Rules for 09/10 Season 

Salary Cap
Roster Limits
Injuries
Emergency Call-ups
Clear Day Rosters
STRIKES
Team Finances
Player Contracts
Restricted Free Agents
Unrestricted Free Agents
Holdouts
Draft
Signing Prospects
Signing Deadline
Signing Bonus
Retiring Players
Arena Expansion
Coaches
Eligibility
Buyouts
Waivers
UFA Claims
Lines
Pre-season

SALARY CAP

In sports, a salary cap is a limit on the amount of money a team can spend on player salaries, either as a per-player limit or a total limit for the team's roster (or both). Several sports leagues have made salary caps mandatory, both as a method of keeping overall costs down, and in order to balance the league so a wealthy team cannot become dominant simply by buying all the top players.

The cap is a HARD cap with a max and min. This cap CANNOT be traded, moved or changed; it’s a hard cap that must be followed by each and every team.  Teams violating the cap will RECEIVE A STRIKE (SEE "strikes" BELOW). 

Here is the structure for the new Cap system:
Player Cap: Players will still have a maximum salary of $10M and a minimum salary of $0.5M per year.
OHL Cap: Teams will have a hard cap with a maximum of $65 M and a minimum of $45 M. Teams have to remain in this range throughout the season or be fined.
ZPHL Cap: ZPHL/DCHL rosters will have a combined hard cap with a maximum of $3.5M and a minimum of $2.0M. A team’s cap must remain in this range throughout the season.

Effective after the 2009/10 season, the Salary Cap will be relaxed for a 30 day period only following the opening of the Free Agency period.

• Each team's Salary Cap for both the OHL and the ZPHL will be increased by 15% for a period of 30 days, commencing on the day the Free Agency bidding commences;
• At no time can a team exceed that 15% increase;
• By 11:59 pm Calgary time on the 30th day from commencement of the Free Agency bidding process, every team must be back down to the Hard Cap. If a team fails to get back down to their Hard Cap by the required date, the GM will receive one strike for every 3 days that passes without compliance. (See the “Strikes” section of the Rules page below).


ROSTER LIMITS

The maximum number of active players on the OHL, ZPHL and DCHL rosters is 25. This also means the maximum number of players a team can have under contract at any one time is 75 (25+25+25).

Once the trade deadline has passed, the roster maximum of 25 players is lifted from the OHL roster meaning teams can have as many players as they like on their OHL roster as long as they don't go over salary cap or the 75 maximum limit on contracts.

The minimum number of active players on the OHL and ZPHL rosters is set to 20. At no time during the season may a team have less than 20 active players on their roster or the gm WILL RECEIVE A STRIKE. Please note that there is no minimum limit on the DCHL rosters.

The OHL and ZPHL rosters also have a minimum limit on the number of players for each position. At no time during the season may a team have less than 2 goaltenders, 6 defensemen and 12 forwards on their roster. There are no limits on individual positions on the DCHL rosters.

Players not considered “active players” include players on Injured Reserve, suspended players and players who have been bought out but still count towards the salary cap.

For the prospect list there are no roster limits at all.

During the off-season, between June 15th and the last day of pre-season, the roster limits are not enforced. The only restriction in that time frame is that teams may not go over the maximum limit of 75 players under contract (doesn't include players on the prospect list).

At no point in time may a team go below the minimum limit of 40 having 40 players under contract (including a minimum of 4 goalies).

INJURIES

Clicking ROSTERS -> INJURED RESERVE in the menu will take you to the official IR of the OHL. The one the sim outputs is for reference. When you see a player on the sim injury-list who is either scheduled to be out at least a week, or is suspended, you MUST submit a roster move transferring said player to the official IR or Suspended list. It is also obviously allowed to send players to IR who suffer just minor injuries if you so please (could be to clear cap for example).

However when a player is put on the official IR list he will have a date added to his name. He can not be activated from IR until 7 days have passed from that date (as per the NHL). If a player goes on IR on the 10th, he cannot be taken off IR until the 18th at the earliest.

The player will not be allowed to play in games before being activated off IR. Playing a player still officially on IR will result in A STRIKE FOR THE GM and poTENTIAL suspension of the player in question.

If your injury puts you below the minimum roster demands for a certain position (you have only 5 healthy dmen or 11 healthy forwards on the OHL roster for example) you are permitted to perform an emergency re-call where the called up player won't have to clear waivers when sent back down to the minors.

The called up player can remain on your roster until the injured or suspended player is activated. If the injured player is activated and the called up player stays on your OHL roster while your OHL roster for one game (regardless whether he plays or not), his waiver immunity is gone.

