Det finns regler som skall följas i esport. eSHL har ett eget regelverk för eSHL.
Dessa regler går att läsa nedan.
Last Updated: JANUARY 12TH 2023
Welcome to the eSHL rulebook. As always, it is very important for us to be as clear as possible regarding League Administration procedures, as such if you have any difficulties understanding specific rules then feel free to contact us via the support tool!
We ask every team to familiarize themselves with and memorize the different sections. Team captains must be aware of the entire ruleset, as it includes lots of important guidance that stays relevant throughout the entire league. Regular players on the other hand should be aware of member registration requirements, etiquette, fair play and game rules.
All players participating in any SHL-led league are required to have a registered account on SportsGamer.ggwith their PSN ID (PlayStation) added to their profile.
SportsGamer account name, PSN ID and player name must not be of offensive, insulting, crude or vulgar nature. SHL and SportsGamer reserve the right to request players to change these details if deemed inappropriate.
By joining a team registered for a league, the player is accepting these rules.
All registered members are allowed to register a team for the eSHL. The team's registrant will be set as captain by default. Team registration is only possible during the signup period, which will be announced by SportsGamer and SHL.
In order to be eligible for eSHL, teams must:
Registered members are expected to treat each other with respect by not diverting to overly abusive language. This applies to all league related conversations conducted on different platforms, or direct communication between players on external sources if proof can be provided that also includes the context of the conversation. Additionally, players are to follow their own internal guidelines given to them by their SHL team.
Members are not allowed to circumvent the rules (including any attempts) or deceive SportsGamer or SHL at any time.
eSHL will feature 14 teams, all in one group.
In eSHL, 10 out of 14 teams will make the playoffs. Each series will take place as a best-of-3.
eSHL team ownership is based on the agreement that the parent SHL club and team captain came to internally.
Teams are not allowed to have association with another professional ice hockey club (direct competitor or not), esports organization that has association with another professional ice hockey club or foreign organization.
All managers (C and A) are representatives of the entire team, as such they are responsible for:
The SHL is responsible for hosting the league, enforcing the rules, investigating possible infractions and settling disputes between players and teams.
The SHL can add further clarification to existing rules if deemed necessary. If the SHL is required to process a case that is not covered by any of the existing rules, it can add new rules throughout a league to cover these scenarios. Once a decision has been made by LA, they must supply both parties involved in the case with an explanation showing how they came to their decision, as well as what rules were invoked.
The SHL will define any player or team penalties according to their severity, whilst keeping previous decisions in mind to ensure well-balanced decision making. To accomplish this, any previous cases related to the decision at hand will be cited, and functionally serve as precedents.
The following bans have been announced by the SHL:
N/A
(Accurate as of 11/1/2023)
Teams are only allowed to use players that are listed in the official roster on the SportsGamer platform and that have been communicated by their SHL club, in addition to signing with the parent SHL club. Players who are listed in the sign-up post but were not invited to the team roster are not allowed to play.
By forfeiting, the opposing team will be given a walkover win.
If a game is played where one (or more) of the players involved was deemed to not be legal, then LA reserves the right to potentially void all games played with said player(s), and award WOs victories to the non-offending team.
9. Fair Play
"Fair Play" describes the act of treating your opponent the way you would like to be treated. This includes communication, but also any actions which are directly or indirectly related to gameplay. To give you an idea of what to avoid to comply with this Fair Play rule, here are a few examples:
Please note the following bugs/glitches that are addressed specifically:
There is a bug which leads to players (skaters and goalies) being frozen in buggy, unintended animations (e.g., goalies stuck in butterfly and unable to move, skaters down on the ice appearing to be "dead"), making it impossible for him/her to play the game temporarily or until the next stoppage. In case this bug occurs, teams are required to clear the puck as soon as they notice it. Regular animations that are intended by game developers, such as a goalie's sit-down motion after a desperate save attempt, are not affected by this rule. If there are disagreements whether a goal scored during this time should count or not, teams may submit video proof to SHL for review. Intentional, abusive usage (e.g., to hinder scoring chances) is considered exploiting the game.
In reference to 9.1 (specifically “Do not exploit game mechanics or bugs to put your opponent at a disadvantage.”), goalies are not allowed to leave their crease in an attempt to interfere with a skater from the opposing team. For illustration, please see the video linked below:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZELueWlZVr4
Games should be played on the official game day and at the time displayed in the league schedule. Official game days are Mondays & Wednesdays during the regular season, with the final round being the exception, played on a Friday.
Teams are scheduled to play both games against a group stage opponent on the same game day, with the game start time being 19:10 or 20.15 (Games in main broadcast) and the rest at 20:00 CE(S)T.
