Fort Erie Falcons Host Duncan Keith Bobble Head Night

 Fort Erie, ON – The Fort Erie Falcons are proud to announce that they will be hosting a Duncan Keith Bobble Head Night to celebrate the legendary defenseman’s illustrious hockey career. This special event will take place on March 14th at the Happy Jacks’ Center and will feature the distribution of Duncan Keith Bobble Heads to the first 5,000 fans in attendance.

“Duncan is one of the most accomplished defensemen in the history of the game and we’re thrilled to be honoring him with this special event,” said Falcons GM, Matt Young. “We believe that this will be a great way to celebrate his career and recognize the impact he’s had on the sport.”

Keith is a three-time Kehler Cup champion who has established himself as one of the top defensemen of his generation. He has been a key player for the few CCHL teams he's played for over a decade and has earned a reputation as a fierce competitor and skilled defender.

“We’re excited to be bringing this special event to our fans and hope that they’ll join us in honoring Duncan’s incredible career as it ends this season.  It's also great because of our close proximity to Niagara Falls, the Thunder fans can come out and show support that evening as well,” said Young. “This is a great opportunity for fans to show their support for one of the greatest defensemen of all time.”

The Fort Erie Falcons would like to encourage all fans to come out and celebrate Duncan Keith Bobble Head Night on March 14th. This is a great opportunity to show support for a legendary player and to celebrate the sport of hockey.

4 facts you didn't know about Donuts

 It is starting to come to the end of season and a good spot to check the numbers coming into the playoffs. If you are in the hunt, the information might even be useful for you. All stats are from statpage in Simon and at current day no 138 (after game 72 for the Donuts).

Faceoffs in defensive zone, 56%

You might already know the Donuts are tops in FO% for the league, as seen in the leader board. But did you know we absolutely kills you in our defensive zone with a 56% won! That is about 2,5% better than no 2. So not much use you start your attack from there... Strangely it doesn't carry over in the other zones, we are 4th in offensive zone and second behind Portland who absolutely kills it in Neutral zone, about 2% better than us. I guess it is a good thing there is no goal in the neutral zone then.

Passing in defensive zone, 32%

So you do have FO against Donuts in their end, what do you do? One thing you can do is take advantage of horrible passing in their own end from the Donuts. By combining passes and completed passes in each zone we should get a success rate for passing in each zone, 32%/50%/69% that is a significant difference in passing success between the different zones. Why is this? No idea, looks like a Simon thing. All teams are similar in numbers and it is interesting to see that all teams are fairly equal in passing attempts in offensive and defensive zone but the success rate is about the double in the offensive zone. Can't really see the logic working there, maybe the forwards are better passers than the defense men or something?

First period snipers, SH 12,5%

When meeting the ´nuts your team better have a good night sleep. The Donuts score most of their goals in the first period. It is as expected fairly close 100/89/95 between the periods. What makes it kind of interesting however is that they shot the fewest shots in first period, 803/944/841. So it is the opposite of the goals scored so SH% would spell 12,5%/9,5%/11,3%. Now you can't really compare with OT but as expected the numbers are higher there, but also small numbers, 12 goals in 60 shots make a 20% SH in OT. You should note that Iceland Icecats will shoot you to death in OT while Seattle Reign likes to go home early and wont go to OT at all if they can help it.

Losing at home, 2 times

Is there a home advantage in fantasy sports, well apparently so. The Donuts are league best in fewest looses during regulation time with 2 at home. The top 4 teams in CCHL are all in the top 4 here as well. So I guess coming in as no 1 seed could have an advantage with game 7 on home ice.

Your strategy

So the numbers are clear don't go to Wisborg and expect to win, be ready when the game starts, if you have a faceoff in offensive zone get ready to break the outlet pass instead of the faceoff. If you wanna requst some rule changes you can skip road games and skip first period to be successful against the sweet Donuts.

Chippawa Crackerjacking

 It’s both humbling and entertaining to have opponent organization GMs use you as the butt of their jokes. There’s also something vindicating about learning and growing through your method and approach when you have success.

 It hasn’t been easy over the last three seasons for the “Jacks” and at this time it seems an inevitability that we will make our first playoff run. That isn’t the plan though. The plan is to create a responsible balanced team that will be able to compete hard as we make smart draft decisions and create a continual funnel of talent. 

Taking our time with players like Knizhov will hopefully payoff and next season there will be substantial turnover in the roster bringing in some younger talent to replace the veterans that are leaving. This process will continue in the coming years and hopefully will result in a cost controlled and competitive team with the opportunity to add top tier talent for a championship push, but that is possibly many years down the road. 

