Steve

There are multiple threads on this floating around the forums, so I'll say it here as well.  I think a roster limit would solve most of this.  I've gone back and forth on the actual limit a few times now and after analyzing teams and salaries, I feel it should be league specific:
 
GHL - 30 player limit
SHL - 35 player limit
BHL - 40 player limit
IHL/LIHL - 50 player limit
 
The higher the league, the easier it becomes to stash players in the affiliate.  It's tougher to do in lower leagues AND keep a competitive roster.  I know some might think the 30 player limit is too low, but GHL teams should be able to build a solid roster from 6C, 11F, 9D, 4G.  Plus having a staggered limit would make more players available for the lower league teams and higher leagues would have to be specific with their roster (if you're a GHL or SHL manager I'm sure you can handle it).
 
For what it's worth...
Stashing good affiliate players should be an acceptable practice.  It starts to become an issue when it gets excessive.  So overall I agree with what is being stated here.  The problem is that *technically* it is not against the rules - so it's hard to fault managers for trying to build and better their team.  Getting everyone to agree on "gentlemen's rules" never works when competition is involved.  Plus it is very tough to resist throwing offers on stud players sitting there in free agency, especially when you have the cap room to do it.  Signing players is one of the exciting parts of a manager game.  It is very possible that the managers who are doing this are just caught up in the excitement and not really thinking about how it is negatively impacting everyone else.  That's why I think the roster limit would help.

Revenge will be mine!
 
Or I can just go for 3 lost finales in a row

No easy fete to win it this year, so well earned!  

No easy fete to win it this year, so well earned!  

That record is short term. Don't trust short term. For dump and chase you have to have a fast and physical team.
 
My advice would be pick the style you want your team to play. The players will learn it and they will focus their training to develop the skills relevant for it faster than other skills. As for what to go for I have descriptions of the offensive tactics here: http://forums.gmgames.org/topic/6845-general-user-guide/
 
To help you I will repost them for you here:
Offensive tactics
 
Crash the Net: This is very simple. Puck and players to the net. In real life this isn't a tactic so much as it is a way of life. Hockey players are preached to crash the net. "Go to the net and good things will happen," "throw the puck to the net because anything could happen" and "there is no such thing as a bad shot" (there actually is) are things you commonly hear if you watch NHL games.
 
What do you need for this tactic? Players high in the physical attribute. Bigger sized players are also a plus. The good about this tactic: You only need one skill to make it work and it is very simple. The Bad: You NEED one skill to make it work or it will not work at all, it is heavily reliant on your players to have higher physical skills and be bigger than the opposing defensemen for it to work, it is simple and very easy to counter.
 
This tactic is the least efficient tactic out there and the most reliant on the opposing team being weak to it makes it pretty much not worth it. This tactic isn't garbage. it is just over reliant on a few things making it a very situational tactic at best. Using a situational tactic all of the time isn't exactly an ideal situation.
 
Dump and Chase: This is all about getting the puck deep and then getting the puck via a strong forecheck. This tactic is less about skill and more about the defensive posture of the opposing team through the neutral zone. If the defensive posture is "up" then a dump and chase is a very good tactic to use. However that is in a real hockey game.
 
What do you need for this tactic? Speed and physical skills predominantly. Like above bigger sized players are a plus. The good: This tactic is all about using your teams physical attributes to the greatest possible effect. It isn't overly reliant on puck skills. The bad: Due to the aggressive hitting nature of this tactic over aggressive players will take a lot of penalties, considering that your team will take more penalties off of the bat as it is that could really kill any momentum your team builds on a regular basis making it difficult for your team to generate much offense.
 
This tactic is still very reliant on a players physical skill so not having a lot of forwards with high physical ratings will hurt this offense a lot. This tactic and the tactic above are the two physically focused offensive styles. The dump and chase is the more versatile of the two as it is less reliant on the opponent and their skills and more about your own players and theirs.
 
Puck possession: This is all about controlling the puck in the opponents end by passing the puck around. This tactic is the basis of most modern hockey offenses. Even the LA Kings use a puck possession offense with a heavy influence of physical play whereas the Chicago Blackhawks use a more finesse based puck possession style.
 
What you need: Puck handling and passing and then more puck handling and passing and then even more. The Good: This tactic is all about the puck skills of your players. This is the most difficult offense to stop with a skilled team. The bad: This is the most difficult offense to run because it is exceptionally reliant on the puck skills of your players.
 
This tactic is very high risk high reward in nature. As a result if you don't do things right things can very easily go very wrong with this tactic. You don't need fast or physical players but that will definitely help.
 
