What’s a Fictional Hockey League?

What is a Fictional Hockey League?

In short, a fictional hockey league is an alternate timeline centered around a hockey league that doesn’t exist in real life. Back in August 2017, I started a project called the Minnesota Amateur Hockey League (MAHL). The premise is that back in 1914, two new hockey leagues were formed in the Iron Range and Twin Cities. These two leagues formed an agreement to be overseen by an organization called the Minnesota Amateur Hockey League with the top teams from both leagues competing for a trophy at the end of the season to decide who is the grand winner of all of the MAHL for that year.

Since the #MAHL began back in 1915/16, it has drastically increased in size, boasting 188 teams across 18 leagues as of 1987/88. Due to the amount of leagues, the MAHL is now split up into four regions, with teams in those regions playing each other in the playoffs until 4 teams remain in all regions. Those 16 teams advance to the Super Series, a single elimination tournament held every other year at either the St. Paul Civic Center or Met Center in Bloomington. The Super Series is broken into 4 rounds: Super 16, Great 8, Semi Finals, and Kellogg Cup Final. The Kellogg Cup is the trophy all teams play for in hopes to bring pride to their town by being named MAHL Champions.

The idea behind this project was to make it as realistic to real life as possible, so things such as population, natural disasters, local businesses closing, and other factors play a part in which towns get teams and how successful they are. Obviously towns with a higher population are more likely to succeed due to having a bigger player pool to select from, but small hockey towns such as Warroad or International Falls also stay powerful as they likely would if this league was real. Despite its name, the Minnesota Amateur Hockey League is not solely in the state of Minnesota. The league has spread into cities and towns near the MN border in Wisconsin, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Ontario, and Manitoba.

Map of MAHL teams as of 1988

Running The League

Perhaps the most challenging part of running a fictional hockey league is simulating. Since the league has started, I have used a random picker to simulate both the regular season and playoffs. I do it one league at a time, with the teams who are supposed to be good entered into the generator 4 or 5 times and teams expected to underperform only entered once or twice. I then press the randomizer until one team gets picked twice. That team is then removed and placed at the top of the league, finishing in first. I then do this again and again until only one team is left, finishing in last place. This allows all teams to theoretically have a shot at winning their league or making the playoffs, even if they aren’t expected to. During the playoffs I do a similar thing to see which team advances. I enter just the two teams playing, entering the home team 5 times and the road team 3 or 4 depending on how lopsided the matchup is, this gives the home team a built in advance like they would get in real life.

Overall, it takes a lot of work, dedication, and research to create and run your own fictional sports league, hockey or otherwise. This league has meant more to me than any other project I have ever worked on, and I can’t wait to tell you all more about what it’s like.

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