NHLX - An EHM Database

[BKarchitect]

2022-02-05: NHLX Database v1.2 Update

https://ehm-nhlx.wixsite.com/nhlx

TRANSACTIONS & PLAYERS
- Updated transaction, contracts, commits and massaged ratings (every update!) I removed Reid Douchebag from the game. He's still in the database if you really are jonsing to add him back to Yaroslavl.
- Added a ton of staff - which is important if you are playing an expansion team in the database..pulled from Pivot/TBL...thanks xECKx29!
- Also tweaked and updated NHL staff positions and ratings and increased the ratings for real potential NHL GM's and Head Coaches based on top rumored candidates for the jobs that have come up this season. This should make filling out an expansion team staff a lot more realistic and fun.
- Added a ton of new first and last names to the database for non-tradition hockey playing countries...thanks penguinrevolt!
- Kaprizov had Minnesota as a disliked team in the previous version of NHLX - that was removed, of course!
LEAGUE UPDATES
- Adjusted NCAA reputations to better recruit top tier prospects...thanks xECKx29!
- British EIHL updgraded to 16 teams, including sevceral new identities (be sure to get the logo pack update!).
- French Ligue Magnus updated to 16 team league structure (added 4 top lower division clubs).
- Channel Cup updated to include all 32 Britsh and French professional teams.
- British Junior league updated with new identities (be sure to get the logo pack update!). Thanks ChaiTiefling!
TEAM UPDATES
- Coachella Valley colors updated from jersey reveal.
- Replaced SK Kadan in the Czech second league with Draci Sumperk.
EXPANSION UPDATES
- Standard version and the XLSX Expansion Draft file now incldue GM positions filled for the four new teams with real GM's currently out of jobs. I find this tends to get the expansion teams moving along better.
- Tweaked the expansion draft results/file a bit to remove some guys who I think are too valuable to their current clubs and replace with some other fringeier players.
INTERNATIONAL UPDATES
- Tweaked colors for nations based on upcoming Olympics...updaetd Japan's crest (see logo pack update).
- Changed the Canada-USA rival series name to Can-Am Series.
NHLX LOGO PACK EXPANSION UPDATE
- Adjust logos for Sisak (CRO), updated logos for CCHL (CAN) and Belfast (GBR).
- New logos and indentities to go with the British and French league expansion.
- New logos and branding for Europa Super League - so it's no longer a blatant rip of the UEFA Europa Cup, haha![/i]

[Mgomrjsurf]

If do another update maybe for NHL do 4 Leagues like Weat,Canada,Central,East Setup.

[szczepek25]

Cool database My favourite
I would suggest that the winners of local international competitions (Central Europe Championships, Southern Asia Championships, Nine Nations Cup etc.) should play later in the Intercontinental Cup (create this competition). Would it be possible to create the North American Championship and the African Championship?

[Judva]

Cool database My favourite
I would suggest that the winners of local international competitions (Central Europe Championships, Southern Asia Championships, Nine Nations Cup etc.) should play later in the Intercontinental Cup (create this competition). Would it be possible to create the North American Championship and the African Championship?

for national teams or clubs?
or both versions?

[kev26]

I had done some tests to create the Canadian U18 league for your old NHL32x DB, I don't know if it's something you might be interested in for your DB.
if you love the idea let me know I will do some tests for your new DB

[BKarchitect]

I would suggest that the winners of local international competitions (Central Europe Championships, Southern Asia Championships, Nine Nations Cup etc.) should play later in the Intercontinental Cup (create this competition). Would it be possible to create the North American Championship and the African Championship?

Yes! I could definitely add the Intercontinental Cup! Great idea. It would be like a "Best of the Rest" title for nations outside the very established powers.

North American championship and African championship are possible but not sure if it is "worth it" yet? Maybe if I develop some more hockey playing nations.

