question for you guys that play some form of organized hockey:
how long before the season starts does your league release your schedule?
back story: our league (independent, not run by a rink) has 9 skill divisions and 70 teams. we have an eval skate for new players between seasons (usually around 3 weeks before we begin) and teams looking for players can draft from that pool though some players are ear-marked for certain teams and must be rated at the proper level. we routinely have 65-70 new players show up at each eval skate. 2 of the last 3 seasons we've had enough players left over to make new teams. because of this sometimes we don't get the first month of the schedule until about a week before. we then usually get the remainder of the schedule a few weeks later. basically players are bitching that they can't set their work travel schedules soon enough causing them to miss games and they want us to figure out a way to release the schedule before we even have the eval skate so I'm curious how other leagues do it.
thanks, I'll hang up and listen.