Montreal Canadians: Challenge 3.1 Chat Thread

Post by **Minstrel** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 3:56 am

Okay folks! Due tot he voting nad people voicing their opinions to rather play MON I've decided we will use the tied vote and play both teams. We will begin with the Canadians and when we are ready to go onto 4.1 we won't revote and use FLA for that Challenge.

So... if you haven't played in a Challenge before make sure you read the Announce threads with the rules in them and follow them or you won't be formally entered into the Challenge. Those of you who are returning TBL Challenge GMs all you need to do is again begin your first recording post of 3.1 with you 'contract' witht he other GMs that you have set up your team according to the rules and will play your Challenge under those rules.

Read through the info box atop the forum at least before starting up for 3.1 (we will update the Challenge number soon) to double check you have everything right.

This Challenge can be run with either the default database or the Unfaking 1.0 database only and you must have your game patched to 2.1.3.

Don't forget you are allowed to start earlier than the usual NHL start date, the instructions for that are in the Announce threads. You can also run you minor league teams if you'd like to assure playtime and coaching for your prospects; for those teams you can set things up at the beginning and run the rest of the year on 'vacation' if you want.

However, you must AT ALL TIMES be in control of all roster moves/transactions of your NHL team. You cannot put your NHL team on 'vacation' at an time.

You can choose to 'coach' or not coach your individual NHL games, whichever you prefer.

We encourage you to look at this as at least a three year cycle, if there is enough interest we will officially record all three of those years: 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3

And of course we'd love to hear you tell the 'story' of your team in this thread (with or without pictures heh) as that makes the Challenge much more fun and interesting. Seeing how other GMs have decided to play it helps everyone get a little better at the game I think so feel free to tell us why you decided to make the moves you did too.

This time around I am setting a firm deadline for our first set of bonus points. Everyone who has recorded games 1-20 by May 1 will be eligable for Bonus Points A. Our points system is used to determine overall winners. You can always play at your own pace and have your stats recorded to see how you matched up but we will be setting firm dates this time around for when bonus points will be decided so we can declare the overall winner more quickly.

munky · Post by **munky** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 6:34 am

I'll start mine up tomorrow.

And dude, it's Canadiens.

Dude, the whole Challenge Forum is no-edit as a precaution as that covers the recording thread as well so if someone for example posts that they made trades for 2007 picks they can't change it later, etc

And yeah, I know the a-e thing drives all you fans of Les Habitants nuts

-Minty

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 3:34 pm

As much as it pains me to have anything to do with the Montreal Canadiens... I'll be starting up a team for the challenge. Just keep in mind that I'll be physically ill while doing so.

Post by **Minstrel** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 3:42 pm

Well, at least you'll only be sick until around Thursday when you finish up your season

BTW I just set up the GLR page for 3.1

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 3:57 pm

Are you impling that I play my seasons quickly?

I just have a lot of free time at work.

And I'm estimating I'll be done by the middle of next week, most likely.

Post by **inSTAALed** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 8:50 pm

Ah.. My first challange

Time to start

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 9:23 pm

Despite my heart not being in it, I started a game using the dreaded Montreal Canadiens. The are the one team in the league I was hoping we wouldn't be doing a challenge with but... I enjoy doing the challenges. I'm going to give this a shot but I'm also going to do things a little differently than I normally would. Usually, when I build a team I go for the best players I can get for my top two lines, and then go with checkers for my third line, and youngsters/extras for my fourth. Montreal is know for having speed. So this time around, I'm looking to get rid of my slower players and replace them with speedy ones. By the end of the season, I would like to have all forwards with at least 16's in speed and acceleration and all defensemen with at least 14's. I usually won't go near smaller guys with low strength. This time around they're prefferred. It should be interesting!

As usual, I dumped all my naff staff and replaced them with the best I could get. I kept Claude Julien as head coach. I only swapped out 2 of his assistant with new ones. Most of the staff replacements were scouts. I added an assistant GM and an extra trainer to round things off.

I've already made a few trades. My first deal was to send Duncan Millroy and the rights to Rene Vydareny to the Sharks for the rights to Alexander Korolyuk. Unfortunately, he doesn't want to sign with me and return to North America. He's happier making rubbish money in some Russian semi-pro league. Go figure! I'll try to trade his rights away at some point.

Next I traded Johnathan Aitken (never liked him since the Bruins wasted a high 1st rounder on him), Pierre Dagenais, and the rights to Alexander Buturlin to the Wild for Stephane Veilleux. I thought Veilleux would make a nice second line LW for me. Plus, he's got a French name so he'll be a fan favorite. He's young and speedy, so I'm hoping he turns out well.

After that I sent Craig Rivet and the rights to Konstantin Korneev to the Blue Jackets for Radislav Suchy. Such is a pretty good 2-way defensemen with nice speed. Plus, he's got the flexability to play either side. Suchy is also a great deal cheaper than Rivet.

Next I sent the rights to Aleksei Emelin and my 4th & 7th round picks in the 2006 draft to the Wild for Andrei Zyuzin. He's another speedy defenseman. I really needed these kind of guys because my defense was not in good shape, especially with my game plan.

I made another deal for defense a few days later. I sent Francis Bouillon and the rights to Cory Urquhart to the Devils for David Hale. With this move, I got younger (Bouillon is 29 and Hale is 24) and a litte more skilled. Even though I'm not going for a big team, Hale added some toughess. While Hale and Bouillon's skating is pretty much the same right now, I think Hale's will improve.

