The National Strat-O-Matic Hockey League Newsletter League established May 1st, 1997 Volume #3, Issue #41 - May 12, 1999 ************************************************************************** Current League Officers: Commissioner: Doug Norris (303-492-3692) Vice-Commissioner: Andy Bartalone Email List Administator: Andy Bartalone Email the whole league: mailto:nshl@otd.com NSHL Chat List: mailto:nshlchat@otd.com League Web Site: http://amath.colorado.edu/math/student/norrisdt/nshl/nshl.html ************************************************************************** A quiet two weeks in the league, as we're long into the summer period currently. One quick thing: look for the league web page to move shortly; I'm no longer allowed access to the account it's on (due to interdepartment squabbling). Fortunately, I have the entire thing tarred up, and ready to put in another location. Two very well-written (and controversial) columns this week, one by Tom Vinacci and one by "Carbon Laserburn". Tom looks at the marketing muscle of Strat-O-Matic, while "Carbon" takes a peek behind the NSHL scene. If anyone has anything they'd like to publish in the NSHL newsletter, it'd be more than welcome. One trade this week, sending Ed Olczyk from the Cup-champion Montreal Wanderers to the Capital City Cougars in exchange for Kris King and Jean-Yves Leroux. Also in the newsletter this week: the winner of the Jean Beliveau trophy, and results of the scheduling vote! ************************************************************************** BELIVEAU TROPHY-WINNER: ROY'S THE DEAL In a unanimous vote, Montreal goaltender Patrick Roy captured the 1999 Jean Beliveau Trophy, awarded to the top performer over the course of the 1999 Farley Cup playoffs. Roy went 12-5 with a 1.22 goals-against average to lead the Wanderers to the Farley Cup championship one year removed from their basement finish. Roy also had three shutouts during the playoffs, and his 0.954 save percentage was tops among goaltenders. BELIVEAU TROPHY WINNERS: 1998: Peter Bondra, Brooklyn Gulag 1999: Patrick Roy, Montreal Wanderers ************************************************************************** "PLAN B" PASSES LEAGUE VOTE: By a vote of 11-2 (with seven abstentions), the "Plan B" format (regarding scheduling and postseason) passed league vote this past week. To recap: * The NSHL will be comprised of four divisions, each containing five franchises. * Each team will play divisional opponents six times, and out-of-division opponents four times, for a total of 84 league games. * Twelve franchises will qualify for the postseason, as follows: the division winners (4) shall be seeded 1 through 4. Of the remaining teams, the eight with the best league record shall receive the 5th through 12th seeds. * In the first round, the top four seeded teams will receive a "bye" into the quarterfinals. The remaining eight teams will play each other, with the highest seed (5) playing the lowest (12), and so forth. * For the quarterfinals (analogously for successive rounds), each of the remaining teams will be reseeded, and will play 1v8, 2v7, 3v6 and 4v5. Division winners will retain priority in re-seeding. Also, the divisional alignment passed its "vote of confidence". DIVISION ONE: DIVISION TWO: Buffalo Bulldogs Baltimore Clippers Brooklyn Gulag Florida Hellcats Long Island Berserkers Manayunk Bullies Lyndonville Blades New Jersey River Rats Rush-Henrietta Comets St. Michael's Privateers DIVISION THREE: DIVISION FOUR: Cabbagetown Red Rockets Capital City Cougars Detroit LugNuts Fort Garry Fiddler Crabs Montreal Wanderers Seattle Rainiers Quebec Polar Sphinx Vancouver Scouts Toronto Arenas Vultures of Fresno More on possible division names at a later time... There are now two issues to consider: (1) with an 84-game schedule, how should we handle the injury chart / games played issues? My thoughts: leave it as is; it's only two more games. (2) how should we set up All-Star Game type events? My thoughts: divisions 1 and 2 vs. divisions 3 and 4. ************************************************************************** ---------------------------------- ===== HIGH RANT DISTRICT ===== by Tommy V, Buffalo Bulldogs owner ---------------------------------- Standard disclaimer : The views and opinions in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not reflect the views or opinions if league management. ---------------------------------- WHAT IF THEY BUILT A COMPUTER GAME AND NOBODY BOUGHT IT ? We've been hearing for a couple of years about the possibility that Strat-O-Matic will come out with a computer version of their 22-year-old hockey board game. What if they actually went forward and built a