The following changes were proposed to the league executive committee for discussion and either a yes for implementation or no to stay as it is. The result of each proposal is listed below, and all rule changes will be updated in today's website update.
1. Game 41 for trading UFAs
Since not all teams play game 41 on the same date, this can present an advantage for some teams as they could get a UFA traded to them after the team has played 41 games, but the receiving team has only played 38-39 games.
Proposal: This gets changed to the halfway point on the schedule. If we have 150 days of games, after day 75 UFAs can be traded. It levels the playing field for all teams.
Result: Passed with no objection
2. Goaltender playoff rules
This rule change would see teams able to use any goaltender on the roster, regardless of games played in a playoff game. With the change to Simon, the goaltending rules haven't needed to be the same as APBA. If a team wants to play a goalie who didn't play in the regular season, does it matter? Chances are they suck if they aren't playing them in the regular season. The maximum games played rules would still stay in place to ensure somebody doesn't try to run all games with one goalie.
Proposal: No minimum goalie games played to be able to play in the playoffs.
Result: Passed with minor concern from one member of the executive committee but not enough to stand in the way of implementation.
3. Savardian Bidarama
This year saw David Savard get three-year offers even though he full-on announced his NHL retirement, and we all knew he could only play for one year. It skews the bidding a bit, and while they are paying a reserve fee, I don't think that it's a great idea to allow that loophole.
Proposal: If you bid on a player who has announced his NHL retirement prior to UFA bidding, you are responsible for all financial terms of the deal. The player in reserve makes the full amount of the contract and not 15%. This is effective for 2026 UFA bidding.
Result: Passed with no objection
4. UFA Overhaul for bids
As you may have noticed over the years, we've really tried to do things in such a manner that our lives get collectively easier. we think it's time we do this in unrestricted free agency as well.
I noticed about a month or two ago that the simulator will allow you to make offers through it. It then collates them on the player, and you can see who the highest bidder is, award the player, and it's on the roster instantly in Simon. Of course, this will really required GMs to actually review players in the pool to avoid missed players as there were quite a few this year I still had to fix after the fact.
CCHL teams would be able to bid using the website, and it keeps a log of all bids. Trevor and I did a test drive of this, and it worked quite well.
Proposal: that we move to bidding through the CCHL website for bids. Paul has always done a terrific job with this, but I know it's a lot of work to collect and manage the data, then for me to add all of the players afterwards. I really think this would save Paul and myself some time. We would keep this at 5 bids per round and only do three rounds because of proposal 5 below.
Result: Passed with no objection
5. No CAP hit bid in UFA bidding
Every year, there are players that probably should be on teams, but nobody bids on them or claims them in waivers because of the cost. Players such as Gallagher and Josh Anderson would be on teams without their NHL cap hits clogging things up. In thinking about this more, we think that the bidding is a free market system, so if a team is the only one that bids on the player at a lower wage, why can't they employ them? We have no problem doing it the other way on the high end, so I think it's reasonable that we sign players for less (NHL minimum salary as bidding floor - not cap hit) if the market allows it. I think it also adds a new element of strategy because some of the players who normally receive bids in round 4 will come off the board earlier, and it eliminates the need for the fourth round.
Proposal: CCHL teams can bid as low as the NHL league minimum on any player in free agency on a 1-4 year contract, regardless of NHL cap hit.
Result: Passed with no objection
6. Allow teams to offer a signing bonus with conditions
In moving to the Simon T sim bidding process for 2026, it allows you to offer a signing bonus when entering your bid. It has me thinking in terms of continuing to be realistic, that we should entertain this under certain conditions.
a) The signing bonus cannot be more than 20% of the value of one year of the contract. If Johnny Hockey gets a 4 year 100 million contract, Mr Hockey makes $25 million annually, meaning the signing bonus cannot exceed $5 million dollars (20% of $25 million a year). If you sign a player to a 1 year, 5 million dollar contract, the bonus cannot exceed 1 million dollars.
b) The signing bonus money must immediately be paid out of cash reserves.
c) This can only be offered on one player per UFA bidding year (ie: If you offer it in round 1 - you cannot offer a signing bonus in rounds 2 or 3 - even if you don't get the player you offered it to)
d) The bonus will count towards the total value of the deal in deciding tie breakers.
Proposal: One signing bonus offer per year up to 20% of one year's salary.
These changes should allow our league to continue it's approach for realism (without the yucky salary cap) and will allow us to be more efficient in our management of the league.
