2007-2008 OFHL Rules and Regulations

>> LAST UPDATED: SEPTEMBER 12, 2007

Overview:

The Ohioville Fantasy Hockey League (OFHL) will consist of 14 teams and will be divided into 2 divisions, East and West. OFHL play will unfold as weekly, "head-to-head" games. Each OFHL franchise will play 20 regular season games with the opportunity to progress onto the post season which will consist of 4 rounds.

Roster Specifications:

Each franchise's roster will consist of 12 roster slots. As a minimum, owners must have at least:

• 1 Center
• 2 Wingers
• 2 Defensemen
• 1 NHL team

The remaining 6 roster slots can be filled with any combination of player positions or NHL teams. The only exception is that an OFHL franchise may only have a maximum of 2 NHL teams on its roster at any given time. Goaltenders are not used in the OFHL. TSN's 2006-2007 NHL statistics will serve as the only official publication for determining player positions. A printable PDF version of these statistics is available via the 2007 Entry Draft page. It is the responsibility of each franchise to bring these statistics to the draft for clarifying positions of players. Please note that player positions for rookies will ultimately be determined by the Commissioner.

Draft Day:

The 2007 OFHL Entry Draft will be held at the North Park Lounge Deckhouse in Cranberry, PA on September 30, at 4:00 PM. Please check back in the coming weeks for more details. The draft will consist of 12 rounds, and draft-pick order was determined by the 2006-2007 OFHL regular season final standings. For all rounds, the draft order will commence as follows: Odd-numbered rounds: 1, 2, 3, 4, etc; Even-numbered rounds: 14, 13, 12, 11, etc. Any player or NHL team can be taken in any round of the draft.

League Play:

An OFHL game takes one week to play. For each week, the 14 OFHL teams will be paired and pitted against each other creating 7 head-to-head games. OFHL teams will accumulate points (see "Scoring" section below) based on the amount of player goals and assists as well as NHL team wins, ties and shutouts that their lineups produce during that week in the NHL. At the end of the week, the owner with the most total points at the end of the week wins.

A day-by-day, 2007-2008 OFHL Schedule of Games with OFHL week numbers and dates is available as a printable, PDF file on the 2007 Entry Draft page. Please note that the first OFHL week will start with NHL games played on October 8, 2007. And as in the past, the OFHL will not use the last week of the NHL season since most NHL teams are resting players in the week prior to the NHL post season.

Line-ups:

Weekly line-ups will consist of:

• 1 Center
• 2 Wingers
• 2 Defensemen
• 1 NHL team

Scoring for each OFHL week begins with the first Monday game begins and ends when the last Sunday game is over. All line-ups should be submitted via the OFHL's line-up submittal system, but in case of an emergency, phone calls or e-mails to the Commissioner will be accepted. Line-ups for a given week must be submitted before (and can be altered up to) the start of the first Monday game. If a line-up is not submitted for a given week, the previous week’s line-up will be used.

Scoring:

Again, scoring for each OFHL week begins with the first Monday game played and ends when the last Sunday game is over. That said, the following scoring scheme will be used in the OFHL:

Player Scoring:

• Goal = 2 points
• Assist = 1 point

NHL Team Scoring:

• Win = 2 points
• Shutout = 3 points

For each head-to-head game at the end of each OFHL week, teams will receive 2 points for a win; 1 point for a tie; and 0 points for a loss toward the OFHL Standings. Daily box scores will be posted daily on the OFHL web site before noon, and standings will be updated weekly.

In the event that an NHL game is cancelled, the player(s) slated to play in that game will receive zero points for that day. The same rule applies to NHL teams. When the NHL reschedules the game, all points generated from that game will be posted to the day on which it is played. All scoring will be done by the OFHL Commissioner. Despite the Commissioner's scoring expertise, mistakes may be made. Each OFHL franchise is encouraged to check their scores on a daily basis and report any discrepancies to the Commissioner.

Bench Player Substitution:

Each OFHL team has the ability to "bench" one player from their active line-up at any given time throughout the course of an OFHL week and insert a player or corresponding position from your roster that is of the same position. Once the player is benched, he is removed from your line-up, but the points that he accrued prior to being benched will still contribute to that week's score. The inserted player will then be a part of your line-up for the remainder of the OFHL week and will contribute to that week's score for the time he was inserted.

If a bench substitution is made before the start that day's first game, the substituted player is officially inserted into the line-up for that day. If a bench substitution is made after that day's first game has started, the substituted player won't be officially inserted into the line-up until the following day.

Remember that NHL teams can be substituted in the same fashion as players. Again, only one bench substitution is permitted per OFHL team per week.

To clarify, here's a simple example: Joe Sakic was the starting center for the Marlins. On Wednesday at 7:45 pm, Coach Linda decides that she wants to bench Sakic and insert Mike Modano in his place. Coach Linda looks at the schedule of games for that Wednesday. She notices a game has already started. at 7:00 PM. Therefore, her substitution request is valid, but Sakic will still be in her line-up for Wednesday. On Thursday he will officially be replaced by Modano. Had Linda made the request prior to 7:00 PM, Modano would have been inserted into her line-up that evening.

Trades and Waivers:

Trades and waivers in the OFHL can be made in the following ways:

• OFHL Transaction System (preferred method)
• Contact the Commissioner by e-mail
• Contact the Commissioner by phone

In the OFHL, a waived player (posted on the Transaction Page) or NHL team is available immediately, regardless if they are currently being used in a franchise's line-up for that week. Waived players or teams finish out the week on their current line-up. If a waived player/team is acquired by another franchise in the meantime, they will report to their new OFHL team after the last Sunday game for that week. Similarly, trades can occur anytime, but also do not officially transpire until after the last Sunday game for that week.