When making an emergency re-call always notify the updater which player the call-up is replacing.

Failure to keep track of players getting injured will result in A STRIKE FOR THE GM. This is part of the job of being a GM. You must at all times keep track of your rosters and your games.

If you suffer an injury and the players isn't placed on IR within a reasonable time-frame, you will be fined and even more serious it will send a clear message to the league that you are not paying attention to your roster.

Healthy players may NOT be placed on IR.

EMERGENCY CALL-UPS

Should a team find itself in a situation where injuries or suspensions puts the team below the minimum roster requirements at a certain position (1 goalie, 5 dmen or 11 forwards for example), it will be entitled to make an emergency call-up where the called up player won't have to clear waivers when sent back down to the minors.

The called up player can remain on your roster until the injured or suspended player is activated. If the injured player is activated and the called up player stays on your OHL roster while your OHL roster for one game (regardless whether he plays or not), his waiver immunity is gone.

Teams are NOT allowed to assign players to the minors and replace them with emergency re-calls.

When making an emergency re-call always notify the updater which player the call-up is replacing.

There is no limit on the amount of emeregency re-calls a team can perform during a season.

Emergency re-call based on trading yourself below roster minimum is not allowed. The player will be subject to waivers.

CLEAR DAY ROSTERS

WITHIN 72 hours FOLLOWING the trade deadline each team must submit a list of their ZPHL clear day roster to the league. Each Clear Day Roster consists of a maximum of 22 players. According to OHL by-laws, only those players listed on a team's Clear Day Roster are eligible to compete in the remainder of the regular season and ZPHL playoffs, unless emergency conditions arise as a result of recall, injury or suspension.

STRIKES

Effective immediately, the OHL will be instituting a Strike system to replace the Fine system which has been in place.  From the period of July 1st through June 30th of each ‘season’, a GM can receive up to 5 Strikes.  A Strike will be added any time a GM breeches their duties as required by the league.  This will include, but not be limited to, failing to do the following:

1. Maintaining your Rosters (ie – submitting injuries, staying within Euro requirements, maintaining Cap requirements);
   
   
2. Submitting Lines (Players playing proper positions, injured players replaced etc)
   
   
3. Meeting required OHL deadlines;
   
   
4. Responding to required forum posts within posted deadline;
   
   
5. Maintaining proper forum decorum.

Each failure to comply will cost the GM a Strike.  Relative to the new Strike system, TJ Hooker’s contract will not be renewed.  Strikes will be monitored by the Simmers (for line related violations), Updaters (for roster related violations) and the Commissioner (for forum related violations).  As well, the Vodka and Whiskey sponsorships, as well as the previous Fine system, will be removed. 
  Effective immediately, based on the Strike system, Teams will be rewarded as follows:

  0 strikes - 25M bankroll
  1-2 strikes - 10M bankroll
  3-4 strikes - no bankroll
  5 strikes – GM is fired immediately

This is based on the period of July 1 through June 30th of each ‘season’.  If a GM receives 5 Strikes within   this timeframe, he will be replaced, regardless of how long he has been with the OHL.  The new GM will then work on a pro-rated reward system based on his results during his tenure that ‘season’.

Head Office will start a thread that will maintain a running tally on the forum.

TEAM FINANCES

Each team started the 2007/2008 OHL season with $50,000,000 in a newly created bank account. Team Finances will be affected by team revenues and team expenses.

Team Revenue – Teams will have several ways of generating money to help in the day-to-day operations of their team: 

Ticket Sales (game attendance) – See OHL Arena Rule below.
Team and GM performance bonuses
Sponsorships
Trading of Cash from team to team

Team Expenses – Teams will also have expenses throughout the year which will affect team finances which include:

Trading of Cash from team to team

Player Signing bonuses

PLAYER CONTRACTS

Players need to be paid according to their ability and production. The league uses a contract system called “The Agent” which uses a complex formula to calculate a player’s talent (sim ratings which are based on NHL performance) with OHL performance (based on OHL stats). This value would be the minimum a team could sign any player regardless of status and this amount will be displayed on each player’s profile page.  

Entry level contracts range between 1-2 years in length. The value of entry level deals are outlined below the Signing Prospects section.

Restricted Free Agents must be offered the Agent’s minimum asking price to re-sign.

Unrestricted Free Agents go to the open market. Teams will bid on the UFAs with the UFA accepting nothing less than The Agent’s minimum value. Teams can of course offer a higher salary and/or signing bonus, as long as they can afford to fit that salary into their Hard Cap and/or have the money in the bank for the signing bonus. 

