Test the Game: Franchise Hockey Manager

Introducing something new we are trying this year.  We are calling this little experiment "Test the Game".  I am going to be testing the new hockey sim, Franchise Hockey Manager, with a league I am going to call the StatMan Sim League.  

Concept:

The StatMan Sim League is a pre-play of the current National Hockey League season.  By “pre-play”, I mean we are going to play the 2013-14 NHL season about a day ahead of time.  We will compare the current NHL season and our StatMan Sim League on a regular basis to show you how the sim measures up to the actual games.

I will do my best to have the latest rosters known at that time.  The Opening Night rosters will be used to start the season and I will try to account for every call-up.  The game is very detailed with farm systems and junior leagues, so just about every player is available.

Also, as we go along, I will try to point out things I notice in the game.  For instance, in setting up the Opening Night rosters, I noticed that a couple of players were still free agents when the rosters were determined for the game.  I could not sim any days because it was already Opening Night.  But, not to fear.  I was able to meet the player’s contract demand and sign him right then and there.  I could also edit the player, since I am playing in Commissioner mode, and change the player’s rights, but I handled it this way.  Also, I wanted to change rosters and set lines without interference from the AI in the game.  I was able to take over a second team in the “Available Jobs” screen without having the AI change my setup for my first team.  As we sim, I will have to check whether the rosters change at all.

Keeping Tabs:

To follow along, look for any blog post on the Random Musings blog with the tag “SSL 2013”. 

I will try to put up a blog post a couple of times a week to keep you updated.  Also, we will have a quick StatMan Sim League update every Saturday morning on “Sports With The StatMan” as part of our “This Week In Fantasy Sports” show.  Listen to the show on BlogTalkRadio right here.

If you have any suggestions as we move along of things you would like to see or know more about, just let me know.