Transition rushes: This is all about counter attacking quickly. Get the puck and get it up ice quickly trying to create odd man rushes. However in the real life game this is not an offensive strategy per se and more another part of the game altogether.
 
What you need: A lot of skating, passing and puck handling. The good: Very aggressive and fast offensive tactic that aims to take advantage of both the speed and skill of your players. The bad: This tactic has the most demands from the players as they need to be fast, good puck handlers and passers.
 
Like puck possession this is high risk high reward but it is also the tactic that demands the most out of the players which demands the most out of you as well as you need the right players for this tactic to work. Also this tactic has some reliance on the opposing team as well making it that much more harder to implement successfully.
 
Since I finally have a week off from work and life short of a sudden call from life I will be adding at least defensive descriptions this week to that after a long overdue time of not adding it. It literally takes hours to do that stuff.

Ideally I don't want to give you any answers because to a certain extent tactics are interpretive. So I'll try to guide you as well as I can, but the biggest thing is making sure you develop your own interpretation of the tactics. 

I'm in a different game world so I don't know what the baseline levels are for Lumber. For your team skating is the strong suit for your forward group. For your defenseman it is physicality. If you look at the explanations for tactics usually each tactic will have two core attributes. Puck possession is passing and puck handling. So while your team fits the speed for transition rushes, apart of that tactic is having your defenseman drive the play up ice. Based on the skating and puck handling abilities of your defenseman they arent the best puck movers. 
 
You should go through all of the tactics, see what is needed for each individual tactic and try to apply it to your team. It might involve you needing to make some roster moves or you could have a team assembled that will already be able to perform well under a set of tactics. 

I had asked pretty much the same question here:  http://forums.gmgames.org/topic/8757-1w-contract-after-being-traded-down/
 
I'm in SHL and acquired a player from a GHL team earlier this season who did not have a 1W/PC and after the trade, he had a 1W/PC contract.  But I have also seen other players go from GHL to SHL and not have 1W/PC contracts after.
 
After digging into it a bit further, it seems like most players traded down a league will have their salary adjusted accordingly and take on a 1W/PC contract.  In the rare cases where the players did not take on a 1W/PC contract, their salary was not adjusted... and in both cases it appears they were originally SHL players who were not on 1W/PC contracts, so when traded to GHL, their salary did not adjust.... then when traded back to SHL their salary did not adjust.
 
Follow me?
 
So the short answer is no, this is not a bug.  Players who are traded down a league will have their salary adjusted and take on a 1W/PC... which seems like a fair trade off.
 
*players on their Entry-Level contract will not get the 1W/PC.

The contracts still work mostly the same as before there were affiliates. If a guy signs in a higher league and then is traded down, he gets a 1-way contract.
 
However I haven't really heard your situation brought up before even though it's definitely weird considering that you want to send him to the same league that he was just in. Maybe a solution would be players to keep the lowest league affiliates that they can play for constant and to have it as a notification on the players transfer page. Similar weirdness would happen for a player with a one-way being traded up and then being put on an affiliate. Maybe if a guy gets sent up, any new higher division affiliates that a team has is allowed to take the player. Any affiliates that the player couldn't play in before due to his contract stay locked.

In terms of team focus i change it rather regularly with mostly positive effects. Knowing how to change it and what to is the important thing.
 
In regards to the tactics it is very possible to continuously change the team tactics to where none of them ever gets out of red and you win a lot of games however you have to precisely predict the tactics the opposing teams are going to use in each game to have any chance of success short of just having the best players by far. If the players are roughly equal and you guess wrong it is a near guarantee that you will lose with the only question being by how much.
 
 
I should have replied to this when you posted. I apologize that I missed it.
 
Team focus is more a game to game game plan thing yes. I adjust my teams focus depending upon the strengths and weaknesses of both my team and the opposing team. If the opposing team is a strong offensive team but a bit weak defensively or in net I will set my team to be more offensive as well because I have a defensive team with a strong goalie. I am willing to bet that my defense and goalie will outlast their offense better than their D and goalie can hold against mine. However if the opposing team is just better than mine (Protons) I will try to play a conservative defensive game trying to hold the score close and hope for a 1-0, 2-1 game where my team scores the last and hopefully deciding goal as I lean on my teams defense (its greatest strength) heavily to try to get a win.

I think the lack of response here is that no one really knows for sure (except for Anders).  When in doubt, test it out!
 