The challenge now is to trust the process, plan and execute. There are no illusions of success but, we also won’t steal the joy from our players for any success they achieve in the coming years. That’s sports. That’s hockey. 

CCHL Announces Rule Changes Effective for the 2023-24 Season

 As with our annual tradition, the CCHL Executive Committee has reviewed our rules and the following changes will be made for the 2023-24 season. 

 

1) Trading UFA players – A proposal was put forth that we make a change to the game 41 rule for a few reasons:

a) Not all teams play their 41st game at the same time so some teams can get 3 extra games out of it because they trade with a team that played game 41 early.  

b) Our finances are done by season days now, not based on games played.  

c) It's really limiting in terms of locking players into rosters that don't fit

d) Players are being traded ahead of the deadline anyways so we're not preventing anything.....it's just not made official prior.  

 

PROPOSAL:  Teams may trade any player you signed as a UFA the previous offseason, anytime prior to game 41, but the team that signed the player and trades the player must pay 75% of the player's salary that season from cash reserves as a penalty (call it premature relocation expenses).  

The acquiring team continues to pay the player's salary from the day acquired.  In essence, moving the player early right after signing, causes them to pay a bonus to the player.  This can be done for up to two (2) players per season as well, to avoid a situation where 12 are signed and moved for assets at the cost of cash.  This prevents a massive overbid on a player and then moving him right away as a guy overpaid at 10 million would cost 7.5 million 

 

Benefits:  It prevents rosters from being super locked down but still has a significant deterrent for doing it prior to game 41.  The acquiring team cannot transfer the funds back to the team trading the player and all trades between those teams involving finances will be reviewed for the full season to ensure this policy is not circumvented.

 

This change has passed with some debate about harsher penalties (we will revisit if this is becoming a minor stepping stone to acquiring prospects/picks; ie: teams do not care about the extent of the monetary penalty) and will be reflected in the rules under section N, rule 4 as the following:

 

NEW:  Effective for the 2023-24 season, teams may trade any player signed via free agency prior to game 41, however that team is subjec to pay 75% of that season's salary from their cash reserves (call it "relocation expenses") as a penalty for moving said player.  The team acquiring the player is not permitted to send any financial support to the team trading the player in order to avoid circumventing the penalty for the trading team.  The team acquiring the player will assume the salary as of the date of acquisition (it is not discounted because of the penalty).  All future trades between the two teams will be monitored as well for that season in order to ensure that this circumvention does not take place at a later date.  Teams may trade up to two (2) players signed as UFAs each season in order to avoid CCHL franchises using free agency as a basis to build a team and recoup prospects and/or picks.

Example:  In May of 2023, Springfield signs Johnny Pucker to a 2 year, $1,000,000 contract.  In October, Springfield trades Johnny Pucker to Amos.  Springfield will pay a $750,000 penalty for the trasaction, while Amos assumes the contract the day that they acquire the player - thus the player gets a "relocation bonus" for having to move after signing in his chosen destination.  Since players in the CCHL cannot have "no-move" clauses in their contracts, this allows them to at least benefit in some way for a premature trade.  While $750,000 does not seem like a harsh penalty, if this was a $10,000,000 player, a penalty of $7,500,000 becomes quite significant and reduces the desire to make said trade due to the financial deterrant in place.

Increase goalie fatigue and changing goaltender usage

At present goalies fatigue as follows:

1 for 34 shots faced in a game, 2 for 38 shots faced in a game and 3 for 42 shots faced in a game.  The numbers are high and goalie fatigue is rarely an issue unless a team is significantly unmonitored with relation to the CCHL schedule.

 

Proposal:  1 for 27 shots per game, 2 for 30 shots faced and 3 for 35+ shots faced per game. 

 

Benefits:  It allows/forces teams to play their backup goalie in back-to-back games to make the league more realistic and require more strategy.  

 

Set a maximum goalie-played rule at 68 games per season.  This means the backup has to play at a minimum of 15 games per season.  There would no longer be a cap of games played based on the previous NHL season.  

 

Why?  The original games played limit was to limit the impact of great seasons by goalies who had a .935 save percentage but only played 13 games as it distorted performance in APBA.  Since we no longer use APBA this system, in my eyes, is outdated since everything is done on ratings.  

