The All-Time Hockey League
 

Well I am trying something new to me, inspired by a post I read on these forums. I am creating a six-team league, set in modern day, where each team has as its theme a particular decade: the Toronto 60s, Seattle 70s, Los Angeles 80s, Ottawa 90s, New York 2000s (nicknamed the "Aughts"), and the London 10s (because why not involve the UK?). I have created the following loose "rules":

1. The teams will play a 60-game regular season against each other, meaning they play each other 12 times. I just didn't want career totals to seem too small. This is followed by a four-team playoff of two best-of-five series for the championship.

2. In order to be selected for a team, that player had to have played at least three seasons in a particular decade. This created some tough decisions (e.g., should Mario Lemieux play for the 80s or the 90s, where he can be with Jagr. And where should Jagr go?!).

3. The player could only be selected once, so no Gretzky on the 80s and the 90s.

4. Regardless of which decade the player was whatever age in, skaters were/are being imported at ages 20-22 (with notable exceptions: I want some like Gretzky to be around an extra year, so they're 19). Goalies are imported at ages 27, 24, and 19-20.

5. Each team is composed of 15 forwards, 8 defensemen, and 3 goalies. 23 active players are allowed, so 3 players must go to a six-team minor league.

6. I am running the Ottawa 90s. I am designing the uniforms and logos myself, so if these strike you as terrible, it's OK. :D

7. I am allowing the AI to setup organization once I contract the 26 players. So while I am responsible for selecting the initial contracted roster, I am not responsible for line construction or Gretzky inexplicably being a shadow. The exception to this is the 90s team, which I am selecting lines and pairings and all that jazz.

8. Trading has been reduced to 1. I have made it a fictional league, meaning that new players to the draft will be fictional. I do plan on importing some players that I just had to skip over (it's getting more agonizing as I go and am more familiar with the players).

Below I shall post screenshots of each team I have built so far (contract page, the player profile of the captain, and lines page). I don't move very quickly, so I'm not done yet.

PS-I know that with the new players and all, eventually players are going to be on teams they have no business being on. I can live with that. I just like the fun of this initial construction!

Toronto 60s
 

As promised

Toronto 60s
 

And again:

Seattle 70s
 

Note I simply stole Kraken jerseys and logo :D

Sorry, failed to note that a good portion of the contracts page was blocked...

Seattle 70s
 

And now the lines:

Los Angeles 80s
 

And introducing your Los Angeles 80s!

Los Angeles 80s
 

Lines

Ottawa 90s
 

I haven't made the lines yet:

Ottawa 90s
 

Jersey (that's actually the logo first)

Ottawa 90s
 

OK for real the jersey

Ottawa 90s
 

Finally the lines:

New York 2000s
 

The Aughts:

New York 2000s
 

The Lines:

London 10s
 

Here they are!

London 10s
 

And the lines:

I'm running the Ottawa 90s, and we've leapt out to a 4-0-0 start. 3 points is awarded for a win, 2 points for an OT/SO win, 1 point for OT/SO loss, and no points for reg loss. We're first in the league with 12 points. In the pre-season, the 80s and the 10s showed themselves capable of taking over games at any time. The 2000s are firmly in the middle, and the 60s and 70s round out the league. The 70s have had some bad luck with injuries, losing multiple players for around a week or so right off the bat. It'll be interesting to see how this 2020-21 season goes!

Well the end of the first season has come. My team, the Ottawa 90s, boasted the ATHL's first-ever leading scorer (and rookie of the year), Mario Lemieux. Lemieux outscored the likes of Ovechkin, Crosby, and the Great One himself to capture the title with 35 goals and 47 assists for 82 points in 60 games. He led the league in both goals and assists.

The LA 80s dominated the regular season, with the 10s, the 60s, and our 90s rounding out the playoffs. We played out of our minds to upset the top-seeded 80s 3 games to 1, and met the mighty London 10s in the inaugural ATHL Cup. It was a hard-fought battle, but the 10s took it in five games for the initial championship.

The draft features fictional players, but I added in six more (when you add players in at 17, apparently they play two seasons before becoming draft eligible) historical players: John Vanbiesbrouck, Braden Holtby, Auston Matthews, Maurice Richard, Pierre Turgeon, and Aaron Ekblad.

The new crop of players to draft at the end of season 2 includes: Mike Richter, Theo Fleury, Ed Belfour, Nathan MacKinnon, Ron Hextall, and Keith Tkachuk. I signed my third overall pick, a fictional defenseman named Donnie Holland. He's currently competing with a 23-year-old Derian Hatcher for ice time. Holland is a full star better, but the game ratings suggest Hatcher still holds an edge.

Ottawa 90s Away Jersey
 

I made an away jersey for the Ottawa 90s, and here it is:

Season 2 ended with the LA 80s, the regular-season winner, capturing the ATHL Cup for the first time as well in the playoffs. While the scoring race was a true neck-and-neck affair, Super Mario won it again over The Great One, 83 points to 81. Lemieux did it despite playing one less game than he did last season as well. Curiously, he neither led the league in goals nor assists (the latter being Gretzky and the former being Mike Bossy, setting a record with 38 goals scored in 60 games).

One last addition to the last post: Gretzky has now won back-to-back MVPs!

Season 3 is underway (or at least the pre-season) with the addition of two expansion franchises, the Winnipeg 20s and the Houston 30s. The names are the only thing connecting the teams to the theme, which has been all kinds of messed up due to some trading and the expansion draft. I allowed teams to lose a max of five players, and protect 14. There were 12 rounds (I required the teams to pick up the rest from free agency and minors), and we lost Sergei Zubov, Mike Modano, Pavel Bure, and two fictional players (one of whom was our 18-year-old 2nd round draft choice, thank you very much). We picked up Theo Fleury and Nathan MacKinnon in the entry draft, though, and feel good about them.

