0.5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many many thanks to Lou Syracuse for converting some bad faxes of the rulebook into HTML. Thanks also again to Mike Haley for initially putting this rulebook all together 3 years ago.

1.0 LEAGUE CHARTER

The Gump Worsley Memorial Hockey League was founded to promote long term friendship wihile fostering a competitive computer simulation hockey league.

The Rules and Procedures under which we govern our operations will be balanced to allow all coaches/teams equal and fair opportunity to be successful. They will be constructed as simply as possible. They will be drafted to aid in the administration of the league and to enhance competitive league play. It is a basic league premise that we are more interested in playing the games than in designing detailed processes to track, record, and account for minor impact events.

It will be impossible to document and legislate all potential conflict situations. With this in mind, each coach is directed to establish the following priorities for their actions:

1. Always make your decisions to protect the friendships you have made through your associations with the league.

2. Always consider the impact of your actions on the league as a whole. While you may have every right to take a certain action, if, the long run your action weakens the league you need to consider other options

3. If you are unsure of what actions you should take, seek counsel of the other coaches in the league.

Communications is a key element to the success of the league. Each coach needs to make efforts to communicate with other leagues members on a regular basis. Share your ideas, your successes, your failures and most of all share your sense of humor. We will learn from your ideas, successes and failures, but we will grow when nurtured with laughter

Volunteer to help. Leagues fail when key members suffer "Burn-out". If each coach shares just a little of the operational workload, we can all thrive!

2.0 League Organization

The league is composed of two conferences: the Terry Sawchuk Conference and the Jacques Plante Conference.

Each conference is composed nine teams for a total of 18 teams. Refer to the teams and managers page for the current team and coaches roster. Each team will play an 84 game regular season schedule. The top four teams in each conference will make the playoffs.

3.0 Amendments & Changes

All major changes to the league's Rules and Procedures must be approved by 2/3 of the active league members who choose to vote.

Relatively minor changes to the league's Rules and Procedures will be voted upon by a Rules Committee composed of at least 5 good standing league members. Proposed changes will be presented for league vote if deemed to have a significant impact upon the league. Rules that are mainly administrative in nature or those designed to close loopholes in the current rules will be involked by committee vote only.

All league members are encouraged to submit potential rules changes to the committee for evaluation which they feel will have a positive effect on the league. This should be done by June of each year for possible implementation in the next season.

4.0 League Administration

Commissioner:

The League commissioner is responsible for the complete operation of the league. Specific duties include but are not limited to:

Publishing the Rules and Procedures Manual
Coordinating all league communications
Supervising all league committees
Preparing the league master data disk
Supervising and managing all league deadlines

The League commissioner is empowered to act on all issues not specifically covered in this manual.

Deputy Commissioner

The deputy commissioner assists the commisioner. The deputy Commmissioner's specific duties include but are not limited to:

Function as the acting Commissioner any time the Commissioner is unable to perform his/her duties.
Manage all league financial functions

Director of Player Personnel

The director of Player Personnel (DPP) is reaponsible for the administration of all player related league activities with the exception of expansion. The DPP's specific responsibilities include but are not limited to:

Administration of all league and team rosters
Organization of the annual Rookie draft
Organization of the annual Free Agent draft
Organization of Mid-Season Free Agent Claiming
Maintenance of all Trades
Maintenance of all Player Reserve Lists

Committees

The league currently has three active committees and one inactive committee:

The Rules committee is charged with annually reviewing and voting upon proposed rule changes. It is also charged with organizing and presenting major rule changes for a vote amongst league membership. The 1995-96 season rules committee consisted of: Dave Atkinson, Mike Haley, Bruce Carriker, Lloyd Alexander, Joe Cifelli and Bruce Peckham.

The Administration committee is charged with recommending operational improvements for the administrative activities.

The Protest Committee is activated by the commissioner to review specific issues where league rules/procedures or philosphies have been alleged to have been abused. The scope of each review and the range of penalties will be determined by the commissioner when the committee is activated.

The Expansion committee is charged with developing a recommendation for league expansion from the current 18 teams. It is currently inactive due to recent turnover in league membership which required waiting list coaches to be used to fill vacancies rather than expansion teams. It's inactivity is also due to a recent rules committee vote turning down expansion in the next two years. Current opinion holds that the league should expand when the NHL expands again.

