Team reputation

Team reputation is your club’s standing around the hockey world. It grows with where you finish and how high a league you play in, and it draws players to your club. You can’t set it; your results build it.

Where reputation shows

Your club’s reputation shows as a word on your team page, under Info beside the team kit, and the same goes for any club’s page. The world page’s Teams list ranks the world’s most reputable clubs with a bar each; your club appears there, highlighted, once it is among them. The list ranks the clubs of the non-playable leagues alongside the playable ones.

A non-playable club’s word shows at the top of its page and under Club, which is how you size up a non-playable rival for a free agent, and a non-playable league’s page lists its clubs by reputation. From lowest to highest the words are Unknown, Unproven, Accepted, Familiar, Recognised, Renowned, Respected, Popular, Praised, Honored and Legendary.

Your club’s reputation is a separate thing from your own and from your players’. Yours as a manager is on manager career, a player’s on player reputation. Each league has a reputation too, lower at each step down; see leagues.

How it grows

Every season earns your club reputation for its place in the conference standings. The higher you finish, the more it earns, and the higher the league, the more each place is worth. Winning the Golden Cup adds to that season on top of the finish.

Your club’s reputation is the average of its last few seasons. The coming season joins the reckoning when the playoffs end, already in the league you will play in, and counts as a mid-table finish until games are played. From then on it counts at your current place in the standings, so your reputation moves with your results while the season runs. Each new season pushes the oldest one out, so a strong season lifts your reputation for a few seasons and then drops out of the reckoning. A promotion or relegation adds nothing of its own, but from the end of the playoffs the coming season counts in your new league.

A non-playable club’s reputation is set when the club enters the world and reflects the league it started in. Its results do not move it.

What it draws

Players notice your club’s reputation in two places: when they weigh a contract offer, and when they judge the club they play for.

Weighing an offer. Once a player is considering an offer you make, your club’s reputation counts in how much he likes it, alongside your manager reputation, the league’s reputation, your place in the standings and the terms. The more he likes it, the likelier he is to take it, and the more it stands out against other clubs’ offers; how he decides is on player contracts. Here your club’s standing across the whole world counts. A higher reputation adds to your offer’s appeal; a low one adds nothing, so it never counts against an offer you make. It does not decide whether he will consider the offer at all: that rests on the terms. An extension is weighed the same way.

While your assistant runs the club, or while your account has transfer restrictions, offers to free agents and extensions for your players are made for you, and only to a player who is interested first. In that check your club’s reputation is measured against its league, and a low one can count against you.

Other clubs’ offers are weighed the same way as yours, so a club with a big name is a stronger rival for a free agent. A computer-run or non-playable club passes the same interest check before it makes an offer, and there a low reputation for its league counts against it.

Judging his own club. One of your players can show a concern about the club (Doubtful about the club, Low interest in the club, No interest in the club). He rates the club partly on its reputation; when that concern shows, and what else he weighs, is on player form and happiness. In this rating your club’s reputation is measured against the league it plays in, so the same reputation counts for more in a lower league, and a low one counts against you.

If a player shows a concern about the club, results move it: a higher place in the standings counts in his eyes directly, and through your club’s reputation as well.

Your club’s reputation plays no part in trades.

Worth knowing

• The coming season counts toward your club’s reputation from the end of the playoffs, in the league you will play in: as a mid-table finish until games are played, then at your current place in the standings.
• A strong season lifts your club’s reputation for a few seasons, then drops out of it.
• When a player weighs an offer you make, a low club reputation adds nothing and does not decide whether he will consider it. While your assistant runs the club, offers go only to players who are interested first, and there a low reputation can count against you.
• When one of your players judges your club, its reputation is measured against its league, so the same reputation counts for more in a lower league.
• A non-playable club’s reputation is set when the club enters the world; its results do not move it.