Playing in the CJHL (Junior A Canada)

Bam_Margera · Post by **Bam_Margera** » Thu Jul 29, 2021 2:48 pm

Hey guys,
I recently started a game where I wanted to focus on managing junior teams (all leagues in Canada and all but 2 college leagues US on enhanced). I started off in the AJHL and the season went pretty good, however I found it rather hard to sign competitive players to contracts to fully fill out my roster. I had to rely on 8-week-tryouts for 3-4 players through the season.
However, now I am in the off-season (July 2nd at the moment) and it is really tedious to sign players. I'm dishing out contract proposals willy-nilly (up to 50 or more at the same time), but nobody is signing. I am aware that this could be related to team reputation, however also some 19 or 20 year olds chose to retire rather than sign with Junior A teams. Furthermore I get 50-100 unread messages per day informing me of teams (related to my shortlist and the AJHL teams) that they have offered players contract or were rejected by them.
Does anybody have experience with playing at this level? Will I be able to sign players once it gets closer to training camp. Was it a mistake to leave the "Add Extra Junior Players" option unchecked on start up of the game?

Post by **Tasku** » Thu Jul 29, 2021 3:08 pm

I haven't played with junior leagues, but I remember having similar difficulties when playing with an EHCL team. Very hard to sign players, even reasonable ones.

Bam_Margera · Post by **Bam_Margera** » Thu Jul 29, 2021 9:24 pm

What I'm trying to figure out is, if a player who once rejected your offer will eventually sign with you in case you're persistent enough and keep approaching to sign them.

Bam_Margera · Post by **Bam_Margera** » Wed Aug 04, 2021 7:28 pm

Season 2: I was able to sign enough skaters but had to dangle with one weak goalie on a contract and tryouts for the starter position (I had three goalies who were there on multiple tryout over the whole season). However, you always run the risk of the tryout players being snatched away through contract by other teams.

Offseason before season 3 is on now. At some point you figure out that players who once didn't sign a contract will rarely do this when you keep offering them one. I think I had 2 players now who eventually did sign, however I think I'm offering roughly 200 players per offseason a contract.

This is what I do: sign as many somewhat competent players as possible (will be about 30) and then reduce the roster to the allowed 23 players by season start. Releasing them is no problem, if they haven't signed a deal with another team which starts the upcoming season.

You will lose roughly half of your roster in the offseason due to age or transfers to major junior team/universities. So the offseason is very busy and scouting other minor junior leagues throughout the season is imperative.

BulldogsFan · Post by **BulldogsFan** » Wed Apr 13, 2022 6:52 pm

Here is my experience. So things are a little different. Western J A leagues (BCHL, MJHL, SJHL and AJHL you can't sign people until they are 16 so that's 2 years after they are drafted in WHL. With OPJHL or OJHL however you want to put it which is Junior A in Ontario. What I would do is first thing in off-season is look at the OHL draft class. Scout the unsigned OHL priority draft prospects because usually they will sign with your Junior A club. You can have 3 16 yr old or younger players on your club. With 15 rounds of OHL you basically wait 1 year and then they are all 17 and with 15 rounds of picks per OHL obviously not all OHL teams will sign their 15 draft picks and plus OHL will release former reserve picks as well.