 

Benefits - Teams have more flexibility in their rosters as long as they don't exceed 68 games played and it reduces the huge task Chris has in assembling the goalie usage report.  As Paul says, keep it simple and it's very simple to monitor goalie use this way - and we still have the same penalties for overuse.  

 

Exception:  If a goaltender played more than 68 games the previous NHL season, they may be used to their NHL games played that previous season. 

 

These changes passed and the rules have been updated under section Q, rule 1 as follows:

 

NEW:  Effective the 2023-24 season, the CCHL will establish a maximum use of 68 games played unless they played over that total in the previous NHL season.  If they play over 68 games in the previous NHL season, they are eligible for that NHL total in the CCHL.  We are eliminating the 150% rule as that was designed for the APBA simulator to prevent a goaltender that played 8 NHL games with an abnormal save perecentage from dominating the league.  With Simon not utilizing the save percentage feature and relying on ratings, this is no longer a relevant benchmark; thus the impetus for change.

For example, if Robert Luongo played 12 games in the 2021-22 NHL season, he could play up to 68 in the 2022-23 CCHL season.  Had Luongo played 75 games in the 2021-22 NHL season, he is eligible for up to 75 games in the 2022-23 CCHL season. 

1 b) Goaltender fatigue in the Simon T simulator will consist of the following for the 2023-24 season.  If a goaltender faces 27 shots, they will lose 1 day of fatigue conditioning.  If a goaltender faces 30 shots, they will lose 2 days of fatigue conditioning and if a goaltender faces greater than 35 shots they will lose 3 days of fatigue.  Fatigue always starts at 100 so in theory after back-to-back games, it would essentially force the goaltender to rest if there was a third game in four nights; essentially bringing realism and strategy into goaltender rotation. 

 

 

4) Reducing waiver time:  

 

Proposal:  Reduce the amount of time a player is on waivers from 7 days to 3 days

 

Benefits:  Under 5% of players are claimed and I'll be honest, 7 days is a long time for me to remember to clear it and add it to the transactions for Bobby to process.  

 

This rule change passed and will be reflected in the rules section G, rule 1 as follows:

 

NEW:  Effective the 2023-24 CCHL season, a player will only go on waivers for a period of three (3) days.  This is a result of how many players do not get claimed when waived and to reduce the administrative time/backtracking to process the waived player a week later.

 

 

 Player fatigue in Simon T:  

 

Proposal:  Increase fatigue recovery from 1 to 1.14 days per simulation day.

 

The reason for this change is that the NHL season is played over 184 days and our CCHL season is done over 161 days.  184/161 is 1.14 days.  

 

The impetus for the adjustment is that our durability ratings are based on the full NHL season, so we want to adjust the recovery rate to at least meet the NHL standard days of the season.  

 

It's a small tweak but allows players to potentially miss a few less games with injury since our schedule is a bit more compressed with an extra game in it.  

 

This change passed and will be reflected under the newly written rule V that says exactly what is stated above. 

 

 

 

CCHL Commissioner Addresses Rumours Teams Are Doing Dishonour for Connor!

As the draft approaches in the CCHL, there were whispers that some teams were purposely losing games in order to get a higher draft pick and secure Connor Bedard, the highly touted prospect who was expected to be the first overall pick in the upcoming draft.

These rumors started to gain traction, and the CCHL commissioner became concerned about the integrity of the league. He called a press conference to address the issue and put an end to the speculation.

"I want to make it clear that the teams in the CCHL are not tanking for Connor Bedard," he stated firmly. "We have a strict policy in place to prevent teams from losing on purpose, and we will be monitoring the league closely to ensure that this does not happen."

The commissioner went on to explain that the CCHL was dedicated to promoting fair play and that any team found to be tanking would face severe consequences. He emphasized that the league was about the players, the fans, and the love of the game and that they would do everything in their power to preserve that.

The statement was well received by the hockey community, and fans were reassured that the league was committed to maintaining the integrity of the game. And even though Connor Bedard was an exceptional talent, the CCHL commissioner made it clear that the teams were not going to compromise their values just to draft him.

From that day on, the focus shifted back to the on-ice action, and the CCHL continued to be one of the most exciting and competitive hockey leagues in the world.

State of the Loons; 2022 Wrap up

 It was fun while it lasted. To kick of the 2022-23 CCHL season the Loons came roaring or swimming out of the gate. Up til the midway point of the season the Loons were leading the Adams Division and in the top 3 of the Corfield Division. Going into the season the Loons had a modest goal of just making the playoffs. Our top players were coming off of injuries or were still early into their careers and their ratings were still average. This was to be a bridge year and with another full year under the belts of Eichel, Zegras, Boldy, Hanifin and Oettinger - 2023 was going to be the year we thought we could have a legitimate shot at the Kehler Cup. However, here we were on top of the CCHL and maybe our core was ready now. Czepiel went to the phones and quickly picks and prospects were headed out and Fleury, Giroux and EJ were brought in to hopefully take us to the next level. 