On two occasions there are double rounds – Round 5&6 on Jan 30th and Round 8&9 on Feb 6th. At those game days, main broadcast at 19.10 with one match from Round 5/8 and 20.15 with one match from Round 6/9. The remaining games will start either 19.00 or 20.00.
Please refer to CEST during summertime and CET during wintertime, to avoid confusion. Furthermore, teams must try their best to start as close to these times as possible, consistent failure to do so may result in disciplinary actions against them.
To accomplish this, we suggest that teams aim to have their six players in the dressing room at very minimum 10 minutes before the game starts.
Over the course of a season, each team will be involved in several televised broadcast(s).
10.3 End of Regular Season
Regular season ends on February 17th.
During the regular season, teams will play two games against each of their league opponents. Teams must stick to the order of who plays home / away first as dictated by the schedule (Team scheduled as home team starts at home)
All playoff-style games in eSHL will take place as a best-of-3 series. The higher seeded team will play at home first. Afterwards, the right to play at home will alternate.
If a team is more than 15 minutes late to a game without prior notice, the opposing team must contact LA as soon as possible. The message should have a proof of the opposing team “not showing up” attached. Depending on the reason(s) for the delay LA may decide to allocate WOs.
All league games are to be played 6 versus 6 in "Challenge Club" mode.
If teams are tied in points at the end of the regular season, the following tiebreakers will be applied in the order they are listed:
Before the start of the game the captains of both teams should verify that the jerseys are easily distinguishable from each other. In the event of an issue where the uniforms are deemed to be too similar, the game needs to be left immediately. For the next game the away team must switch their uniforms.
All teams should be playing with SHL kits in-game.
11.5 Other customizations
The following customization options are currently banned from being used in league games:
- (none)
Players must try to make their player in game at least vaguely resemble themselves in real life.
11.5.2 In-game Name
In-game player name should be your respective PSN ID, as well as not be inappropriate.
Players must wear a helmet.
The following customizations to the Arena are not allowed:
-
Goal posts must be the default red colour. This is due to colour blindness concerns where individuals would not be able to see the goal if it was a specific colour.
Teams can pause the game during stoppages.
Players are not allowed to fight in eSHL.
Teams can leave a game before the 2-minute mark of the first period if they experience significant lag, a player had disconnected during those 2 minutes, or if other glitches appear.
If this occurs, the game should of course be started again, with a different host if the team experiencing the lag asks for it. This process can only be used 2 times for a given game. On the 3rd attempt the game must be played regardless of lag for either team.
If a goal is scored within the first 2 minutes and there is disagreement whether it was scored on a team who was in the process of quitting, then please contact support and supply an extended video clip of the full event.
Except for the first 2 minutes of a game, no player is allowed to quit a game on purpose.
Player disconnects outside of the first 2 minutes and desynced/looped games need to be handled according to the following procedure:
In case the clock resets to an earlier state, which can happen at any point in a game due to connection issues, and thus removes scored goals from the scoreboard, teams are required to recreate any goals that were affected by a reset. The game continues immediately after the original score is back in place.
A match report must be initiated by the winning team. Both teams must record stats for the games, even if they were not the victor.
To report matches that were completed in a single session without any disconnects, both teams need to send screenshots of relevant stats from in-game to SportsGamer Admin (Game Summary, Overview, Player Statistics) via Discord.
All match reports should be submitted within 10mins of the games being completed. In case of any issues please contact the support team as soon as possible. Please also communicate with the other team to make sure that this deadline is met.
All stats reported must correspond with the in-game stats. Proof for all stats (game overview, events and individual stats) need to be saved as screenshots for the entire season in case any investigation is required.
All eSHL teams are required to stream their games to Twitch (unless broadcasted by Cmore/TV4, eSHL).
For games not on main broadcast (Twitch/eSHL) – stream will be done via additional eSHL Twitch channels – eSHL2/3/4/5/6/7. Each matchup will be given a certain eSHL stream to be broadcasted, and stream info shared via dedicated match threads. It’s encouraged to focus on the eSHL stream, but allowed to re-stream via tools like Restream.io (something each club will have to manage).
Both teams must stream the games on a hidden/secret Twitch channel (account can be shared by eSHL) – in order to have backup for broadcast.
Teams must submit their lineups correctly spelled with all the relevant information in the following format at the very latest 12h before the scheduled game start:
#10 PSNID - #95 PSNID - #25 PSNID
#5 PSNID - #3 PSNID
#30 PSNID
Players streaming the game must make sure to do the following points:
Teams agree on which teams should be streaming the matchup. If teams can’t agree, home team should be stream (so one match each)
Additionally, players streaming the game must adhere to the points mentioned in 13.2.
