Challenge 10

red-dog · Post by **red-dog** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 6:31 am

Hypnotist wrote:bigargon: I tried starting in a low league and working my way up in EHM 2005 a couple times. Both times, the career stalled at the AHL level. In the AHL you have sooooo little control over the composition of the team that your success mainly depends on the quality of prospects from your parent club. The AHL is , by my experience, the WORST league to manage in.

I strongly disagree. Having spent the majority of my time playing the game in the AHL, I find this league the perfect place to better your managerial skills, find those minor league gems in the game and improve your eye for potential NHL talent. I've had fairly good success with a few teams in the league, once winning the Calder Cup with Norfolk, and I have been able to get a job as an NHL GM after a couple of seasons in the AHL. Not having full control of your roster is IMO a challenge, not a down side.

Hypnotist · Post by **Hypnotist** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 6:43 am

red-dog wrote:...Not having full control of your roster is IMO a challenge, not a down side.

But if you don't have much control over the roster, it takes away from the enjoyment. You are not really GMing much, more coaching than anything. If you don't coach the team yourself, then the success of the club rests almost exclusively with the quality of the roster given to you by the NHL parent. Due to the majority of players being furnished for you, the budgets for AHL teams tend to be awful as the board doesn't feel you need to attract FAs to fill out a roster.

JMO, but I feel that the AHL would be a major road block for a lot of players on their way to the NHL. I would suggest running in a promotion/relegation league first. As I think this may iron out some of the problems.

Hypnotist · Post by **Hypnotist** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 6:46 am

red-dog wrote:...Not having full control of your roster is IMO a challenge, not a down side.

IMO, the lack of control of your own destiny by having a majority of the roster furnsihed for you would be a major road block for some players in trying to make the NHL. I would suggest running a promotion/relegation league first to iron out any issues first, since we are talking roughly about the same thing.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 1:03 pm

Hypnotist wrote:If you don't coach the team yourself, then the success of the club rests almost exclusively with the quality of the roster given to you by the NHL parent.

If you're playing a challenge, you're required to coach the team yourself.

bigargon · Post by **bigargon** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 9:34 pm

the whole idea of a career oportunities challenge, would be you take the jobs you want. If you don't want the AHL then don't take a the. Try to be an excellent ECHL, or Canadian juniors GM and try to get a NHL job from there.In many ways i think it would be a ruthless challenge, you have to do want ever it takes to promote yourself and get the best jobs.

Post by **archibalduk** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 9:48 pm

bigargon wrote:the whole idea of a career oportunities challenge, would be you take the jobs you want. If you don't want the AHL then don't take a the. Try to be an excellent ECHL, or Canadian juniors GM and try to get a NHL job from there.In many ways i think it would be a ruthless challenge, you have to do want ever it takes to promote yourself and get the best jobs.

I think that is moving too far away from the original idea of the TBL Challenges. What you're suggesting would probably be best as a completely new/different competition.

Post by **timmy_t** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 11:26 pm

I liked bruins72's breakdown of some Eastern Conference teams. He looked at the Islanders, Panthers, and Thrashers. How would the Bruins or Sabres look for a challenge? I think the Sabres are a totally different team without Drury and Briere, and I don't know if the Bruins would be a good challenge team...

I like the idea of moving the NHL challenge to the East, and am looking forward to the poll.

Post by **timmy_t** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 11:29 pm

Or we could always use the Colorado Avalanche!

Post by **batdad** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 3:49 am

One thing I briefly mentioned: I actually believe that forcing people to coach their own teams is providing some of us with an advantage. I think we should say no coahcing your own teams. Just management.

You can run practice, and decide your roster, but you have to leave all other game decisions up to your coach.

Trust me...it will make it harder for me.

However, the downside to this would be people would not be working with tactics which is definitely a huge part of the game...and therefore would not learn nearly as much.

So...I guess we can toss that idea.

nevermind...ignore the above.

Just inane ramblings here.

Ick. Avalanche. Ick.

Post by **timmy_t** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 3:52 am

Ick. Avalanche. Ick.

Ha Ha !!!

Post by **batdad** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 4:06 am

Sakic sucks.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 1:11 pm

timmy_t wrote:I liked bruins72's breakdown of some Eastern Conference teams. He looked at the Islanders, Panthers, and Thrashers. How would the Bruins or Sabres look for a challenge? I think the Sabres are a totally different team without Drury and Briere, and I don't know if the Bruins would be a good challenge team...

I like the idea of moving the NHL challenge to the East, and am looking forward to the poll.

As much as I'd LOVE to finally have a challenge where we used the Bruins, they'd be too easy as it stands right now. We could expect people to do VERY well even if they weren't allowed to make any trades. Of course, they're right up against the salary cap, so it would take a lot of work to get them under the TBL budget... and that's easier said than done when you consider the fact that you have to keep the core roster. Overall, I just don't know if they would work.

I think the Sabres still have far too much talent to use as a challenge team. Even taking away Drury and Briere, they've got enough to easily work with. They've got great goaltending, some good defense, and some nice forwards. A few of there forwards are guys I used to always go after when I used other teams. They're great 2nd or 3rd liners that really make a difference.

