Hockey, played in full
Game Plan Hockey Manager is an online hockey manager. You run one club in a world shared with managers from around the globe, season after season. The players and clubs are fictional. The hockey is built to be as real as it can be.
- league levels
- 6
- clubs in each league
- 28
- regular-season games
- 80
- how every game is played
- Shift by shift
Every game is played shift by shift
A result in Game Plan Hockey Manager is never a single draw. Every game is played out from the opening faceoff, shift by shift, with your lines on the ice against the opponent's lines. Faceoffs, shots, rebounds, saves, penalties, power plays and penalty kills happen in turn, and the final score is what the game added up to.
Tactics meet tactics
Each club plays an offensive and a defensive system, and every system is stronger against some opponents than against others. The systems you choose meet the systems your opponent chose, and the matchup moves the play: one side carries the momentum for a stretch, then the other side takes it back.
The bench
Lines, defense pairings, ice time and the power-play and penalty-kill units are the manager's to set. Each player has a role, such as playmaker, sniper, power forward, grinder, two-way forward, or offensive or stay-at-home defenseman, and plays the game that role asks of him. Players tire as their ice time adds up, and a line that is leaned on too hard shows it. The captains a manager names matter in the room.
Before and after the game
Before a game, the pre-game view sets the two clubs side by side, and the assistant coach reports on the opponent from the games he has seen. Live Games plays every game back event by event, with the score, the momentum and every power play as they happened. Afterwards come the box score, the timeline of the game and the assistant coach's report on what decided it.
A single game is never decided by one thing. The stronger roster wins more often over a season, but not every night, and confidence, fitness and tactics all have their say.
Nothing on a player is for show
Height, weight, age, skills, position, role and psychological profile: every detail on a player affects how he plays. A manager game is decided by the small things, and the game shows them all.
The person behind the skills
Every player has a psychological profile: his leadership, ambition, ego and greed, how he handles the big games and how willing he is to play dirty. Beside it are three readings that change through the season: his confidence, his fitness and how happy he is with his contract. A strong roster still loses if its players are tired, doubting themselves or unhappy with their deals.
The team in the room
A club has a character of its own. Team confidence is the club's belief in its system, read separately for offense and defense, and it moves with the chances the club creates and gives up. Culture, teamwork and winner instinct come from who is in the room: how well the personalities fit, how well the players get on, and whether there are enough players who will do almost anything to win, without so many that they turn on each other.
Stats that last
Player and club stats are kept in detail and saved season after season, along with careers, records, transactions and league history. They are there to be read, and they matter most when a manager is looking for his next trade target.
Scouting
The Scouting Center sends a scout to watch a player the club is considering. His report covers what the player brings today and how far he can still grow.
One world, six leagues, one cup
Worlds
The game is played in worlds. Each world is a hockey universe of its own, with its own clubs, players, managers and history. A new manager takes over an existing club, and the club's history stays with it, the way a franchise keeps its records when it changes hands.
Pace
A world moves one game day at a time, and each world has its own pace. A regular-season day carries one game for every club, so the pace is how often a club plays.
- Slow
- A game day every 24 hours
- Normal
- A game day every 12 hours
- Fast
- A game day every 6 hours
The season
A season opens with a short off-season for signings and a preseason with exhibition games. Then come an 80-game regular season, with the trade deadline shortly before its end, and the playoffs. When the playoffs are over, contracts expire, players age a year, a new class of juniors arrives and clubs move up or down.
Six league levels
The playable leagues form a ladder of six levels, each with 28 clubs in two conferences of 14. The top two clubs in each conference are promoted directly. The clubs just below them play promotion playoffs against clubs fighting relegation from the league above, and the bottom two in each conference go down, wherever there is a league below.
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Level 1
Golden Hockey League
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Level 2
Silver Hockey League
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Level 3
Bronze Hockey League
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Level 4
Copper Hockey League
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Level 5
Iron Hockey League
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Level 6
Lower Iron Hockey League
The Golden Cup
At the top is the Golden Hockey League. The eight best clubs in each of its conferences play the playoffs for the Golden Cup, the highest honor in the game.
The salary cap
Every league has its own salary cap, and it rises with each level, as do the salaries players ask for. Payroll is the limit every roster is built within.
Beyond the ladder
Around the six playable leagues are senior and junior leagues across Europe and North America that no manager runs. Their clubs sign free agents and develop players of their own, and the junior leagues are where the draft prospects play. The best players also represent their countries on the national teams.
The same rules for every club
Nothing in the game can be bought to make a club stronger. Premium adds conveniences, and every club in a world plays by the same rules.
Building the roster
Contracts
Players sign through contract negotiations with the player and his agent, and free agents are signed the same way. An offer counts against the cap while it is on the table, and the player takes a few days to decide. Players already on the roster can be offered an extension. A contract is one-way or two-way, and only a player on a two-way contract can be sent down to an affiliate.
Trades and waivers
Clubs trade players, prospects and draft picks with each other, whether the other club is run by a manager or by the computer. The trade block shows who a club is ready to move. Trading closes at the trade deadline and stays closed for clubs still in the playoffs. Players placed on waivers can be claimed by other clubs.
The youth draft
Every season ends with a youth draft of 17-year-old juniors. Each club holds a first-round and a second-round pick, and clubs in higher leagues pick earlier. Prospect rankings are published during the season. The draft is not held live: a manager ranks the prospects he wants on a draft list beforehand, and the club picks from that list when its turn comes. A drafted player's rights belong to the club for three years.
Players grow, peak and decline
A player's skills change over his career. Young players improve, players in their prime hold their level, and veterans decline. How fast a young player grows depends on his potential, his training and the ice time he gets.
Training
Each skater trains on an offensive, defensive or general program, at an easy, medium or hard intensity, and goalies train at an intensity of their own. What a program develops follows the club's tactics, so a club trains for the way it plays.
Affiliates
Players who are not yet ready for the lineup can be assigned to the club's affiliate in the American Affiliation Hockey Leagues, where they get the ice time they need to develop. A player can be recalled when the parent club needs him.
Development is gradual. A junior takes seasons to become a regular, and no single decision makes a player.
Take a club
A free account plays the full game.