[mp33]

I'm creating a similar league and stumbled over your post. Thanks for the hint! It was frustrating finding proper solutions for this.

I think I found a little prettier workaround to solve this renaming thing.

I created an independent league (named World War One, abbreviation WW1) with four teams.
I named two teams "No games played" "due to War" (with abbreviations WW1/WWI) and two teams "League Suspended" "World War One" (WW1/WWI). I moved the "League Suspended" teams to my major league and all teams from the major league to the independent league.

Then I followed the instructions (including disabling the tiebreaker games) and went to preseason. I scheduled a few games between the created teams so only they would be a champion, not the former major league teams which have no games.
After the war, move the teams back, and the indy league can easily be deleted.

This way, the major league teams have "WW1" in their history and didn't win a "WW1-Championship". And you don't have to rename your original teams.