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***frithjofr*** · 05-01-2020, 02:37 AM

Hey guys, Darnell Johnson here. You might know me from my hit podcasts Me, Myself & Johnson and the Johnson & Johnson Podcast, or maybe you’ve just up-repped one of my shitposts around the site.

First and foremost, I’d like to acknowledge that I made a mistake today, and I want to own that. It wasn’t Joe, it wasn’t TDZ, and it wasn’t anyone else in our war room. I know it’s not satisfying to hear, but I was truly ignorant of the rule that was broken today. Had I known the rules I wouldn’t have done it. Simple as that. It’s important to me that I own up to this mistake. I’ve talked a big game the last few months about integrity and now it’s time to put my money where my mouth is.

When we moved Zadina off of 3C and into 4C, the idea wasn’t to cheat or to break the rules. We had rearranged our lines in such a way that our lines were more balanced, but this left one of our stars, Lil Manius, with less play time. We learned during our test sims that if we had an open slot on a line with ice time, all players in the lineup for that slot would share that ice time, seemingly based on who was available. Average TOI wouldn’t change that much, but it did give us more shifts with Manius and Williams on the ice, and that’s all we wanted to do. As far as I was aware at the time, simply having Zadina dressed and on a line was sufficient to meet requirements. It’s my fault for not knowing the rules, and it’s my fault for not clarifying with my GMs who were unaware of the changes I was making. (Simply aware that I would be making changes.) Some background:

Followers of the MM&J podcast will know that, at the start of Season 53, NOLA’s management team offered me a position on the team as a coach. Leading into the season I had helped some of my teammates with their builds, and I had some pre-existing knowledge of FHM. Not a lot. I’d consider myself a novice, but more than either of my GMs. They asked if I’d be willing to set up the lines and such for them, and I happily jumped at the opportunity.

I’d already been scouting for NOLA, so I had access to some of their backrooms, but when I accepted the coaching position I was brought into the back office and introduced to my coaching team. I was the FHM guy, and it felt pretty cool to be king shit of FHM mountain for a little while as the rest of the coaching team caught up.

Through the season I didn’t do many test sims, and in fact I made very few changes to my original tactics. There were a few changes made along the way due to suggestions from the coaching team, but by-in-large our tactics at the end of the season were the same at the start.

Which presented an issue when we were staring down the barrel of a best of 7 series against the Panthers. LA had beaten us several times over in the regular season, and we rarely returned the favor. One thing was clear to me, and to the rest of the coaching team; something had to change.

Once our playoff spot was locked in, we started working. We looked at the Panthers’ lines information which is freely available in FHM and assembled a sim file where we played against LA 82 times. Once the sim file was assembled, Slash and I went to work. He and I worked together for several hours a night for a few nights straight working out tactics to play against LAP. We took turns acting as the ‘nemesis’ trying to dial in strats LAP were likely to use. Our results were pretty volatile. Running the same tactics, Slash would get a 4-0 sweep and I’d get a 4-3 game 7 blowout loss.

Sometime in our first night of testing, and after hundreds of games played, we were pretty keen to our team’s weaknesses. Our forwards had a certain lack of defense on the third line which we were having trouble covering for no matter what we did. We gave the lines a gentle blending and tried spreading out offense and defense more evenly across all 3 lines. That seemed to be working pretty well, actually.

At some point in the night we were trying something where we gave the 4th line a bit of playtime and staggered our players. Not sure what we were hoping to accomplish, but when you select “AI setup organization” (like we were sometimes doing for LAP in our sim), the AI would usually put a winger on the 4th line and give it a little bit of playtime. We toyed with that idea for a bit before coming to the realization that if we put a player on the 4th line and didn’t give it any ice time, they were still getting played.

Assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the team, we saw that we were giving Bonk’s Lil Manius less icetime than we normally did, and wanted to get him out as much as possible. We dropped Zadina to the 4th line and found that it marginally increased Bonk’s TOI, and Williams’ as well, which we saw as a win/win. Zadina’s ice time fell a little, naturally, but he was still being played 5on5.

Through hundreds (likely thousands) of games and dozens of playoff series simmed over multiple 4 hour sessions on consecutive days, all Slash and I wanted to do was maximize our chances to win as the underdogs. We never intended to break rules, didn’t mean to disadvantage the other team, and we weren’t looking for exploits. To my knowledge we were playing within the rules. Through the process the GMs in NOLA were aware we were test simming and were aware we would be making changes to the lines, which they trusted me with. This isn’t on them for failing to verify, it’s on me for failing to know the rules. Throughout the season they had come to trust me with ownership of the lines and I let them down in a major way.