[BKarchitect]

I had done some tests to create the Canadian U18 league for your old NHL32x DB, I don't know if it's something you might be interested in for your DB.
if you love the idea let me know I will do some tests for your new DB

Cool, explain some more? You of course are welcome to modify this database and play with it however you want and if you come up with something interesting I am definitely open to looking into incorporating it or some of the ideas back into the base project.

[BKarchitect]

So I was excited last week to see Frolunda's new logo and of course it was rubbish and went over like a lead balloon so the club are back to the drawing board. However since the "Indians" name is already gone and the Indian logo is soon to be gone, I thought I would use the very popular rebrand from Swedish graphics collective VISLA for Frolunda in NHLX. So next update will include a brand new look for this Europa Super League team!

https://www.vislagraphic.com/frolunda

[kev26]

I had done some tests to create the Canadian U18 league for your old NHL32x DB, I don't know if it's something you might be interested in for your DB.
if you love the idea let me know I will do some tests for your new DB

Cool, explain some more? You of course are welcome to modify this database and play with it however you want and if you come up with something interesting I am definitely open to looking into incorporating it or some of the ideas back into the base project.

if you want it I can send you your NHL32x DB with my U18 Canadian league add in

[BKarchitect]

***NEW LEAGUE ALERT***

I've added a new league to the next NHLX update - it is called the Silver International Hockey League aka the "Silver League". Right now it is NOT playable and I'll kind of explain below. So think of it as a background or reserve league for now.

If you've browsed the NHLX website about the European league structures in general you'll see a big theme of mine in this database is to eliminate traditional clubs using other traditional clubs as farm or affiliate teams. I want the traditional league setups to feature all independent teams and the added domestic cups to not have to see a team facing off against their farm club.

The two leagues that I continued to use affiliate lower level teams for were the KHL and ESL as they sit on top of the mountain and have bigger financials and bigger contracted squad sizes. But I ultimately I was still not happy with these teams having farm clubs that were their own traditional hockey teams.

Enter the Silver League - a 32-team league that features directly controlled (dependent) farm clubs for each of the 16 ESL clubs and each of the 16 KHL clubs. These teams do not play in their national Cup competitions and cannot sign their own players. They are for reserve squads for the top teams in Europe. They take their colors and names from their parent clubs...so most of the clubs are simply called "II" - so Frolunda II or Avtomobilist II or Sparta Praha II. There are a few exceptions where I re-introduced some real farm teams that are directly controlled and managed by their parent clubs in real life. So, for example, Zvezda Moskva, Omskie Krylia and GCK Lions are the Silver League teams for CSKA, Avangard Omsk and ZSC Lions. There are a few other examples as well.

Because these squads are totally dependent on their parent clubs - I can't guarantee the squad sizes will always be maintained at a playable level and since you have very little control over anything but in-game tactics - I didn't think it was worth making this league playable right now. The quality of the league actually turns out pretty decent - but the main goal is to keep the traditional national leagues and Cups all with independent teams while giving the ESL and KHL a place to store and train their extra players.

[BKarchitect]