How quickly things in the CCHL can change. On 12/17/22 with just 47 seconds left to go in the first period Captain Chris Kreider fell to the ice with a lower body injury that is expected to keep him out til mid way through the Kehler Cup playoffs. Kreider is coming off of a career best NHL season where Chris only missed a single game, and just 6 games in the 2020-21 NHL season. But the Loons are left to be without their highest rated forward for better then half the schedule. 

Well it is just one player right? Surely the addition of Evander Kane will ease the loss and keep the Loons atop of the Adams. Wrong! The Loons are winless since Captain Kreider went down.

Maybe the Loons can pull it together and start winning again. We have a 20 point cushion of the 9th place Ibex. But we have to face the facts that the Loons are not a true contender,...yet. If a single player can cripple the team then we are not contenders. The real issue is that Czepiel has a real issue with sticking to the plan. The plan was to make the playoffs, that was it, it was simple and attainable. So back to the phones he went trying to restock the prospects and draft picks. Kane was sent out of town to Portland, and Fleury, Schenn and Erik Johnson are seeing their names on the trade blocks.

We hope that as the deadline approaches and the real contenders start to pull away from the pack, trade activity will pick up and these veterans will bring back a fair return and maybe the Loons will have at least one pick in the 2023 draft to look forward to!

T'was the Night Before Christmas in the CCHL

T'was the night before Chrsitmas, when all thro' the CCHL House,

Not a creature was stirring, not even Amos (with a trade);

The rumours were stoked by the hot-stove with care,

In hopes that a Kehler Cup soon would be there;

The GM were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of Bedard danc'd in their heads,

And Springfield in their rebuild, the Thunder looking to scrap,

Had just settled in Capeside’s brains for Kreider’s long winter's nap-

When out on the ice there arose such a clatter,

They sprang from the desks to see what was the matter.

Away to the Slack they flew like an IceCats’ McDavid dash,

Tore open the chat window, readied for the clash.

The Norsemen had fallen on hard times in the 22-23 show,

Gave the lustre of selling all players, they didn’t want to blow;

When, what to our wondering eyes should became available,

But a Crackerjacks GM, and the Miners wanted what was saleable,

Was Geno Malkin, going to Moscow or was it the Donuts

I knew in a moment it wasn’t the Reign.

More rapid than the Chinook, his suiters they came,

His agent whistled, and shouted, and call'd them by name:

"Now! Bismarck, now! Las Vegas, now! Tampa, and Parry Sound,

"On! Fort Erie, on! Victoria, on! Val-d’Or to the top of the first round;

"To the best of the offers! to the top of the picks and prospects!

"Now pony up! Pony up! Pony up all!"

 No the Owls offer for Geno won’t be that high,

 Ask for Tage Thompson, the Scorpions will begin to cry;

So up to the offices of the Spurs the Campers flew,

With the legend Malkin- and his equipment too:

And then in a twinkling, I heard from the Millers,

They were looking for some stop-gap fillers.

As interest in Geno grew in my head, the return would likely astound,

When back came Chippawa looking to hound:

Charlie was dressed like a realtor from his head to his foot,

And his assets were all tarnish'd because of Risto’s slow foot;

A bundle of late round picks were flung on his board,

And he look'd like a peddler just looking to hoard:

His eyes - how they twinkled! his dimples how merry,

His cheeks were like roses, he disliked Don Cherry;

His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,

He was determined to be better than Garth Snow;

But then in an instant, Amos swept-in,

Stole ol’ Geno out from underneath Chippawa’s chin

Max had a broad face, and a laugh in his belly

The heist he just made, deserved an on-ice celly:

He was pleased with himself and feeling quite clever,

And when the trade was sent in, it also involved Trevor;

It was a three-way deal, the league offices had come to dread,

It would be up to Bobby to allocate the financial bread!

The commish spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

And moved all the players; he didn’t want to be a jerk,

And laying his finger aside of his nose

While processing the trade he suddenly froze.

He sprung to his email, to the GMs he did give a chat,

I can’t process the trade, it’s the incorrect format:

But I heard him exclaim, as he called out the plight-

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.