computer hockey game....and nobody bought it? This possibility may be closer to reality than you think. There are two types of computer hockey games : arcade-style games and simulation games. The outcome of an arcade-style game depends upon one's skill with a joystick or keypad, while a sim (such as the SOM board game) will have it's outcome based upon the real-life performances of the NHL players - and the skill of the person coaching the players. In the very graphically and aurally oriented society we live in, the majority of those people buying computer games are males in the 13-34 age range. And of this demographic group, most are purchasing the graphical games of companies like EA Sports. So, of the fairly narrow target audience of 'guys who buy computer hockey games', the target audience is narrowed even further to those who would buy a computer sim. This is the target market Strat-O-Matic may eventually try to capitalize on. When you enter into competition in a small and narrowly-focused market, you really need to dominate the market if you intend to be profitable. Actually, to even ENTER a market, you need to have a marketing department, and I don't get the impression that the fine folks at Strat have one. Strat-O-Matic's marketing of the hockey board game for the past few years has consisted of sending mailers to existing customers and of a one-page ad in the Hockey News Yearbook. Think about it, has anyone seen an advertisement for the game anywhere else? Do you know anyone who has ever gotten a mailer from the game company who wasn't a prior customer or who asked for a brochure? No. In the ultra-competitive retail market, you've gotta do more than what SOM is doing in order not just to survive, but to prosper. It's actually pretty humorous looking back through the SOM ads in the last four Hockey News Yearbooks ... they are almost exactly the same. The only thing they've changed is the names of a few of the players they mention in the text of the ad. The funny part is that in every ad since the 1995-96 yearbook (and maybe further back, I don't have those yearbooks), they tout their "New Toll-Free Number". It's still 'new' after 4 years??? Anyway, back to the topic of being competitive in the computer-hockey sim market .... In order to sell a new product like a computer-hockey simulation game to people OUTSIDE your existing customer base, you need to advertise. For a game of this type, doing a mail-drop via conventional snail-mail would be costly and inefficient. Since the overwhelming majority of people who buy computer games have an internet connection, you advertise by having a quality web site, and by paying other web sites to display a click-through banner that directs people to your site. Heck, if you're gonna have a game that is approved by the NHL and the player's association, then you pay to have a banner at nhl.com and nhlpa.com. At the top end, an advertiser pays $20 per 1000 clicks through the banner ad to their site. Exposure is the key. However, forward-thinking is not a hallmark of Strat-O-Matic's business practices. Should Strat-O-Matic release a computer version of the hockey game, they will not very likely be selling to new customers. They will be selling the computer game only to a percentage of the folks who buy the board game and card sets. This is very profitable in and of itself, since the cost of materials involved in producing a CD or diskette is about 70 percent less than producing a paper card set. And for those customers who purchase both the computer game and yearly card set, they will likely be given the opportunity to be gouged. In the computer version of the Strat baseball game, you have the option of purchasing the 'card images', which allows you to see the actual cards, so you can see what each hitting and pitching column looks like. For the people who do not purchase the card set at the same time as the computer baseball game, the card image option is available for fifteen dollars. However, if you purchase the card image option at the same time as the computer game, SOM will only charge you five dollars for the option because, and I quote, "customers who purchase the board game cards already own the 'card images' and therefore deserve a large discount when ordering this option". Huh? A large discount? They deserve the option for FREE. I would hope that Strat would reconsider this charge should they produce a computer hockey game....but I'm not holding my breath. If one were going to sell a hockey sim, one would want to have an interesting and informative web site focused on the sim itself, but one would also want to have a site that provides links to leagues using the game, a