As all streams are done on eSHL Twitch this will already be setup, but good to be awre of that the Twitch archiving feature should be on.
Twitch archiving: Go to the dashboard, select channel settings, scroll down and enable "Store past broadcasts". After the stream is finished, go to the Video Manager, click on the three dots to the right of a video and select "Highlight". From there, save the entire video as a highlight (otherwise your stream will disappear after 14 days).
For the official C More broadcast, each team involved (four per match day) will have to have their team members available to join video call. No players will be on site at Qruxel Productions studio. These broadcasts will run on Mondays and Wednesdays will have the games start at approximately 19:10 CE(S)T, as well as 20:15 CE(S)T.
It's mandatory for players to play with web/phone camera on (via TEAMS) and wear their club’s jersey.
To facilitate this, we will need you to follow these bullet points:
In the event that teams do not adhere to any of the points mentioned in 13.2, 13.3, and 13.5, they first will be warned, if they then continue to fail to follow said rules the team’s eSHL leadership will handle it internally.
Players competing in the eSHL are strictly forbidden from placing bets on eSHL games, whether they are personally involved or not. Violating this rule will result in severe punishment.
In the event that you and your team progress to the finals on March 10th in Stockholm (SPACE), you must be present for the LAN event in person. Each finals teams must therefore have six members of their team, who are able to play, at the LAN event – exceptions include, but are not limited to, medical exemption, or a force majeure situation.
When on site during, before and after the Final event, players must adhere to behavioural and dress-code guidelines set by eSHL, these include:
- Conducting yourself in a positive manner to those around you, e.g. making sure that you do not harass others, as well as keeping alcohol consumption (if applicable) to a safe amount.
- Wearing your team’s jersey during your entrance to the stage, games on stage as well as during interviews. Players may wear a cap of their sponsor or similar during the games. When off the stage, players can wear other clothing items or accessories. Additionally, coaches and team representatives are asked to wear team uniforms when they are in close proximity to the stage.
Failure to adhere to these guidelines may result in a penalization.
1. Winner – 100.000 SEK
2. 2nd Place – 50.000 SEK
3. 3rd Place – 25.000 SEK
4. 4th Place – 25.000 SEK
Prize money will be paid out to the winning clubs
The deadline for transfers is set to be 23:59 CE(S)T on the January 31st, 2023.
Teams are also allowed to recruit free agents until the transfer deadline. Both the player and team must mutually agree to being picked up from the free agents.
Players already playing for a team in the eSHL cannot play in a tournament or league, regardless of division or group, in another team than their fellow teammates in their respective eSHL-team, during the duration of eSHL.
If a player or team don't follow this rule, or if the SHL notices that the rule is being abused, the player in question can be banned from all future eSHL/SHL-tournaments.
Players already playing for a team will not be able to transfer to another club.
Teams may add as many Free Agent players as they wish for the duration of the season.
All transfers however are subject to scrutiny by the SHL. Therefore, transfers can be declined retroactively if deemed to have been illegal, potentially resulting in games played being nullified.
Teams who will pick up players that are currently banned from playing in the eSHL (see rule 8.3) will face serious penalties for doing so.
“League start” is the date of the first game played in the league.
“League end” is after the end of the final game of the league
“Game” is defined by a home team and an away team.
“Managers” of a team are the captain and the assistants.
"Players" of a team are all members on the website roster, including the captain and assistant captains.
“Transfer” is the movement of a player from one team to another. A player is on a team as soon as he is displayed as such on SportsGamer.
“Recruitment” is the addition of a free agent by a team.
“Free Agent” is a player who has not been registered to any team during a league.
“Disqualification” is when a team gets removed from the league. A disqualified team has all its games cancelled, played or un-played. “Disqualification” also pertains to “disbandment” (see ‘Radical’ case).
“Ban” is a player punishment. Ban length depends on the infraction made by the player. A player banned for N games is not allowed to play the next N games scheduled for their team at the time of the ban. As such, if the team schedule is changed the games the banned player has to skip remain the same.
“Infraction” is the act of breaking any rule described in this document.
“Walkover” is a team punishment in the form of an automatic 5-0 or X-X result. 5-0 is the result of one team being at fault for various reasons described in the rules above. X-X is the result of both teams being at fault and means both teams receive 0 points for a game.
"Transfer deadline" is the moment when transfers are not allowed anymore until the end of a league.
"League game" is the official game according to SportsGamer stats. In the case of disconnection, the league game consists of parts of two or more games.
"Desynced/looped game" describes a game that has been disconnected without player interaction.
“Legal” describes a player who is part of a team and their presence does not violate any rules.