The following historical players were added as 17-year-olds in juniors: Matt Barzal, Rod Brind'Amour, Curtis Joseph, Toe Blake, Joe Malone, Adam Foote, Ed Jovanovski, Vincent Damphousse, Adam Graves, and Claude Lemieux.

I am trying to get in a mix, but mostly right now adding slowly most of the rosters off the 1996 World Cup teams. I expect to keep adding 10-12 players per season, and after a few more (4 more?) doing our final expansion to round out the league at 10 teams. Currently, the league went from six teams and 60 games to eight teams, two divisions, and 68 games. The divisions are separated by Canada and UK and the US, four teams each. You play your own division rivals 12 times each (in the old format, you played everyone 12 times each), and the alternate division eight times each, for a grand total of 68 games. The playoffs also now include 6 of 8 teams, three from each division. Should be fun!

End of Season 3
 

It's the end of Season 3 for the ATHL, and what an eventful season it was. First, Wayne Gretzky of the Los Angeles 80s captured the league's MVP award for the third consecutive year. Additionally, the Ottawa 90s (my team!) Mario Lemieux led the league in scoring for the third consecutive season, snagging a new record 50 goals and 61 assists (second to Bobby Orr's record-breaking 64 assists) for 111 points, while missing 3 games due to injury.

While our 90s squad led the new Canada and UK Division for most of the season, a late surge (and faltering from us) from the Toronto 60s put us in second place. With the new playoff format, we faced the London 10s in a rematch of the finals from Season 1. Same outcome, as they passed us by. The 10s eventually went on to play the Seattle 70s in the ATHL Cup Finals, where the 70s won for the first time ever! The ATHL has had a different champion each season, and the expanded playoff format likely helped them with this.

The minors saw Bonnie Lake Night Train (the 70s minor-league affiliate) capture their third-consecutive championship. Maybe their development should be looked at, after all?!

The JHL (Junior Hockey League) just saw the Portland Winterhawks capture their second Memorial Cup Trophy in three seasons over the San Francisco Liberty. There are some seriously good prospects in the wings waiting to be drafted.

Finally, both Brett Hull and Teemu Selanne have been unhappy with their roles, and refuse to negotiate to extend their contracts, preferring to test free agency. It should be fun!

Season 4 Start
 

I've reached Aug 1 of Season 4! The draft went well, and we signed several draftees from this year and last. Of note is that we have not signed draftees (from season 2 and 3, respectively) Ron Hextall and John Vanbiesbrouck. We also had previously signed Marty Turco. Perhaps two out of those three might be useful in a trade to obtain another draft selection.

As expected, we did lose Hull and Selanne to free agency. Selanne signed for just over $4 mil a season with the Winnipeg 20s, but Hull's move confuses me. He signed for $1.1 mil with the Toronto 60s on a two-way deal, then was promptly assigned to the minors. If he'd stayed with us, he was likely going to be playing on the 4th line, but he'd be in the ATHL at least.

I was hoping to sign John LeClair, someone we had lost via a trade earlier, but he wouldn't sign a two-way deal. I'd say right now our 90s squad looks to be the second-best team on paper, trailing only our developing rival, the London 10s.

Super Mario is still here and the Great One is still with the 80s, so it'll be a great showdown whenever they do play, and a great scoring race!

Of course, I forgot to name the new historical players added to the game on July 1 as 17-year-olds to the juniors (JHL): Newsy Lalonde, Taylor Hall, Leon Draisaitl, Eric Desjardins, Trevor Linden, Keith Primeau, Pat Verbeek, Pat LaFontaine, Vladislav Tretiak, Bobby Holik, Josef Beranek, and Roman Hamrlik. May their development go well (especially for Keith Primeau, whom the game seems to hate :D ).

End of Season 4
 

It's the end of season 4, as we know it. And I feel....not as good as I would like. The Ottawa 90s made the semifinals after a second-place finish in the UK and Canada division, despite Super Mario missing a good 15 games due to injury. However, we went down hard to the London 10s, who in turn lost to the LA 80s. So congrats, 80s, on becoming the first to win two titles!

For the first time, we had a regular-season MVP other than Wayne Gretzky, and it was Seattle 70s defenseman Bobby Orr. Similarly, the most points did not belong to Mario Lemieux, but to Sydney Crosby of the 10s. Here's some screenshots of all the awards:

As you can see from the above, it was a great year for Luongo.

In the minors, we finally crowned a new champion in the New York 2000s affiliate Miller Place, NY. They became just the second champion in league history! In the JHL, Tretiak shone as the San Francisco Liberty's netminder. He backstopped them to their first-ever title over the defending-champion Portland Winterhawks in the Memorial Cup Final.

Season 5
 

In the draft going into season 5, we picked up Joe Malone, which was nice. Additionally, we either re-signed or traded away all expiring contracts. We lost Peter Forsberg, sadly--as he had made it clear he was going to test free agency. He signed with the Houston 30s at 4.2 mil a year, which is something I was prepared to give him. Instead, we traded him for a draft pick.

We signed Dave Babych in free agency to a three-year-deal for about the same amount. He should bring that nice defensive presence, giving us that good positioning and hard work to go along with Scott Stevens. Not that we're pairing them together.

Finally, here are the players we added for season 5 juniors, as 17-year-olds: Valeri Bure, Robert Lang, Saku Koivu, Eddie Shore, Doug Bentley, Max Bentley, Jere Lehtinen, Jyrki Lumme, Teppo Numminen, Jeremy Roenick, Eric Staal.