[tomkmb]

Originally Posted by Dave Hansen

How is this year's version with regards to college hockey vs. last year's?

Step up...about the same?

This is my hot button whether to purchase or not.

TXS

A couple of pointers on College Hockey from the 'New for FHM10' sticky post.

-Canadian College Hockey is now playable. The mechanics borrow heavily from the American college system, with some differences: redshirt rules are much more limited, there are different rules for eligibility in the drafts (generally older ages, Canadian nationality requirement, etc.), as well as the general characteristics of Canadian college hockey (low attendance, low prestige, low budgets.)

-the US college Transfer Portal has been added, making it more difficult for college teams to stockpile good prospects without giving them playing time or scholarships. On June 30, every US college player (aside from graduating seniors) has the opportunity to leave his team for the Transfer Portal; the chance is higher if the player is unhappy, isn't playing regularly, has problems with teammates, etc. On August 1, there's a new 5-round draft-like event that works similarly to national signing day, except it's limited to the Transfer Portal players and their signing competition preferences will lean towards teams that have roster and scholarship space. Unselected players go back to their old team.

-increased scouting reach of teams in junior and college leagues, they should be able to scout a lot more players now instead of having big gaps that led to a lot of unscouted players in their drafts

-changed scouting mechanics to fix the issue of college/junior teams wasting time scouting players whose junior preference doesn't match the league's requirement (except for USports, which will still scout Junior-preference players)

Not had time to dive into an NCAA sim yet outside of the testing I've done but will be firing one up imminently.