classifieds section for people looking to join a league, and a method of ordering the product on-line. While you've got their interest piqued, you want to get that credit card number then and there, you don't allow interest to wane by making somebody have to dial a phone or drive to a store. For an example of this type of site, one could visit the Faceoff Hockey page at http://www.land-sports.com/. Now don't get me wrong, I am not encouraging a single person to actually purchase the Faceoff game over a SOM computer hockey sim, should they ever make one. I've been a loyal SOM customer for twenty years, and I'll stick with the game. I can only hope that Strat-O-Matic will realize that loyalty is a two-way street. Make a good product, don't gouge me, and advertise intelligently so the business stays healthy! ************************************************************************** NSHL NOTES by Carbon Laserburn, your reporter on the ice "Le Coupe Farley" was paraded down Boulevard Rene Levesque to Dominion Square last week in a wild celebration for a team that was expected to do much less. Even those Montrealers jaded by collecting so much silverware over the years danced in the streets to welcome the Mug from its home-for- a-year in Brooklyn. Now the question becomes, can owner Guy Caron re-sign all of that talent, particularly local icons Vincent Damphousse and Patrick Roy? Eddie Olczyk has already been moved from the Cup Champions...look for more as the Wanderers scramble for the money to nail down the top names... The Rodney Dangerfield of the NSHL? Rogie Vachon, on the short list for the coaching jobs in Detroit and Baltimore, but turned down for both in favour of Glen Goodall and Craig Laughlin, respectively. Where next for the former Canadien and King? Sources say Seattle, where it's rumored that owner/coach/commish Doug Norris would like to have a hand, perhaps to avoid another early playoff exit for the Rainiers. Speaking of which, the Rainiers continue to deny that they are so desperate for goalie help that former goalie of latent talent Andre "Red Light" Racicot has been hired as a part-time goalie coach... IN OTHER NEWS: Look for Shaun Van Allen to be the first casualty as Brooklyn sweeps house, looking for some trademark enforcers. Management was livid when the Comets' Brendan Shanahan ran Chris Terreri in the playoffs, and there was no retaliation (and no penalty), forcing a start for rookie Zac Bierk...Olaf Kolzig asked for a big raise from the Comets following the Cup series - and promptly got it. Somebody will have to take a cut, and sources say it'll be Marcus Ragnarsson...Fiddler Crab owner Murray Moman is taking issue with a comment on the softness of the Nilsson Division by Bulldog owner Tom "Captain Loophole" Vinacci, citing a recent offer from Vinacci to trade for "half the [Crabs'] team..." Lindros a Bulldog? You heard it here first...The phone's ringing off the hook in New Jersey, as various teams are looking to trade up in the upcoming draft. Look for the rival Red Rockets and Arenas to try and outdo each other in their offers...The Vultures are less than pleased with their defensive corps - "They couldn't complete a pass to a drunk coed," said one scout - enough so that goalie Byron Dafoe could be shopped if a puck-handling blueliner was returned in the deal. ************************************************************************** ASSOCIATE LIST: SINCE GP Bill Muller (WJMIIIREP@aol.com) October 1998 0 Thomas Manna (samanna@acsu.buffalo.edu) October 1998 0 Roy Lamphier (lamphier@ibl.org) October 1998 0 Andrew Smith (crimsonace@yahoo.com) March 1999 0 Jason Liddicoat (jjlidder@hotmail.com) March 1999 0 Tim Lewis (PILARLEWIS@aol.com) April 1999 0 If you're still an active associate, and aren't on this list, please get in contact with me. Thanks! Doug ************************************************************************** TRANSACTIONS: Transactions are announced weekly in the newsletter based on confirmations received throughout the week. CCC - TRADE Kris King and Jean-Yves Leroux to MON for Ed Olczyk. MON - TRADE Ed Olczyk to CCC for Kris King and Jean-Yves Leroux. ************************************************************************** League Governing Boards Responsibilities of the following governing boards are outlined in the Constitution. Review Board Tom Vinacci, Buffalo Bulldogs Patrick Shea, Long Island Berserkers Mark McNeil, Lyndonville Blades Constitutional Council Head: Patrick Shea (isles2@idt.net) Doug Norris, Commissioner Andy Bartalone, Vice-Commissioner Lance Milligan, Fresno Owner Dean Engemoen, Vancouver Owner **************************************************************************