Quote:Originally posted by SabresFan@Sep 7 2016, 05:24 PM


I can only speak for my past case.  There were extraordinary events that led to me going belly up.  It had the appearance to me that there was a bias against the two expansion teams in the league.  That appearance was probably mostly due to a set of bad coincidences. I got blindsided by the punishment handed out in a tampering rule that I wasn't aware of.  My team lost all the other draft choices from my year from bannings and inactivity. It got worse from there and I threw in the towel.

I think that the prospect of going  back to the SMJHL and having to follow two leagues was a minor factor. I agree with you that it's better for me to go straight to the SHL if I reach that point.  A third or even fourth line role for wouldn't bother me. I'd like to be in the league I'm doing TPE in as fast as possible.  Being an SHL send down feels a bit like being in Limbo.

I know how you feel. Hamilton had to deal with a tampering punishment that seemed to come out of nowhere as well, and it hurt the franchise. That was compounded further by the fact that I drafted poorly and about half of our first round picks ended up going inactive, retiring, or being traded elsewhere. Luckily, Hamilton was a franchise that had existing pieces before all of that, and Dangles moving those pieces once he took over has given the team a chance to get back on their feet.

The expansion teams didn't have those pieces before the clusterfuck struck, so they've really been suffering. It's starting to look like they're on their way to recovering, though. They're still a ways off, but they're moving in the right direction.