5.0 1996-97 League Officers

Commisioner: Dave Atkinsion

Deputy Commissioner: Joe Cifelli

Director of Player Personel: Joe Cifelli

6.0 Rosters

Each Team will be allowed to control up to 31 players. Each team will have players assigned to five separate rosters.

Controlled Roster:
A team's Controlled roster is the complete list of players that the team owns the rights to. There are four sub-rosters that make up the controlled roster.

Playing Roster
A team's playing roster is a maxiumum of 28 players that are eligible to play in the league during the current season. All players on this roster must have been given rating by the APBA Game Company for the current season's replay. The Playing roster is further sub-divided into the Active Roster and the Minor League roster.

Active Roster
A team's active Roster is comprised of up to 20 total players, with a maximum of 18 skaters and 2 goalies. All players on the Active roster must also be on the team's Playing roster. Only players on the Active roster can play in the current game.

Minor League Roster
A team's Minor League Roster is comprised of the remainder of players listed ont he Playing roster but not currently on the Active roster. In most situations this will be eight players.

Reserve Roster
A team's Reserve Roster may contain up to 3 players. Players on the Reserve roster are not eligible to play in any regular or play-off games int he current season. All players ont he Reserve roster must have played in ½ or less of the NHL games from the previous season.

Rookie Draft

The annual rookie draft willb e conducted by the DPP in July of each year. The draft will consist of four rounds. The basic order of the draft will be the inverse order of points earned in the previous GWMHL season.

Tie Breakers

If teams are tied in points, use the following priority to break the tie:

Most Wins
Largest (GF-GA)
Coin Toss

Teams that do not make the play-offs are eligible for the first round lottery. Lottery chances will be weighted by points earned in the previous GWMHL season with the team earning the fewest points getting the largest weight in the lottery. No team will fall further than three places lower than their basic draft position.

For example if a team A had the league's worst record in the previous season they would get 8 chances in the weighted lottery, but under no circumstances would that team select any worse then 4^th in the lottery.

For rounds 2-5 the order of the draft will be the basic draft order.

All players listed by The Hockey News are eligible for the Calder Cup will be eligible to be drafted in the GWMHL annual Rookie draft. Players already on a GWMHL team's controlled roster are not eligible for the draft. Players do not need to be rated by the APBA game Company to be eligible.

The DPP is responsible for organizing the annual Rookie draft.

7.0 Transactions

Veteran Free Agent Draft

The Veteran Free Agent draft will be conducted annually in August after the new player ratings have been published. The Veteran Free Agent draft will consist of five rounds.

The basic draft order will be the inverse order of finish in the previous GWMHL season as determined by points earned. Thie breakers will be the same as the Rookie draft.

All players rated by the APBA Game company in the current game who are not on any team's controlled roster are eligible for the Veteran Free Agent draft. Eligible rookies not drafted in the July annual Rookie draft are eligible as long as they are rated in the current edition of the game.

Free Agent Claims:

Free Agent claims will be awarded twice each season. Following the Veteran Free Agent Draft teams may submit Free Agent claims until the published cut-off date in late August. These will be called Pre-Season Free Agent claims. The claiming priority will be the inverse order of finish in the previous GWMHL as determined by points earned.

Free Agent claims made after the roster freeze date in late August will be allocated in January. The claims will be called Mid-Season Free Agent claims. The claiming priority for Mid-Season claims will be the current inverse order of standing in the GWMHL as of the end of the 2^nd quarter as determined by the number of points earned.

Pre-season Free Agents must be placed on the teams Player or Reserve roster. Mid-Season Free Agent claims must be placed on the team's Playing roster. The team must release a player from the overextended roster.

Players eligible for Pre-Season and Mid-Season Free Agent claiming must be rated by the APBA Game Company in the current game and must not be on any team's controlled roster.

Trades

Trades are permanent transfer of ownership of a players rights from one team to another team. Trades must be approved by the league commissioner before they are finalized.

Trades are allowed at two different times during a season. Pre-season trades start as soon as the previous season has been completed and ends witht he roster freeze date late in August. Players traded during the Pre-season are allocated to their new teams as soon as they have been finalized by the commissioner.

