1998/99 Retro Rosters v1.2.0 Released

It has a been a long time since the last release of the excellent 1998/99 Retro Rosters by CJ and Nino33 but today a new version is available on the Steam Workshop! See below for the changelist. CLICK HERE to download from the Steam Workshop.

The previous version of the 1998/99 Rosters (version 1.1) was released by CJ and Nino33 back on 18 February 2016. CJ carried on working on a new version of the Rosters and posted fairly regular progress reports on the TBL Forums up until around the end of 2018 and then nothing was heard further. I was able to make contact with CJ in December 2020 and he very kindly forwarded to me his unreleased work-in-progress version of the Rosters so that I could continue work on it and release it to the public.

We do not have a precise changelist of everything CJ has added and improved on following version 1.1 but he did tell me it was a massive update and he recalls having added a very large number of new prospects. I have been able to piece together a rough changelist by going through his old posts in the 1998/99 Rosters Discussion Thread which hopefully provides a rough idea of what has been done.

There’s absolutely no way I can attempt to match the attention to detail and volume of work CJ and Nino33 put into this, but I do wish to try to keep the project alive. Prior versions of the Rosters were created using the EHM 2007 database format which brought with it various limitations such as hardcoded playable league structures and only a limited number of playable leagues when importing into EHM 1. My initial task is to edit the playable league structures and schedules to match the real life 1998/99 structures and schedules and to then expand the range of playable leagues in order to take advantage of the many rosters and players CJ and Nino33 carefully hand-crafted. Version 1.2 includes my initial work in this regard, with all but the Allsvenskan and Mestis now mirroring the 1998/99 structures and schedules as well as introducing the British (Sekonda) Ice Hockey Superleague and British National League (marksbros6 and I spent a great deal of time a number of years ago creating players for the various British leagues, adding career histories, average attendance data, etc).

I’m acutely aware that there’s still a lot of work to be done in order to get the leagues up to scratch for Eastside Hockey Manager 1; such as match rules, finance rules, trade/transfer rules and various competition histories. Please do post any feedback in particular on match/finance/trade rules in the 1998/99 Rosters Discussion Thread.

Want to know which leagues are playable and their current status? CLICK HERE

Changelist:

• [CJ] Added hundreds of NHL prospects drafted between 1999 and 2019 (at least 300, probably much more);
• [CJ] Added Favourite Jersey Numbers for all prospects;
• [CJ] Re-evaluated existing prospects’ Player Roles and positions;
• [CJ & Archibalduk] Removed duplicate players and corrected various incorrect data (e.g. incorrect names and dates of birth);
• [Archibalduk] Added accurate league structures and schedules for the following leagues: (i) NHL, (ii) AHL, (iii) ECHL, (iv) Canadian Major Juniors (OHL, QMJHL, WHL and Memorial Cup) (the QMJHL has a fictional schedule as I could not source details of the 1998/99 real life schedule), (v) Finnish SM-League and (vi) Swedish Elitserien; and
• [Archibalduk] Added the following new playable leagues: (i) British (Sekonda) Ice Hockey Superleague and (ii) British National League.