Founded in 1996, The National Strat-O-Matic Hockey League (NSHL) is a play-by-email league using the Strat-O-Matic game engine. Twenty-four teams will compete in the 2020-21 NSHL season, the league's 24th season. Each team plays 82 games over the course of a twenty-two week season, with the top sixteen teams advancing to the Farley Cup playoffs.
Home owners play four games every two weeks, either by following the road team's Computer Manager (CM) or by head-to-head play over Net Meeting. League files are centrally updated and can be found here. Owners also manage their team rosters, orchestrating trades, free agent signings and draft picks. Each two-week period begins and ends with the NSHL Newsletter.
Congratulations to Jason McCorrister who for the second straight season guided the North Calgary Hawks to a league championship.
The 2020 free agent draft is just around the corner. This year's draft is scheduled to be held on Sunday, Oct. 4, 2020 starting at 11 a.m. Eastern time.
Motivated by a number of franchise relocations, the NSHL implemented a plan to realign the divisions for the upcoming season. The new divisions consider the geographical locations of the current franchises while avoiding significant changes that may disrupt conference boundaries or traditional rivalries.