A Strange Suggestion (about Rink Size)

[Midas]

Hey,

Fantastic work is being done on this, and I am really optimistic for FHM's future. I wanted to just preface Archie and all others involved with the guys working at FHM that I really appreciate all the time and effort you put into doing this. Fantasy hockey's always been my thing and I've loved EHM ever since maybe 4-5 years ago I googled "hockey management sim" wondering if any such gem existed.

I remember one of the coolest parts about OOTP- even from a non-baseball fan's perspective, was ball-park size. In baseball there are no hard-and-fast regulations on ballpark size (obviously there are logistical limits and sort of de facto limits determined by culture), and the game accommodates this really well iirc. In hockey, we sort of have a simplified version of this; there are "NHL" and "European" rink sizes.

BUT!

For the longest time, NHL rinks actually operated on the MLB style. We talk a lot casually about how scoring has changed in the NHL since the '70s and '80s, but what's often forgotten is many teams housed "home-ice advantage" arenas that fit their playing style. Boston Garden was for instance infamous for its very short board width, something Bobby Or exploited to great advantage and the old Buffalo Auditorium was nearly 15' smaller than the average rink in the league. But I was wondering if allowing freedom of ice-size similar to OOTP's ball-park size parameters (though unlike OOTP, probably best to have a min/max) would be possible in the future? It shouldn't be a priority for any future release but just as a thought. I haven't checked out their forums though, maybe someone's suggested this already.

[YZG]

That's an element that might add a touch of realism to the historical leagues, that's for sure... and one that might not be very hard to implement either. Also, for those of us who like the smaller hockey nations, below-regulation rink sizes are very common... I like this idea

[CM0304]

good idea,but why does it sticky?Is the author the relative of Archi?

[archibalduk]

Yeah this is something I'd love to see in the game too. I guess it's an icing on the cake kind of feature. There are some pretty small rinks in the lower reaches of the UK leagues - e.g. Wightlink Raiders' rink is so short it's almost square!

good idea,but why does it sticky?Is the author the relative of Archi?

It's not a sticky.... Unless perhaps a mod made it a sticky by mistake.

[Primis]

Joe Louis Arena has some of the liveliest end boards in the NHL (maybe the most so). Nick Lidstrom for years exploited them by deliberately shooting wide (which also avoided the clogged lanes) to get a rebound off the boards to someone in front. Brian Rafalski also got pretty good at this even though his hardest shot wouldn't have ripped through a paper bag.

So there's that element as well that could play into Home Ice Advantage. Although I don't know how you'd possibly program that sort of thing in...

I remember in the old EA NHL series (the first couple versions) they programmed in the Boston Garden to have different corners. It was a selling point on the back of the box for the original PC version even IIRC. So it's even been done before in games.