With all of our preseason events out of the way, we're ready for the regular season to kick off on Sunday night. Some teams are still over the 60-man limit and will need to be down to it. Remember, if you don't make the cuts yourself, they'll be made for you as outlined in the league rules. If there are any questions about this, let me know.

We'll start the exhibition schedule on November 22nd. I'm travelling next week so I figure we shouldn't start until I can reliably sim.

The Challenge Tournament will be spread across December 7th and 8th. As always, teams are free to challenge any team that hasn't already been challenged, with the challenger being the road team unless I'm told otherwise. Challenges can be issued starting now.

I expect the regular season to begin on December 11th, as I'll be at events on both the 9th and 10th. That will be the date by which everyone has to be under the 60-man limit.

If there are any questions, feel free to ask.

Thanks to everyone for the thoughts on how to increase activity in the DFHL. It looks like the bottom line is that there is no easy fix and that there might not be anything that needs to be fixed. With no consensus, I see no reason to make changes at this time. That said, if anyone else has any additional thoughts, I'd love to hear them.

Next up is the DFHL Entry Draft. I know we typically hold this on a weekend but I think I'm leaning towards a weeknight this time around, given that we've gotten it down to two hours. Any thoughts on that.

Additionally, I'd like to hear thoughts on an issue the league has been having for awhile.

I like our rules for what defines activity in the DFHL. You're just required to respond when someone contacts you. No arbitrary rules for how often you have to make a line change or a trade or anything like that.

That said, it leads to certain cases where GMs can be classified as "active" while really not doing anything. If you're rebuilding, you can just sit on your team for ten seasons until your mistakes have passed and you've drafted a new lineup.

I'd like to hear the rest of the league's thoughts on how we can increase actual activity (forum discussion at the very least, maybe player movement) without imposing rules on how a GM runs his or her team. Any ideas?

This will be handled on a first-come, first-served basis. Anyone who is interested in swapping so that their team will take on the California Seals name should contact me. If any team does make a swap, that team's name will then be made available. If no one wants to do a swap, we'll move on at noon on Monday. If swaps are made, the deadline will slide based on activity.

Keep in mind that no swaps will be effective immediately. So as to not interfere with draft order, all swaps will happen after the DFHL Entry Draft. Anything that gets sorted out now will be queued up to happen automatically at that time.

If there are any questions, feel free to ask.

Edit: And if anyone already has the CPHL ratings set, send it on to me. Probably faster than waiting to get it from the source.

Edit 2: Ratings acquired, re-rates to come early this week I think.

Award voting is complete. Your Season Eighteen award winners are as follows:

Barry Moore Memorial Trophy: Dan Marvin (Hamilton Tigers)
Frank Nighbor Award: Daniel Sedin (Detroit Red Wings)
Jean Beliveau Award: Jonathan Toews (Hamilton Tigers)
Ray Bourque Trophy: Drew Doughty (Hamilton Tigers)
Terry Sawchuk Trophy: Ryan Miller (Detroit Red Wings)
Carl Voss Award: Joshua Bailey (Winnipeg Jets)

As always thanks to the entire league for another successful season. It never ceases to amaze me how well you guys keep things going.

I've got a few things I want to try to get done this offseason but I see it being a relatively short one, as we've streamlined our rerate process and the NHL is in a good spot for us to move forward. For now, we're going to get moving with award voting (available through the GM Tools) and a role call (a thread will be set up for that shortly). Both will be closed at noon (US Eastern) on October 6.

If there are any questions, feel free to ask.

Voting for All-Star rosters is now open through the GM Tools. There are no changes from how we've been doing it but if there are any questions, feel free to ask. Voting will remain open until Saturday, 9/10, with the All-Star Game being simmed that night.

Playoffs will begin the next night.

As always, if there are any issues, bring them up.

We'll be kicking off the regular season as scheduled on Tuesday. The schedule has been generated and all teams are within the roster limits so there shouldn't be any issues.

The exhibition schedule for S18 is now posted. With rerates done (including roster cleaning), I'm aiming for a preseason start date of April 29. After that we'll have the Challenge Tournament, spread across two days as usual. If everything goes as planned (I'm not sure it will as May is busy for me), that puts the Challenge Tournament on May 14/15 and the regular season beginning on May 17.

With a week until the tentative start of the preseason, challenges can start coming in. Post a reply or drop me an email. The usual rules apply, unless otherwise noted the team that submits the challenge will be the visitor.