That being said, I ran various tests on training a few seasons ago.  I tracked development for 20 different players by measuring the progress bars every 10 days for an entire season.  Every 10 days, I would change something whether it be the Intensity (Hard, Normal, Easy), the Player Role (Sniper, Two Way, etc.), and the Focus (Off, Def, Gen).  I tried to test every combination of Intensity/Role/Focus.  My results were inconclusive in that it didn't really notice much difference in progress when I changed the variables.  Other than the fact that the bars went up faster when the Intensity was Harder (this one is obvious).  But the Player Roles and Focus didn't seem to have a huge impact to draw a solid conclusion.  Perhaps the 10 day periods were too short to notice anything drastic and that results are only noticeable longer term.  Also perhaps there is a time delay on the change, like when you change your tactics, you won't start to see a noticeable difference until 5-10 days after making the chance.  So that could have confused my results.
 
The only things I know for sure are:
1) The Harder the Intensity, the more a player will progress (obviously).
2) Players typically progress faster when they are younger (typically).
3) Team tactics seem to play a role (i.e. Puck Possession will develop Pass/Puck faster).
4) Offensive attributes progress earlier in career, defensive later (Anders mentioned this somewhere).
 
As for training Skating specifically.  I would assume set the training to Hard & General.  And it will also help if your Off Tactic is Dump&Chase or Transition - and your Def Tactic is Forecheck or Spread (but I wouldn't change a tactic for training purposes).

Wow, I'm surprised that nobody has answered this, training is a little bit vague.
 
 
From my experience offensive training improves skills such as shooting, passing,etc, defensive training improves defence, checking, etc and general training improves skills such as endurance and skating. I've also found (although it may be my imagination) is that if you set a player's role and/or line role to something, the player will improve in that role a bit faster. Ex: two-ways forwards will improve their defence a bit faster than other skills.

No easy fete to win it this year, so well earned!  

Congrats to the Biscuit GHL Season 13 Champions - Deadwood Vandals!

Ah, you are correct!  I think I was thinking it feels like it should be 3 in a row for them since they have been so good for that long.  I'm always jealous of that kind of consistency.  

Ah, you are correct!  I think I was thinking it feels like it should be 3 in a row for them since they have been so good for that long.  I'm always jealous of that kind of consistency.  

3 in a row? Last 2 were won by Marauders. It's the 2nd final in a row for Pegasus.

Coach Thor Viklander's speech after the Black Flag secured their stay in the SHL after a 5-0 game 2 win:
 
"Congratulations, you guys did it - you can all stay on the team! Except Seeger, Juarez, and Neskarov; you guys didn't have a choice. Alright now let's get ready for tomorrow's big game three finale where none of you will be playing! Great job everyone!"
 
WHISPERS TO ASSISTANT: "Ok, so I left you that beard and fake belly suit so you can play me tomorrow - I'm heading to Hawaii for some vacation, see you in a couple weeks..."

I wouldn't say shocking... I think so many cup finals in a row were more shocking. GHL is getting more even every day and usually up to 14 teams can easily go for the cup (maybe 16, but the last two teams are usually for some reason point-wise far away) - yes, they have to make to the PO first, but look at Marauders... two times champion and now 12th without any significant changes to their team. And it's not that surprising - they were only 6 points form the PO and even in the 2 cup seasons, they were in the regular season group that does fight for the PO until the end of the season. With 6 extra points they would be one the cup favorites again.

and we got past the first round! Not sure did we deserve it, but I'll take it Next is the 1st seeded Pegasus and we are 2-0-0-2 in this seasons against them
 
Just curious, when's the last time Protons dropped at this stage of poffs? And pretty exiting last game between Protons and Minutemen

Thanks.  I'm sure they played a part.  Also tough break for you today with your goalie getting injured 1/2 way through the first period.  Think the game might have turned a bit differently if he did not.  Close games as always.  Now excuse me while I go get smoked by a GHL team :-)

Let's trade, you take Vandals and I'll take Grizzlies tonight!?!  haha.
 
Congrats on making it in!  For once, our last game of the season didn't matter!  

Any Wall Street fans out there will recognize Gordon Gekko in this season's upcoming draft.  I guess buying and selling stocks didn't work out for him!

After 7 missed seasons we are finally back at the poffs! It's just a shame we are facing Grizzlies and we are 0-1-0-3 against them this seasons ... Not getting my hopes up yet

Regular seaon champ! Woohoo!
 
No need for PO this season

With an assist by Elite who beat Wolf Pack, knocking them out of the 8th and final spot.  Elite is also back in the GHL playoffs for the first time in three seasons after barely surviving relegation last season!!!  Hope I can follow up on your stellar work against the Vandals, my first round opponent and always tough playoff team!?!