2022-02-17: NHLX Database v1.2 Update

https://ehm-nhlx.wixsite.com/nhlx

TRANSACTIONS & PLAYERS
- Updated transaction, contracts, commits and massaged ratings (every update!) Includes Toffoli of course, Cooley comitted to Minnesota instead of Notre Dame next year and a rash of pretty big European transactions that have occured because the KHL regular season has ended early.
- Lots of reputation and ratings tweaking to try and produce fairly similar top national teams minus NHL players to what nations have taken to the Olympics. Of course in NHLX, the Olympics still include the NHL players and you can never force EHM to be smart about selections but I'm pretty happy with this update.
- Tons of real new 2006 & 2007 top prospects from around the globe. The USNTDP is also filled out through the 2006 and 2007 birth years with full teams of real top American prospects (on loan at their midget/prep squads during the first season). Quite a few new real 2004 & 2005 prospects from some smaller nations have been added as well - a few who could actually turn out to be gems so keep your scouts on their toes.
- Had missed Yan Kuznetsov and Samuel Knazko being reassigned to the CHL so that is fixed.
LEAGUE UPDATES
- ***NEW LEAGUE ALTERT*** The Silver International Hockey League has been added. See info here https://www.ehmtheblueline.com/forums/v ... 21#p244919
TEAM UPDATES
- New Frolunda identity and logos (if you grab the logo expansion).
EXPANSION UPDATES
- Tweaked the expansion draft results/file a bit to remove some guys who I think are too valuable to their current clubs and replace with some other fringeier players.
INTERNATIONAL UPDATES
- The player updates discussed above should produce some more current national team selections as well as extend real player prospects well into the future with the 2006-2007 (and some 2008) birth year prospects.
NHLX LOGO PACK EXPANSION UPDATE
- All new logos for the Silver League including the comp itself and all the teams
- New Frolunda logo (temporary for now)
- Updated the Polska Hokej Liga logo which had been missed before.

[szczepek25]

What does work on the new version look like? What can expect new? This add-on is much more fun to play than this real database

[BKarchitect]

2022-03-10: NHLX Database v1.3 Update

https://ehm-nhlx.wixsite.com/nhlx

I’ve always mentioned NHLX is a ‘sandbox’ project for me that is always evolving – and this new version 1.3 brings with it some major changes. Be sure to get both the Database and the Logopack Expansion, there are definitely changes in this update that won't be as cool looking if you don't have the latest Logopack! (For first-timers - you also must install the original v1.1 Logopack first, then the Logopack Expansion)

First the simple stuff

• As always, up-to-date transactions including college commits and the recent “KHL exodus”

• Ever more real 2005, 2006 & 2007 prospects – including some with potential from many non-traditional countries and some more tweaking of top prospects based on real-life performance and scouting reports

• The farm league that combined ESL and KHL farm clubs was short-lived…due to some changes described below based on some real-life events, I’ve converted it to simply the “ESL2”for farm clubs for the ESL teams.

• Added an NCDC team for the Mercer Chiefs, expected to being in 22-23

Now, the bigger changes. There are two main areas of change in NHL v1.3

• European structural changes in response to potential changes due to geopolitical events in the world

• A re-imagining of the NHL season and in-season Canadian & American tournaments

First, the tweaks related to the world around us today. I’ve always considered NHLX a bit of fantasy but based in reality. And the reality of the world makes some of the league setups in the older versions of NHLX very much unrealistic. With that, the following changes

• The joint Belarus-Ukraine “super league” has been disbanded. This was a no-brainer. Belarus is back to its real 12-team Extraleague top division format.

• A bunch of North Americans who have been playing for the Belarus national team have been changed to only be able to represent Canada or the USA.

• Hockey in Ukraine has been disbanded. There are no leagues at all now based in the country. Ukrainian teams have been deactivated and the players dispersed. Simply put – war is stupid and the thought of trying to play a game in a war-torn region is just not reasonable. That said, Ukraine has not been erased from the game at all – the senior and junior national teams are alive and well. To support this:
  • A generic “Team Ukraine” has been added to the Polska Hokej League. And a generic “Team Ukraine Juniors” has been added to the Polish junior league. Both clubs are Ukrainian in nationality and home but have their home arena based in Eastern Poland.

• Major changes to the ESL/KHL
  • Jokerit was already moved to the Europa Super League in NHLX and Kunlun was already moved to the Asia Super League. So the one immediate tweak here is that Dinamo Riga has also moved to the ESL. Malmo Redhawks have dropped back to the SHL from the ESL to make room. Severstal has been brought back to the KHL from the VHL to get the KHL back to 16 teams. Sokol from the PHL to the VHL. And Dynamo-Altay Barnaul added back into the game to round out the PHL (and Makarov Cup).
  
