signs are due to the league by April 23^rd so we can process and drop players available for free agency at that time with the expected round one to be due by May 3^rd. 

There is a lot happening over the next few months and I love this time of year (despite the work involved).  There might be a summer freeze so I can dedicate some time to doing some web stuff to potentially make things easier for the league, but it’s hard to say at this point if this is a real goal or a hypothetical goal. 

All in all, a lot of stuff happening including the closing of our financial season this week when midnight hits on Thursday night. 

Keep checking regularly as the offseason is going to be in full swing shortly!