** The same would hold true for any team offering a C2 RFA an offer sheet, the minimum or higher must be met by the offering team.  (for further explanation on C2-RFA, see Free Agents section)

ZPHL players will receive 10% of their contract while playing in the ZPHL.

DCHL players will receive 10% of their contract while assigned to the DCHL.

RESTRICTED FREE AGENTS

There are two types of Restricted Free Agents. They are Class One RFA's and Class Two RFA's.

Class One RFA's (C1-RFA's):

Players who are between the ages of 18 and 24 inclusive, at the time of contract renewal
Can be resigned risk free without other teams bidding.
Do not enter the open bidding process.
Can be resigned 1-3 years at the minimum value suggested by the Agent.

A General Manager may choose not to resign a C1-RFA if he or she wishes but, the player will then be considered an Unrestricted Free Agent and must adhere to the rules and regulations to that class of player.

Class Two RFA's (C2-RFA's):

Players who are between the ages of 25 and 29 inclusive, at the time of contract renewal.
Must enter the open bidding process during the designated negotiation period where another team may make an offer for 1-3 years at the minimum value or higher as suggested by The Agent plus signing bonus if so desired.
The player’s current team has the right to match any offer given to their player.
The player’s current team must match 90% of the salary and 90% of the signing bonus if they choose to resign the player.
If a player’s current team does not match the offer, compensation is awarded, based on the compensation chart below.

GM's will be contacted after the bidding period is over and given 48 hours to make a decision regarding their player.

In order to maintain the "restricted status" of a C2-RFA, the original team must place a qualifying offer by the designated date of July 1st. This offer can be no less than the Agent's minimum suggested salary and represents what the team is legally bound to pay the player if no other team bids on their services. If a team does not place a qualifying offer before the designated date, then the player will be considered an unrestricted free agent. If no one bids on the player, then the amount submitted as a status offer will be used as the official new contract unless otherwise requested.

A team can only present a maximum of two C2-RFA offer sheets per year.

COMPENSATION CHART – C2 RFA

Draft selections may be taken from the current and following draft year with the compensatory picks being selected by the GM losing the player. All offer sheets from teams without the required compensation at the time of the offer will be voided. A team whose RFA receive an offer will have 48 hours to match the offer or accept compensation. If a GM does not reply within 48 hours, the offering team will receive the player and the current team will receive the compensation.

UNRESTRICTED FREE AGENTS

Players who are 30 years of age and older at the time of contract renewal.

Teams may protect 1 UFA player which will be treated as C1-RFA in which case they must be offered The Agent minimum contract.
UFA players not protected will enter the open bidding process during the designated negotiation period.

For a team to protect a UFA player, that player must have been with the club from the previous trade deadline to the July 1st signing deadline.

Teams have no right to match any bids on their own players because the player is no longer under contract with them.
No compensation is awarded for lost UFAs.

The player will sign with the team that offers the highest total contract (contract + signing bonus).

Note: an OHL contract offer will beat out a ZPHL contract offer regardless of value.

The UFA process will be as follows:

- Every UFA will be released for bidding on the day designated by Head Office (between July 8th and 22nd)

- Each team's Salary Cap will be increased by 15% for a period of 30 days effective the date of UFA bidding.

- At no time can a team exceed that 15% increase or the GM will receive a Stike.

- By 11:59 pm Calgary time on the 30th day of UFA bidding every team must be back within Salary Cap. If a team fails to get back down to their Salary Cap by the required date, the GM will receive one strike every 3 days until the team has complied.

- If a team successfully bids on a UFA, and that contract would place the team over their inflated Cap, the contract would be awarded to the team with the #2 bid. Be sure to submit your bids in Priority Sequence!

- In the case of a tie bid (value of overall offer), the player would enter a re-bid process between the teams that were tied. In the case of a maximum tied bid, lowest team in THE PREVIOUS SEASON'S overall REGULAR SEASON standings will be awarded the player.

- All other existing rules not affected by any of the changes above shall still apply.


HOLDOUTS 

A free agent, who hasn’t been signed to his minimum asking price at the start of the regular season, will be considered a holdout. For every week that passes, from the start of the regular season, he will lower his asking price by 5% until December 1st when he will give up and be prepared to sign for his base value (salary based on ratings only).

He will never ask for a contract lower than the base value.

