A rules committee was convened this summer to go over a number of rules changes. Some of these were done to close loopholes in the current rules and some were done to enhance league play. Below is the list of changes, these changes will be listed on the web page shortly and be added to the on-line rulebook. If you don't understand any of them, please ask questions before a misinterpretation causes any problems.

1) Non-disk players are allowed on the active roster ONLY if there are currently 3 non-disk players on the reserve list.

2) Reserve list players CANNOT be moved during the season. Once the reserve lists are set, those players cannot be traded or released during the season. Once the season is over, they are no longer considered reserve list players and can move freely during the off season.

3) Expansion. A committee will be formed to make guidelines and recommendations to expand for the 99-00 or 00-01 season (98-99 NHL season, NHL expands by 1 team, with two more planned for the following NHL season). This committee will most likely rule that rookie draft picks be allocated to start building these expansion teams. Anyone out there willing to work on the committee to draft these guidelines? Drop me a line.

4) All game sevens in the first round of the playoffs will be zipped. No changes to the conference finals and Gump Cup finals being zipped.

5) Another committee is to be formed laying out a loose "minimum sentence" guideline document for overuse of players. Currently, I come up with penalties for overuse, and they are reviewed and revised by the rules committee. This practice has some inconsistencies, and puts alot of heat on the people enforcing the penalties. By having some penalty guidelines, everyone will know ahead of time approximately what they'll be in for if they overuse players.

6) Penalies again. In some cases, overuse of star players will result in those players being suspended for playoff games. This will be investigated further by the penalty committee being formed above. Again, anyone interested in serving on the committee and helping to create a draft document for review should contact me.

7) All players with less than 10 minutes of game fatigue will be raised to 10 minutes for Gump league play.

8) Minimum play for goalies is now defined as 50% of NHL actual minutes played rather than 50% of games played. No changes to non-goalie minimums or goalie maximums.

9) Voted in last summer, to now be implemented: Reserve list maximum for goalies is 20 games played. Non-goalies remain at 41 games maximum for reserve list qualification.

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