The final move I made (so far) was to dump some salary. I sent Radek Bonk to the Devils for Sergei Brylin and the Devils 2nd round pick in 2006. Bonk has seen better days and was slated to center my 3rd line. I didn't think he was worth the $2.4M per season. I ended up getting the speedier (and slightly older) Brylin for a great deal less ($1.5M per) and got a 2nd round pick to boot. The funny thing is, the Devils are already shopping Bonk around!

I'm nowhere near done trading but I figured I'd post what I've done so far. I've finished training camp and I'm getting my roster players in game shape with a bunch of preseason games. The NHL Season Preview just came out. New Jersey is projected to be the best team in the league with Red Wings and Flyers coming 2nd and 3rd. Ottawa and Vancouver round out the top 5. The Montreal Canadiens are ranked #20. It sounds like people will be surprised if they make the playoffs. The bottom teams are Columbus, Buffalo, Carolina, and Nashville, with Washington being the league's worst. Obviously, this isn't like the real world where Carolina and Nashville are a couple of the league's best teams.

That's it for now. I'll check back in again when the season starts.

Post by **timmy_t** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 11:08 pm

Ok, bruins72, I'll get off my bum and get to it as well...

BlackCats101 · Post by **BlackCats101** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 12:06 pm

Hmmm I might give this one a go over Easter....

Post by **joehelmer** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 1:24 pm

This will also be my first challenge.

bruins72 · Post by **bruins72** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 3:09 pm

There you go guys! The more the merrier! The challenges are much more fun when you've got a bunch of people playing and talking about their teams.

BlackCats101 · Post by **BlackCats101** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 5:39 pm

Right, i am making my debut shortly. I have downloaded the original unfaking db (feels odd going back to an older database!) I have also downloaded the spreadsheet for recording my results. I will do my best, but I half expect to get disqualified for a mnior technicality..

One thing tough- I am away for a week at Easter-when are the deadlines?

Post by **joehelmer** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 7:36 pm

I hope I will get the first season done during the easter week. Maybe even on on my birthday, April 14th.

Post by **inSTAALed** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 9:20 pm

I hope the get the first season done by my birthday, too.

April 20th I shall be done!

Post by **Minstrel** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 11:52 pm

Great to see people hopping in on the Challenge; good luck, [hint]I'll be hearing from you soon[/hint]

BlackCats101 wrote:One thing tough- I am away for a week at Easter-when are the deadlines?

The only one so far is get 1-20 done by May 1 which I think should be easy enough for people to do. We'll then set a deadline for when games 41-61 which are used for our second set of bonus points is due, then an overall points deadline.

The deadlines are only for points that are used to determine the awards for 1st, 2nd and 3rd; anyone can play at their own pace and as long as they report their stats correctly they will be added to the GLR recording pages. I'm am just using the deadlines for points now that we have so many people playing in order to give people a better idea of when they will know who has won.

BlackCats101 · Post by **BlackCats101** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 12:37 pm

I'm looking forward to this actually... As i understand it, the spreadsheet will sort out the calculations for me-I just need to enter my current totals at whatever stage and it will compute the stats for my last twenty games. Then I copy and paste the totals into the recording thread along with a verbal agreement and a clear indication of what stage of the challenge I am at. Is this correct?

BlackCats101 · Post by **BlackCats101** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 12:41 pm

Oh also, I cannot load up an unrealistic heavyweight trade loaded with 1st round draft picks for future years that we won't be playing the challenge in. Eg trade four first round draft picks to get Jagr etc....
Does this mean though in the future that we could lengthen the duration of the challenge to say three years, and that we would be allowed to use the draft picks from those three years however we wanted?

munky · Post by **munky** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 4:21 pm

I suck, so bad, at this game.

I'm 5-12-3 after the first 20 games. I've never had this poor of a result. If it keeps up I'll likely be fired before the end of the season.

Post by **E5150_ca** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 4:24 pm

You guys need to take your time. You're not gonna win if you rush throught the challenge. Take the time to build the team you want and find a set of tactics that work.

BlackCats101 · Post by **BlackCats101** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 4:32 pm

It's OK I have not started it yet-I have learnt my lesson in normal games. My current success with Seattle where I have played it slowly and safely has proved that to an extent.

BlackCats101 · Post by **BlackCats101** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 4:52 pm

I'm underway!

Post by **timmy_t** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 4:54 pm

You usually don't need 4 1st rounders for Jagr, but just to clarify, you can only use 2006 draft picks in the first season. So, if you trade Joe Schmo to Loserville for a 2006 7th and a 2007 7th, you can only use the 2006 pick this year. You would have to wait until 2007 to use or trade the other pick.

Post by **timmy_t** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 4:59 pm

Tighten up the defense munky! Theodore should steal games for you every night. It helped me to coach and watch the games. It takes time (you won't play 20 games a night), but it's worth it.

BlackCats101 · Post by **BlackCats101** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 5:09 pm

timmy_t wrote:You usually don't need 4 1st rounders for Jagr, but just to clarify, you can only use 2006 draft picks in the first season. So, if you trade Joe Schmo to Loserville for a 2006 7th and a 2007 7th, you can only use the 2006 pick this year. You would have to wait until 2007 to use or trade the other pick.

I realise this, but I thought the rules meant that you cannot use draft picks from 2007 onwards in the current one season 2005/2006 Canadiens challenge. Because we are only being recorded on the results of this season (05/06), people could use 1st round picks from years in the future to get amazing players for the 05/06 season and not have to woryy about the consequences, because they will not play 2006/2007 etc..

EDIT: sorry I have realised what you were saying-I re-read the rules-my mistake...

BlackCats101 · Post by **BlackCats101** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 5:26 pm