  • I feel that the KHL is likely to become much more like the old RSL from the early 00’s over the next few years so I’m releasing European & North American players (much of this has already or is in the process of happening), severely restricting foreigner rules and tapping down on finances. It will still be a strong league of course but this will make the league much more Russian focused.

• Changes to Continental / International Competitions
  • Europe’s premier club cup in NHLX, the Kings of Europe Cup will still feature the KHL champion, for now.
  • The VHL and Belarus have been removed from the CHL. Obviously the VHL is not in the CHL in real-life but I had added them in earlier versions of NHLX. The Kazakh champ will be allowed to continue to be in the CHL.
  • I have not removed either Russia or Belarus from any international competitions. I realize some of this is probably coming in real-life and maybe I will address it then. But for now, all international competitions remain the same.

Now on to the more fun and probably relevant major change since I assume a lot of people stick with the NHL as their main league to play. And in NHLX v1.3, the NHL is getting a very big make-over!

• NHL Regular Season & Structure
  • The NHL is still 36 clubs in NHLX and still features the same expansion teams. So no change on this front. But the regular season schedule has been reduced to 70 games, with all teams playing a balanced home-and-home schedule against all 35 other clubs. The result is a new league structure without divisions or conferences. Yup, you heard that right – the standings are now a simple table of 36 clubs – as divisions and conferences have no purpose with a balanced league schedule. All-Star teams remain “captain style”.
  
  • It takes a bit of getting used to season stats over 70 games and a single league-wide standings table but besides making schedules for everyone fairer with the new expansion teams (so some teams don’t get to play more “easy” games than others), the clearing of some schedule will make way for the big new “In-Season” tournaments that are described below.

• NHL Playoffs
  • In the league standings screen you will now see two lines of demarcation in terms of being a playoff spot. The top 12 teams automatically make the main playoff field. The next 8 teams qualify for the “play-in” tournament. The rounds are still similar to the original NHLX format:
    • Play-In Round: Best of 3
    • Second Round: Best of 5
    • Quarters, Semis and Stanley Cup Finals: Best of 7

So, the main reason behind the streamlining and truncating of the NHL regular season? You'll have two new high-level Cup competitions to play - the NHL Canadian Championship and the NHL American Championship. I highly recommend turning them on if you play the NHL, but you don't have to. With the NHL regular season becoming balanced, these competitions are a fun way to keep regional rivalries strong and offer a chance at more trophies, accomplishments, and glory!



The American Championship

• The American Championship features all 28 USA clubs, with a regional 4-group initial round of home-and-home. The winner of each region advances to the Cup stage and competes for the Championship.

The Canadian Championship

• The Canadian Championship has a single group stage of all 8 Canadian clubs playing home-and-home against each opponent. The top four in the group advance to the Cup stage and competes for the championship.

Awards

• Both comps have a full slate of both individual and team for awards which gives NHL players more chances to fill their history with prestigious new achievements.

• Right now the Cups are named for respective legends for each country with long resumes of winning trophies and longevity - who also don't already have NHL awards named after them, although I am open to different ideas for naming:
  • The Chris Chelios Cup for the American Championship
  • The Jean Béliveau Cup for the Canadian Championship

Schedule

• The Championships have their group rounds dispersed a bit throughout the season to create a kind of nice rhythm to the scheduling. The Cup phases occur at the end of February right after the Olympic Break (which NHLX has even in non-Olympic years - a rest period to allow players to get fit after a grueling schedule before the final 'push'). This allows the Championships to both be over with about 15 games left in the NHL season - giving clubs time to ramp back up for the actual NHL playoffs.

• What I wanted to avoid was chaotic schedule that either took clubs out of regular NHL games for a huge period (I did not want an NHL season that was essentially two separate season with a huge tournament in the middle) but it also avoids having teams jump from NHL to Championship play ever few games. The block of regular season games are 15 to start and end the NHL season and 10 games between each group of Championship matches.