Trades after the roster freeze date until December 31^st will be know as Mid-season trades. Mid-season trades will be allocated with the start of the 3^rd quarter of play.

Trades may include players and/or draft picks. Draft picks may not be traded more than one full season in advance.

Both coaches involved in a trade are responsible for the fair balance of the trade. Any league member can request a review of a trade on the grounds that it is not a fair and balanced transaction. The commissioner will first attempt to have the involved coaches renegotiate a different transaction. If that fails the commissioner will activate the Protest committee to review the trade and arbitrate a soloution.

Active Roster to Minor League Roster

Transactions to and from the Active Roster can be made before the start of any game. There is no limitation on the number of times per season a team can move a player on or off the Active roster.

Trading Reserved Players

If a traded player was on the team's Reserve roster, the player's new team must place him on their reserve roster. If adding the new player to the team's Reserve roster over extends the Reserve roster the team must release on eof their Reserve roster players.

8.0 Player Use Limitations - Regular Season

All players will be limited to the actual number of games they played in the previous NHL season

For Example Mark Howe played in 44 games in the 1993-94 NHL season. In the 1994-95 GWMHL season Mark Howe will be limited to play in no more than 44 games.

Incidents of overuse will be reviewed by the commissioner on a case by case basis. Penalties may range from a loss of draft position within a round to forfeiture of a draft pick to loss of the player as a free agent.

9.0 Player Use Limitations - Playoffs

Position players will be limited in each seven game series. They will be limited to up to 10% of NHL games played, with fractions of .5 and larger rounded up.

Again using Mark Howe as an example, having played in 44 games during the regular season would allow him to play in 4 games of each seven game series.

Goalies who appeared in less than half of the NHJL games will be limited to the same 10% limit as position players. Goalies who played in more than half of the NHL games can play in all seven games of a seven game series.

10.0 Playing Rules

All GWMHL games (regular season and play-offs) will be played under the following rules:

Rule Priority

All NHL rules in effect for the season being represented in the game ratings, unless superceded by

APBA Pro Hockey rules for the current edition of the game unless superceeded by

GWMHL Special Playing rules as defined in the current edition of the GWMHL Rules and procedures manual.

11.0 Special Playing Rules

11.1 Minimum Use Rule

All players on a teams Playing roster must appear in at least 50% of the NHL games for the seaon represented. Partial games are rounded up for the minimum play rule.

Players who do not playi in a minimum of 50% of the NHL games will be declared Free Agents at the end of the season. This rule applies even to players acquired at mid-season.

For example Mark Howe played in 44 NHL games, to retain his ownership rights he must play a minimum of 22 games in the GWMHL season.

11.2 Playing Out Of Position

Players may play out of position provided they were rated at the position in question the previous season (APBA Game Company ratings). Teams are limited to three players who may be designated to play out of position in the season.

Player rating adjustments will be made as follows for players selected to play out of position

Forwards
One point reduction in ratings for skate, pass, forecheck, defense and a 10% reduction in shooting percentage.

Defensemen
One point reduction in ratings for skate, pass, clear, defense and a 10% reduction in shooting percentage.

A defensemen rated at only LD or RD may be given the other rating, with the appropriate reductions even if he did not play that position in the previous season.

Forwards on the Power Play Point
Forwards may play the point on the power play with the following reductions. Reduce the defense raing 1 point and reduce scoring by 50%. The forwards are not allowed to play regular defensive turns. Each team is limited to one forward who can play the point on the power play.

For each player authorized to play out of position the team will drop one position in the draft starting with the 3^rd round. If all three possible players are authorized to play out of position the team would lose a draft position in each of the first three rounds of the annual Rookie draft.

12.0 Playoffs

The top two teams in each division, as determined by points earned, will qualify for the Play-offs. Ties for 1^st place will be broken by the following cirteria.

Most wins
Greatest (GF-GA)
Single game playoff

The conference finals and Gump Cup finals will be played at a neutral site, played by the league commissioner or his designate, in ZIP mode.

Ties for 2^nd place in a division will be determined in a single game play-off as designated in 12.3.

All Play-off series will be the best of seven games

The first round of the Play-offs will match

Conference 1^st place - vs. - Conference 4^th Place
Conference 2^nd place - vs. - Conference 3^rd place

Conference champions will meet in the Worsley Cup finals.