For example: Gary Roberts’s agent will begin the season asking for $3.9M. Once the season starts, and Roberts remains without a contract, he will lower his demands by 5% each week. If he remains unsigned by Dec 1st he will accept offers of his base value, which in his case is $1.7M.

ENTRY DRAFT

The OHL entry draft from now on will be held around a week after the NHL draft.
All players from the NHL draft + undrafted players aged 20 or less are eligible to be selected in the OHL draft.

UFA Claims of players aged 20 will not be allowed from the time of the NHL Entry Draft until the completion of the OHL draft.

The OHL entry draft will expand to feature 6 rounds of drafting starting with the 2009 Entry draft.

The OHL entry draft will be spread out over 6 days covering one round per day to allow more GMs the chance to participate as well as open up more room for draft trades.

SIGNING PROSPECTS

Teams who want to sign players from their prospect-lists must do so before July 1st of the year indicated on the roster page. Prospects who are not signed by the designated date will be considered free agents and are free to sign with any team they want. Entry level contracts are two years maximum in length.To sign your prospects, you must offer them a salary based on their draft position according to the following table:

SIGNING DEADLINE

July 1st each year is the deadline for re-newing contracts.

This includes restricted free agents, prospects and the one UFA whose services you decide you retain. Any such player who is not given a new contract by July 1st will be given the status of an unrestricted free agent.

SIGNING BONUS  

Teams have finances and this is one area that cash can be used.

Teams that are offering contracts to Class 2 RFA and UFA can offer a signing bonus on top of the contract offer. This allows teams to try to lure players to sign with them without driving up salaries through the roof.

The signing bonus could be any amount up to the total amount of the contract.
Example: UFA Joe Schmoe is asking for a minimum of $2.5 M per year according to The Agent. Buffalo offers UFA Joe Schmoe a $3.0 million x 3 years. They can offer a signing bonus of up to $9 million which would come out of their bank account. 

The size of a contract bid is determined by salary x years + signing bonus.

The biggest total bid wins the player. In the event of a tie, the team whose offer contains the highest salary will win the player. In the event of two or more bids being absolutely identical, the team who was the first to submit their bid will win the player. There will not be a tie-breaker round of offers. 

RETIRING PLAYERS

The following applies to the retirement rule in the OHL:

The OHL has an over-35 rule in regards to players retiring. This means that any player who is 35 years old or more when signing a new contract, will count towards the teams salary cap at their full value for the full duration of the contract even if he retires before the contract expires.

Players who don’t qualify for the over-35 rule (aged 34 or younger when signing their contracts) will only count towards the cap for 50% of their salary for the full duration of the contract.

PLAYERS WHO HAVE OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCED THEIR RETIREMENTS CAN NOT BE WAIVED FROM THE OHL TO THE ZPHL.

Players who retire after the conclusion of their season in real life will be allowed to complete their OHL season before retiring from the OHL.

In the tragic event of terminal illness or death of a player, he will be removed from his OHL club immediately without impacting the salary cap.

Retirement Rights:

Clubs will have an option to keep the rights to a retired player for the remainder of his contract. If, after that contract has expired, the club should desire to keep the players rights longer, they can do so at the cost of $1M dollars per year for a maximum 3 years. This fee is payable from Team Finances.

If a Club owns the rights to a retired player who returns to play in real life, he will be eligible to play in the OHL or ZPHL once he fullfils the eligibility standards.

Proof from a reputable publication and/or website is required when claiming your rights to a returning, retired player. If the returning player is still under contract, he will play for the salary determined by that contract. Should he not be under contract at the time of his return, he must be signed to a new contract as negotiated by the agent.

ARENA EXPANSION

Teams will be asked to name their arenas.

Attendance at arenas will bring in revenue and affect a team’s finances.

Arenas can be expanded to attract more fans and bring in more revenue. The cost for Arena expansion comes out of the team bankroll. Current arenas are set at a default of 18,000 seats with five different ticket levels: level 1-4 and Luxury Boxes.

The cost for expansion is as follows:

LEVEL	DEFAULT TICKET PRICE	EXPANSION COST PER SEAT
Level 1	$100	$15.000
Level 2	$60	$9.000
Level 3	$35	$5.250
Level 4	$20	$3.000
Luxury Boxes	$200	$30.000

Each team can expand their arena from the initial capacity of 18.,000 seats to a maximum capacity of 23.000 seats.GMs have the opportunity to adjust their ticket prices in the GM Client when doing their lines for upcoming games.

COACHES

When a coaches contract runs out he becomes a free agent, free to sign with the highest bidder.

