Which league are you guys playing? NHL? NCAA?
I play NHL and only have made it into my second season. I think I see maybe 2 to 3 off-ice incidents and 2 to 4 cliques.
That doesn't seem too many but at the same time, if all teams average 2 off ice incidents then you are talking about 60+ players getting into some sort of trouble during the regular season. I'm just not sure how common that is (now, if we are talking about NFL, then that's a different story
I understand off ice incidents/cliques add a little variety to the game and a new challenge for players, but I do think they should be fairly rare at the NHL level or to certain around younger players.
I would be curious if there are more off ice incidents/cliques in NCAA or the minors were the players are typically younger and maybe not quite mature.
I generally don't worry about cliques or team harmony much, I focus on winning. As they say, winning solves a lot of problems.