Player History Hint
- Note that the new Championships will let NHL players have vastly more interesting histories both in terms of achievements and statistics. However sometimes it becomes a lot to "take in" visually when, for example, you may want to see a player's NHL stats only. Note that EHM let's you filter by comp pretty easily:





- It is also easier to "visual" all a player's awards if you filter their 'Achievements' by awards only (so it eliminates news about contracts and such):

[Plair]

Can teams move to a new arena in the middle of the season? I was thinking about Tappara and Ilves, who moved from Hakametsä to Nokia Arena in December. KOOVEE (Mestis) continues to play normally in Hakametsä.

The database seems awesome by the way, top notch!

[BKarchitect]

Did a quick ninja update to v1.3 and Logopack Expansion downloads today (March 11) to get the Oilers back in their beautiful Royal Blue jerseys and also to update the logos to Royal Blue - which is what they are switching back to next season. Lovely! Snuck transaction in there too including Pavelski re-signing.

[BKarchitect]

Can teams move to a new arena in the middle of the season? I was thinking about Tappara and Ilves, who moved from Hakametsä to Nokia Arena in December. KOOVEE (Mestis) continues to play normally in Hakametsä.

The database seems awesome by the way, top notch!

You can set move-in dates to new areans in the config file but for the quick update I just posted, I went ahead and had Nokia Arena as the home for Tappara and Ilves.

Beautiful arena too - it makes me consider them as contenders for the Europa Super League now with that kind of facility. I'd almost have to take both of them though - would hate to break them up into different leagues. Something to consider if I expand the ESL some day. It might take too much away from Liiga though.

[BKarchitect]

Snuck in a quick flash update to NHLX v1.3 with the Avalanche's recent trades, transaction and signing updates and some other minor tweaks and ratings massages. I'll release some more flash updates when major NHL transactions occur. Probably not worth starting an entire new career though if you already have one started in the first version of v1.3 I released. As always see the website for updated downloads. Cheers!

[Mgomrjsurf]

With your latest update NHL Teams release most of their Players other then Goalies and on my Team GM of Monarchs Unisgned Propects get released.

[BKarchitect]

With your latest update NHL Teams release most of their Players other then Goalies and on my Team GM of Monarchs Unisgned Propects get released.

Hmmm, running a test sim right now and not seeing anything that unusual or drastic.

Can you be a little more specific?

- What "Start Date" are you using for the game
- When are these releases happening - at the every beginning? What point of the season? The first season?
- Which database? Empty expansion teams or pre-filled with players?

[Mgomrjsurf]

Empty Expansion Teams. July because no live start. A couple days into July big nane guys get put on Waviers from other Teams but don't get claimed and become a Free-Agent. Same with August date. Solved problem had like 999 set for Reserved and so on but that would allow unlimited Rosters Sizes.

[AndrewS]

Hey. When I try to start a game with this database downloaded, the game just crashes. What am I doing wrong?

[archibalduk]

Hey. When I try to start a game with this database downloaded, the game just crashes. What am I doing wrong?

Have you opted into the EHM v1.5 beta? The database requires this version of the game. https://www.ehmtheblueline.com/site/202 ... -released/

[AndrewS]

Hey. When I try to start a game with this database downloaded, the game just crashes. What am I doing wrong?

Have you opted into the EHM v1.5 beta? The database requires this version of the game. https://www.ehmtheblueline.com/site/202 ... -released/

I have opted in already. Or at least I thought I did. To be sure, when I load EHM from my steam library, it says [public-beta] next to the title of the game.

[xECK29x]

I have opted in already. Or at least I thought I did. To be sure, when I load EHM from my steam library, it says [public-beta] next to the title of the game.

Try re-downloading it, could be a corrupted download.

[kini666]

one thing that i have notice so far , every player that you draft after 2022 , you can only sign them 2 years instead of 3 , any reason why ?