I want to own this mistake, and I sincerely apologize to the LA Panthers for making it.

Quote:Note from slash- of course we didn't want to disadvantage LA in a way that is against the rules, but we clearly needed a shakeup or we are likely not taking a single game in the series. Like frith, I was oblivious to the unique forward rule and thought that the game limitations were our only rules. I found we couldn't explicitly put Williams or Manius on the third line, but leaving it blank would be able to get them out there to help the young guys. Whether or not I agree with the rulebook is moot, the rules are the rules, and I aplogize to Joe and TDZ (who really didn't know wtf we did with the lines), and the panthers, and our team, who earned a hard fought win that will be tainted by this mix up

ACapitalChicago · 05-01-2020, 02:42 AM

This is such a classy, well-written acceptance and explanation of what happened. Nothing but respect for the way you've responded here.

S66 Damian Littleton

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DaftRaincloud · 05-01-2020, 02:58 AM

Respect. For anyone who would question Frith's integrity I know him intimately and I know he wouldn't do this on purpose.

SlashACM · 05-01-2020, 03:12 AM

Frith is the father of my babies

Samsung virtual assistant · 05-01-2020, 08:35 AM

Yeah slash seemed very regretful in the punishments thread, LOL

https://youtu.be/oGFDk6_7G68

Its really unfortunate that it happened, seeing how test sims shows (obviously seeing how you came to the same conclusion) that it made you noticeably better, and then won a game 4-2 with an empty netter. It feels even worse when the punishment is almost less than a slap on the wrist.

You and i havent interacted much so i'm not going to fling shit at you, you say that you didnt know about the rule and if thats true then i can see why you did it. I don't have a reason to not trust you on that.

However if you, like you said, test simmed hundreds, maybe even thousands of games, for hours and hours and days and days, i'd like to assume that you'd read the rules first. There's really only 2.

G. Lines

The top 3 forward lines and the top 3 defense lines must contain a unique player in every position.

The line 4 forwards and line 4 defense may contain players who are also listed on other lines.

***WannabeFinn*** · 05-01-2020, 08:50 AM

05-01-2020, 03:12 AMSlashACM Wrote: Frith is the father of my babies

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Weretarantula · 05-01-2020, 09:18 AM

05-01-2020, 08:50 AMWannabeFinn Wrote:
05-01-2020, 03:12 AMSlashACM Wrote: Frith is the father of my babies

Did you just call Slash a pussy?

Mook · 05-01-2020, 09:22 AM

05-01-2020, 09:18 AMWeretarantula Wrote:
05-01-2020, 08:50 AMWannabeFinn Wrote:

Did you just call Slash a pussy?

I mean, it's better than calling him this, because then that's a bannable offense

PremierBromanov · 05-01-2020, 09:42 AM

05-01-2020, 09:22 AMMook Wrote:
05-01-2020, 09:18 AMWeretarantula Wrote: Did you just call Slash a pussy?

I mean, it's better than calling him this, because then that's a bannable offense

It's a good thing it was so long ago then

Mook · 05-01-2020, 09:43 AM

05-01-2020, 09:42 AMPremierBromanov Wrote:
05-01-2020, 09:22 AMMook Wrote: I mean, it's better than calling him this, because then that's a bannable offense

It's a good thing it was so long ago then

Good thing

jRuutu · 05-01-2020, 09:49 AM

Interesting, general managers doing who knows what, so they let other members of the team run the show. Sounds like the league should have some say on who is a coach and who is not if the general managers are not able to do their jobs? Or certainly the general managers should be punished heavily if there for example is a problem with the lines when they take a back seat.

Shame that the league is afraid to tackle cheating with similar force as they go after the poor language in the forums. Making mockery of the playoffs.

- New Orleans will be fined $2,000,000 to their S54 Salary Cap = ouch, that must hurt - according to their budget they are paying 13 or 11 million for one prospect right now? Even then they have 1.5 mil free. Can they find a way to deal with the 2m next year, who knows.
- General Managers JKortesi81 and TheDangaZone forfeit their GM Pay for the S53 season = not a big deal, they don´t even do anything by the sound of it.
- In the event this line infraction is repeated again, the New Orleans Specters will forfeit their S55 2nd round Selection = uuuuu, a 2nd rounder.

If I now use a slur, just one word - I´m out for 3 games, more of a punishment than anything above. Sounds like the people at the top need to spend less time smelling each others farts and put more effort in making the actual sim part friendly, fair and fun.

