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Notes from the organizer: Do you enjoy tournaments? Do you enjoy playing lots of games? Do you enjoy alternative formats? Do you enjoy overly complicated qualification rules? If your answer to any of these questions is Yes, keep reading!

A couple of years ago, I did a tournament based on the British Ice Hockey season (EIHL), fully including the League, Cup and end of season play offs. It was enjoyable, but not perfect. With little to do the last few months, I have come up with a plan to reimagine this, but based on the bigger and better National Hockey League!

The big problem was limiting the tournament to 10 teams, as the EIHL was at the time (and is again now after a brief expansion). It meant too many games against the same people, so in the AptoNHL, there will be up to 32 people. The format will remain similar.

FIRSTLY: LEAGUE

Everyone will play each other Home and Away in the Champions League Format (Winners only LNLLNLLNLNC P1 picking every round). If a game is drawn, a sudden death conundrum will be played to simulate overtime. Players will earn 2 points for a win, and 1 point for an overtime defeat. Teams level on points will be ranked by head to head record. If a third game between players is generated, feel free to play it, but it will not count towards the table (I will comment on the game page if this is the case).

At the same time, you will all be divided into two different conferences, roughly divided by Proranks w/b 20th July. You will play everyone in your conference a further two times, same rules apply.

At the end, depending on the number of people who apply, The Top 2, 4 or 6 in each conference will qualify for the end of season play offs (More on those later), as well as four “Wildcards” made up of the highest placed players in the full league table who haven’t qualified.

CHALLENGE CUP

Simultaneously, a new take on the Challenge cup will take place. This will be closer to the format used in Britain.

Players will be randomly drawn into groups (number tbc when the number of participants is certain), and will play each other ONCE in a Winners only 15 rounder, same points apply as the league. This competition will have no seeding, although all efforts will be made sure players will be P1 and P2 an equal number of times (or as close as possible). The winner of each group (plus a few runners-up if needed) will proceed to a knock-out round, which will ultimately determine the winner.

If the winner of the CC does not qualify for the Play offs through the league, they will assume one of the wild card spots.

PLAY-OFFS

Finally, the simulation of the Stanley Cup play offs. The final 8, 12 or 16 (dependent on number of participants) will play each other in a straight knock-out tournament. Like the Stanley Cup, of which the knockouts are based on best of 7 matches, these will constst of best of 7 Winners only 15 rounders, until we find our Champion!

tl:dr If you enjoy tourneys, enter this one. I swear it isn’t as complicated as it reads.

Ran from: 2 – 24 July 2020. Format: Champions League. Matches: One-off. Approved.

Fixtures: 0. Completed: 0.