We should really be looking at those weak teams I laid out earlier if we're doing an NHL challenge.

jdh79 · Post by **jdh79** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 6:44 pm

Has anyone considered Carolina? Yes, they have 2 true elite young players in Ward and Staal, but beyond that, their defense, prospect system and depth is really a mess. Plus, literally the entire core of their rosters become FA after year one and need to be cut loose or signed for more money. With the Hurricanes, I think most people would do very well in year 1, but then have a real challenge after that.

Another team that would be difficult is the Lightning. Beyond the big 3 and their albatross contracts, you have weak goaltending, weak defense and a lousy prospect system. Modify the rules for that challenge forcing you to keep Lecavalier, St. Louis and Richards and still find a way to build a competitive team under the cap would be tough.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 7:36 pm

I remember doing a Carolina challenge a LONG time ago. In fact, it was my first challenge I participated in here at TBL (I had taken part in a challenge at susie before that). Of course, that was probably on EHM 2005 (wasn't it?). Anyhow, while I think they'd be fun to play in general but I don't know if they'd work for a challenge. I'm in February of 2010 in my current game and Carolina has consistently been one of the top teams in the league. I think they were a little weak in the first season and then they took off. Anyhow, their defense isn't the greatest but it's definitely something you can work with. They've also got a couple guys that start out (if we're using the TBL Update) with long term injuries. Those salaries can be dealt with. Then you've got some old timers like Wesley, Whitney, and Brind'Amour who are still effective or can be used as bargaining chips. They've also got Ladd and Williams, who aren't too shabby. Their goaltending is a killer tandem. They are terrible when it comes to prospects though. They've got nothing to work with. You'll be hard pressed to find a homegrown for season 2 that isn't going to hurt your team. Honestly though... I just don't think they're a fit for this challenge.

I almost wonder if the Tampa Bay Lightning would be a more challenging team if you were only allowed to keep 1 of the "Big Three". If this is in conjunction with Archi's suggestion of only allowing 3 incoming players... this could be a seriously challenging team!

jdh79 · Post by **jdh79** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 8:42 pm

I think Tampa would be actually more challenging if you're forced to keep all 3 of the big 3. The reason is you have like 21 M tied up in 3 forwards, and none of them are really strong enough in EHM to make their huge contracts worth it. Whenever I have played, the AI Lightning always wind up tanking because you can't win with 3 top forwards and nothing else, and having to keep all 3 would mean you have no money to upgrade your defense or goalie situation. If you can trade 2 of the 3, I think it gets too easy because you could haul in a boat load of prospects or bargain type players and completely dominate quickly if you have any sense of who to target.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 8:55 pm

Good point. I can see the difficulty there.

Post by **timmy_t** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 2:50 am

I'd love to get this conversation started again. I'm thinking if we go with the Eastern Conference, we can choose from:

1: New York Islanders
2: Florida Panthers
3: Atlanta Thrashers
4: Tampa Bay Lightning

They all sound great to me, and I'm excited to get started!

Post by **batdad** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 4:46 am

Yep, we are going to be working on this soon. Just a few mod things to take care of in regards to the old challenge.

Give me a day or two here, weekend and all, and the mods will discuss things about rules, where challenges are going..and make a call.

We should have a poll up about teams at the latest, the middle of next week.

We had not forgotten, just busy with the new stuff, and unfortunate event and me cleaning up finishing challenge 9. Cause I had to, since at least one mod needed to.

(All the others should have schoolatars for a month just cause I finished and they did not)

Anyway, give us a few days and we will hopefully get things started. I am not sure how much time I have for it, but we shall see.

bigargon · Post by **bigargon** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 10:12 am

I would like an islander challenge, because it would give me the opportunity to also manage my local, neighborhood AHL team the Sound Tigers

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 12:21 pm

batdad wrote: (All the others should have schoolatars for a month just cause I finished and they did not)

And I should live in a world where bacon grows on trees and rivers flow with beer... but somethings just ain't in the cards.

Post by **batdad** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 1:46 am

BOOOOOOO! B72 sucks! The chant rains down on you from the imaginary MSG world you live in. (MSG being Madison Square Garden)

munky · Post by **munky** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 1:51 am

Hypnotist wrote: One person who never submitted a set of stats posted in that forum how he did a player search with "Unrealistic Targets" filter checked and came back with no players. That may have caused him and others to say, "Why bother?" I'll answer that by saying, "Because of that challenge."

That was me. I started the challenge and was enjoying the game, but real life has a way of taking over around here. I don't have nearly as much time to play games as I once did. Don't take it as an indictment of your challenge that I didn't follow it out to the end. I would have loved to be able to commit enough time to the challenge to actually complete it, but sometimes it just isn't feasible.

Post by **timmy_t** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 11:36 pm

What database are we using?

Post by **CatchUp** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 11:37 pm

timmy_t wrote:What database are we using?

TBL Roster Update v1.5

Post by **batdad** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 11:38 pm

Cannot start yet though. Gotta get the rules up. And they are not all up and changed. So anyone starting now is almost 100% for sure going to be in violation of at least one of the changes. Likely more than one.