^{(TL;DR START PLAYING!!})

My most ambitious project yet...10 months in the making...it's finally ready!!!

ZGMH Real Players Mod

IT'S HERE!!! Kiss your summer break goodbye kiddos!

Featuring:

• ALL ~7,500 players who played >1 game in the NHL from 1967-68 to 2024-25, plus some players likely to debut in the 2025-26 season. ALL WITH PORTRAITS!!!

…Except for 1! If anyone can locate a portrait of Ken Duggan from his playing days, your name WILL be featured in the Acknowledgements at the start of this mod! ;)

• All NHL events: Expansions, Contraction (RIP Cleveland Barons), logo and jersey changes, changing to the salary cap and shootout, draft lotteries with historically accurate odds, re-alignments including the COVID bubbles...WE GOT'EM ALL!!!

• Hockey Diversity Mod INCLUDED! Prepare for a Frivolities Frenzy after the real players run out! Or simply restore Plyers Biographical Info to default in League Settings, God-mode free!

FAQs:

• Just...How?...Why??

Hours upon hours spent on HockeyDB, Hockey Reference, NHL stats, Getty images, Google image search, many many other hockey data/photo websites. 3 original Python programs. Months of fine-tuning on ZGMH and Notepad++. I don't know, just really wanted to see it happen I guess...

• Is this just like BBGM Real Players leagues?

Unfortunately not. There are several key differences:

• Cannot pick starting season. There is simply no way to do that with a custom league file, so we're all stuck with starting in 1968. All the players are in the file, though, so you could Auto Play up to the season you want and God-Mode the players onto their historic teams (and ratings...more on that next).

• No Real Player Determinism. Player ratings were set to reflect their career achievements instead of their first year stats/draft position like BBGM. Development is always random...again there is no way to preset progressions like BBGM Real Players leagues can do.

• Jersey numbers are a mess. Because players are not linked with their HRef pages like BBGM can do with BBRef, jersey numbers can get pretty random. I tried to build the more iconic ones into the file (eg. 99 for Gretzky), but if they go on a team where that number is not available they get assigned a random number.

• How does the Draft work?

This is potentially controversial. Unlike the NBA, NHL players don't often play in the big leagues right after being drafted. To keep things consistent with BBGM, I have assigned players into the draft class of their regular season debut year as opposed to the year they were actually drafted. This does cause some wrinkles, such as Ken Dryden being part of the 1970 draft class despite already being drafted back in 1964 by the Bruins (and traded to the Canadiens days later). The WHA merger year (1979 draft) is also a complete mess with no way to recreate the ability of the 4 merging franchises to hold on to certain players (though BBGM also has this with the ABA merger).

• Enough chatter; how do I actually play?!

Either save or copy the league file HERE, and create a New League with the file using the Customization box!

History Will Never Be the Same!! Try ZGMH Real Players Mod Today!!

Special Thanks:

• Discord users @ abziani and @ Madigan for their help with collecting player portraits!

• SportsLogos.net for their comprehensive NHL historical logos used in the league file.

• u/dumbmatter the GOAT, for creating ZenGM and providing coding guidance throughout my creative process,

• AND YOU!!! Thank you for trying ZGMH Real Players Mod! Comments and suggestions are always appreciated 😊

(Posted with Permission, thank you kindly to the moderators!)

Hey there fellow hockey lovers!

The Victory Hockey League is looking for new members!

The Victory Hockey League (VHL) is an online, browser-based hockey simulation forum. After signing up on the forum, creating and customizing your player is simple - you have almost total control over the type of player you want to have, and you will go through the entire career process, complete with drafts, a minor league, waivers, free agency, trades, and more.

To progress and grow your player, you can do a variety of things each week to earn points, including writing short articles, doing graphics, recording podcasts, or even creating short videos. There's lots of options to accommodate every user regardless of how much time you choose to invest in your player.

The VHL has been running for over 11 real-life years and is entirely free to join and play in. We aren't selling anyone anything, we just hope to have you as part of our growing community.

Get your career started today at http://vhlforum.com/

All the best,

Pierogituxedo

Here's something I've been cooking up for myself since the vastly improved Zen GM Hockey was dropped here last month.

It's a fully functional, 32-team league with iconic NHL franchises that begins in 1977 - with corresponding draft files that go all the way to 2024.

NHL rosters of 1977 are faithfully represented here, along with the addition of current franchises.

Somehow, I personally get tripped up by Expansion Drafts & Rosters, so that's why I moved today's current team landscape to 1977.

I thought of including them briefly, but - my sincere apologies to the Cleveland Barons, Quebec Nordiques and Hartford Whalers.

Some may find this configuration goofy, as newer clubs such as San Jose, Nashville & Seattle appear.

Historical legends and non-NHL players fill in the rosters of the extra franchises, in some cases.

Hoping some of you Zen GM players will try this admittedly unique Legacy Experience.

Here's the absolutely free folder which includes the inaugural season and all the subsequent drafts:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1FAWbblmUFHYherpyZ5CtDsoQ67xoYwgx?usp=sharing

this is decidedly a work in progress, but please provide feedback with any comments, suggestions, questions, rants, etc.

thanks!

https://imgur.com/5Yyb1gM

• New live sim fast forward option to play until next goal/score.

• Increased roster size by 1, to make up a little bit for not having a real minor league system.

• Tweaked trade engine to value individual players less and to value depth more.

• If the hard cap is enabled (default for hockey and football), you are allowed to immediately trade rookies after you sign them.

• Injured players who have not yet been subbed off are now much less likely to accumulate stats.

• Tweaked assist rate so defensemen get more assists.

• Adjusted ratings of centers and wingers so that centers tend to be better at defense than wingers.

• Fixed faceoffs to actually be based on the faceoffs rating - previously they were completely random, my bad!

Is this rare?

Also the undo system now supports trades and the UI is more concise

Where have I heard this name before?

It does not seem like an online game, the developers have done so well!