Trades in the OFHL are not confined to 1 for 1 deals. There can be 2 for 3 deals, 2 for 4 deals, etc. You can even trade players for an NHL team if you so desire. When the trade is over, as long as each OFHL roster conforms to the roster demographic rules outlined above and ends up with 12 full roster slots, OFHL management will be happy. Therefore if your trade is not 1 for 1, you will have to pick up some scrubs via the waiver wire to give yourself a full roster.

Dropping a player and acquiring a new one via the waiver wire is simple via the transaction system. However, trades entail a bit more coordination between the trading teams. To trade a player, each team must post a single transaction detailing who they are trading away (dropping) and who they are acquiring. Each franchise involved in the trade must e-mail the Commissioner with their intention to trade. Each team's posted transaction(s) in conjunction with e-mailing the Commissioner constitute terms of the trade. If these procedures are not followed, the trade will not transpire, and the pending transactions will be deleted.

Each season, the OFHL freezes transactions a few weeks before the start of OFHL post season to deter any collusion between teams that will not make the playoffs and teams looking to beef up their rosters for the post season. After the transaction deadline, all OFHL rosters are frozen for the rest of the OFHL season (including playoffs.) The only exception to this rule is when an OFHL team does not have enough healthy players for a given position (center, wing or defense) to submit a weekly line-up. Any team that experiences this must contact the Commissionert. You can then drop a player from your roster and pick up a replacement player of the same position from the waiver wire. Once an injured player is dropped after the transaction deadline, he is literally dead for the remainder of the season and cannot be picked up by any OFHL team. There are no exceptions. Note that since NHL teams can't be injured, no NHL team transactions will occur after the transaction deadline.

Franchise Players:

Each OFHL team has the option of retaining one skater from the previous season to the next. Eligible players must (1) be initially drafted between rounds 7-12 of the OFHL entry draft and must (2) reside on the franchising team's roster for the entire OFHL season prior to franchising. Note that NHL teams cannot be franchised.

An OFHL team must announce its intentions to franchise a player prior to the start of the ensuing season's OFHL Entry Draft. At that time, those OFHL teams wishing to franchise a player will sacrifice a compensatory draft pick in exchange for franchising a player. Compensatory draft picks are determined in the following fashion:

• When a skater is franchised, his performance in the previous season will be calculated based on OFHL-weighted scoring and compared to all other NHL skaters of the same position.
• If the skater's performance is in the TOP THIRD of his peers, the compensatory draft pick associated with franchising him will equal: [Round Picked in previous season] - [3 Rounds]. For instance, if the Less Habs draft Briere in 2006 in the 8th Round, and Briere finishes in the TOP THIRD of all forwards, he would cost Coach Jim a 5th round pick in 2007. [8th Round - 3 Rounds = 5th Round]
• If the skater's performance is in the MIDDLE THIRD of his peers, the compensatory draft pick associated with franchising him will equal: [Round Picked in previous season] - [2 Rounds].
• If the skater's performance is in the BOTTOM THIRD of his peers, the compensatory draft pick associated with franchising him will equal: [Round Picked in previous season] - [1 Round].
• Download the 2007 - 2008 OFHL Franchise Player Value Sheet to determine franchising value.

A skater can continue to be franchised for as many consecutive seasons as desired. Each subsequent year, however, the compensatory draft pick will be based on the previous compensatory draft pick minus the performance adjustment previously discussed. Note that the "7th - 12th Round Restriction" only applies to the initial year of franchising and does not restrict a player from being renamed a franshise player if his previous compensatory draft pick was higher than the 7th round.

The risk associated with franchising a player is shouldered by the franchising OFHL team. The OFHL will not reimburse an OFHL team for a franchise player that turns sour. However, at any time throughout the season, a franchise player can be traded or dropped like any other player.

Post Season Play:

At the end of the OFHL regular season, the top three teams in each division will advance to the ICEE Cup Playoffs as the top 6 seeds where the 1st place teams in each division will be seeded 1st and 2nd based on their regular season records. These top six teams will have a bye during the Wild Card Round.

The four next-best teams (league-wide) will qualify for the Wild Card Round. These four teams will be seeded according to their regular season records and will play each other (7th seed will play 10th seed; 8th seed will play 9th seed.) The two winners of the Wild Card Round will be reseeded with the top 6 seeds and will play in the ICEE Cup Quarter Finals. Winners of the ICEE Cup Quarter Finals will be reseeded and advance to the ICEE Cup Semi Finals. Winners of the ICEE Cup Semi Finals will play for 1st and 2nd place, while the losers will play for 3rd and 4th place. NOTE that seeding is based strictly on league-wide OFHL standing points.

Also during the ICEE Cup Semi Finals, the four worst league-wide teams (based on regular season records) will advance to the Athletic Cup Playoffs: the worst plays the fourth worst; the second worst plays the third worst. The two losers will then advance to play in the Athletic Cup Finals.

Please note that if ties complicate playoff advancement or post-season play, total regular-season line-up points will break all ties (for ICEE Cup and Athletic Cup Playoffs.) If a tie still exists, regular season wins will break the tie. If a tie still exists, total regular season goals will break the tie.

OFHL Commissioner:

Ed Weiland - Send him some e-mail via the OFHL's Home Page.