Blastmeaway · 05-01-2020, 11:08 AM

05-01-2020, 09:49 AMjRuutu Wrote: Interesting, general managers doing who knows what, so they let other members of the team run the show. Sounds like the league should have some say on who is a coach and who is not if the general managers are not able to do their jobs? Or certainly the general managers should be punished heavily if there for example is a problem with the lines when they take a back seat.

Shame that the league is afraid to tackle cheating with similar force as they go after the poor language in the forums. Making mockery of the playoffs.

- New Orleans will be fined $2,000,000 to their S54 Salary Cap = ouch, that must hurt - according to their budget they are paying 13 or 11 million for one prospect right now? Even then they have 1.5 mil free. Can they find a way to deal with the 2m next year, who knows.
- General Managers JKortesi81 and TheDangaZone forfeit their GM Pay for the S53 season = not a big deal, they don´t even do anything by the sound of it.
- In the event this line infraction is repeated again, the New Orleans Specters will forfeit their S55 2nd round Selection = uuuuu, a 2nd rounder.

If I now use a slur, just one word - I´m out for 3 games, more of a punishment than anything above. Sounds like the people at the top need to spend less time smelling each others farts and put more effort in making the actual sim part friendly, fair and fun.

Come on jruutu, GMs letting a different person operate the lines is nothing new. @Dangles was the coach and did the lines almost the entire time we were in Seattle. They did tackle the “cheating”, we fixed our error and frith laid out exact how our war room looked while game planning. Our GMs are handling GM responsibilities, like working with the budget, doing mundane site work like moving pages, talking to other GMs about trades. This isn’t anything new for GMs to sit back and let a user be the Coach.

Shout out to ml002, schultzy, slashacm, tedward!
[Image: blastmeaway.gif]

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09-05-2018, 10:04 PMBeaver Wrote: Wow look what the PT affiliation has done to our pristine league.

12-19-2018, 12:31 AMBeaver Wrote: I personally blame the PT affiliation for handing out massive amounts of free TPE to all these players, inflating the TPE they're at when they get called up.

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***bluesfan55*** · 05-01-2020, 11:12 AM

05-01-2020, 11:08 AMBlastmeaway Wrote:
05-01-2020, 09:49 AMjRuutu Wrote: Interesting, general managers doing who knows what, so they let other members of the team run the show. Sounds like the league should have some say on who is a coach and who is not if the general managers are not able to do their jobs? Or certainly the general managers should be punished heavily if there for example is a problem with the lines when they take a back seat.

Shame that the league is afraid to tackle cheating with similar force as they go after the poor language in the forums. Making mockery of the playoffs.

- New Orleans will be fined $2,000,000 to their S54 Salary Cap = ouch, that must hurt - according to their budget they are paying 13 or 11 million for one prospect right now? Even then they have 1.5 mil free. Can they find a way to deal with the 2m next year, who knows.
- General Managers JKortesi81 and TheDangaZone forfeit their GM Pay for the S53 season = not a big deal, they don´t even do anything by the sound of it.
- In the event this line infraction is repeated again, the New Orleans Specters will forfeit their S55 2nd round Selection = uuuuu, a 2nd rounder.

If I now use a slur, just one word - I´m out for 3 games, more of a punishment than anything above. Sounds like the people at the top need to spend less time smelling each others farts and put more effort in making the actual sim part friendly, fair and fun.

Come on jruutu, GMs letting a different person operate the lines is nothing new. @Dangles was the coach and did the lines almost the entire time we were in Seattle. They did tackle the “cheating”, we fixed our error and frith laid out exact how our war room looked while game planning. Our GMs are handling GM responsibilities, like working with the budget, doing mundane site work like moving pages, talking to other GMs about trades. This isn’t anything new for GMs to sit back and let a user be the Coach.

That's exactly what LA is doing as well, with Mook running their lines. That's why he in particular has been so angry over this and rightfully so; he's their FHM guy so he knows how this works.

ty to @High Stick King @EvilAllBran and @Ragnar for the sigs

Samsung virtual assistant · 05-01-2020, 11:42 AM

05-01-2020, 11:12 AMbluesfan55 Wrote: That's exactly what LA is doing as well, with Mook running their lines. That's why he in particular has been so angry over this and rightfully so; he's their FHM guy so he knows how this works.

Nah dude, we just very salty because NOLA made a simple-ass fucking mistake, that's why nobody likes us after all.

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***notorioustig*** · 05-01-2020, 11:44 AM

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