The process of signing coaches will be the same as when signing players, using “The Agent”.

The maximum length of a coaching contract is three years.
His salary is payed each season from the team bankroll. 
You must have enough money in your account to pay your coach.
Coaches may not be traded.

A list of 41 coaches has been compiled who will only be eligible to work at the OHL level. These coaches will not accept a coaching job in the minors.

ELIGIBILITY

In the ZPHL, player development is a top priority. Therefore, a limit has been set on the number of players playing in Europe (E) or unsigned (U) by a professional team to a combined maximum of (3) per ZPHL roster.

Players will not count against the maximum of 3 until they've turned 25. In other words, teams can have unlimited Euro/Unsigned players on their ZPHL roster as long as they are not yet 25 years old. The day they turn 25, they count against the maximum limit of 3.

All players must have played at least 20 games of real life hockey in the past two seasons to be eligible to play in either the OHL or ZPHL. Players failing to meet these standards will be moved off the roster without charge, with the team having the option of keeping the rights to the player for the duration of his contract without him counting against either the salary cap or roster limits.

Players listed as Unsigned may be placed on the OHL roster, but can't participate in OHL games. VIOLATION WILL RESULT IN A STRIKE FOR THE GM.

Players listed as Euro may not be placed on the OHL roster and, naturally, can't play in OHL games either. VIOLATION WILL RESULT IN A STRIKE FOR THE GM.

Effective July 1, 2010, the number of eligible Euro/Unsigned players will be increased to 5 per organization. 
All other Euro/Unsigned rules will apply.


BUYOUTS

A GM may buyout a player he no longer wants. A released player will continue to count against the teams salary cap for the duration of his contract.

The size of the cap-hit depends upon the age of the player.

A player aged 26 or more at the time of the buyout will count against the cap for 66% of his salary. For a player aged 25 or younger the cap-hit will be 33%.

Players bought out at the OHL level will count towards the OHL cap while players bought out at either the ZPHL or DCHL level will count against the ZPHL cap.

WAIVERS

Waivers only apply when moving a player aged 24 or more from the OHL to the ZPHL.

To place a player on waivers a GM has to submit the waiver-transaction to the league via the Submit Transactions link on the main page.

Once the move has been announced on the transactions list, other GMs have 48 hours to put in a claim for the player via the same link.

If several teams put in a claim for the same player he will be awarded to the worst team based on standings. Up until November 1st the standings from the previous year is used. After November 1st the standings in the current season are used.

Players who are claimed off of waivers may be placed back on waivers at any time. Players who sign to play in Europe and thus become ineligible to play in the OHL, may be moved to the ZPHL without having to clear waivers.

UFA CLAIMS

To sign players who are not yet part of the OHL, you send in a signing request by sending a UFA Claim via Submit Transactions. For a player to qualify for UFA Claims he must be 20 or older at the time the claim is made.

If the player you want to sign is represented by The Agent, he will have a salary credited to his name. If he doesn't have one, use this salary structure for your claims:

Use this format for your bid:

Player name - Postion - Date of birth(month/day/year) - Salary x Contract Length - League (OHL, ZPHL or DCHL)

For example:
Rogie Vachon - G - 1/1/50 - $2.000.000 x 3 yrs - ZPHL

If you don't use this format, you'll be asked to resubmit your claim.

A player cannot be signed to your DCHL roster if he has NHL experience.

An organization can make as many UFA Claims as they want each month, but they cannot surpass the limit of 75 professional contracts at any one time.

UFA Claims will be

LINES

Before every game a GM has to submit lines to the simmer.

To do so a GM must have the GM-client program and load the sim-files into it. The sim-files are linked to from the league website in the GM-section. Lines must be done for both the OHL and ZPHL teams.

Starting with the 2008/09 season, teams are not allowed to doubleshift.

Teams must dress 12 different forwards on their 4 forward lines.

For blueliners an OHL line-up carries 6 defensemen. This means that two of these will play on the fourth pairing. A defenseman may not appear on two of the top 3 lines.

Further more, players are only allowed to play on the positions sanctioned for them on the team roster page.

A player labeled "C/W" may play any forward position while a player labeled "L" may only play on Left Wing. These positions also apply on special teams. Forwards may not play the point on the powerplay unless "D" is a sanctioned position for them on the roster page.

Breaking any of these rules will result in a STRIKE.

PRE-SEASON

The OHL pre-season features a maximum of 9 games per franchise. It is up to the GMs to arrange their own pre-season schedule. Each game features and OHL and a ZPHL matchup.