One unfortunate aspect of the APBA Hockey experience is determining the defensive effects. The system uses what is a simple “add the five numbers and refer to the chart to determine the difference.” However, that can slow you down in trying to remember what the defense ratings are, and it really doesn’t take any individual performance into account.
WARNING!! This system involves having either using a third die, or using a reroll. In the text below, I will refer to this as the “extra” die. Two-die/no reroll purists should probably leave this article now.
The system I use is based on how I set up my players on my table:
| Vis RW (6-H LD) | Vis RD (6-H LW) | Vis C (6-H C) | Vis LD (6-H RW) | Vis LW (6-H RD) | Vis Goalie |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Extra Die |
| Home LW (6-V RD) | Home LD (6-V RW) | Home C (6-V C) | Home RD (6-V LW) | Home RW (6-V LD) | Home Goalie |
If a play result for the skater is either 1-7 or 10-20, refer to the extra die. Look at the result and you’ll see the position of the player whose defense rating that will be used. For example, if a home skater has the puck, and you have a ‘4’ on the extra die, you would use the Vis LD defensive rating – no matter who has the puck for the home team. Similarly, if the away skater has the puck, you would use the Home RD defensive rating.
If the extra die is a ‘6’, look at the box with the puck holder, and the player listed in red parentheses is your defender. For example, the home RW would have the visiting LD defending. Or, the visiting RD would have the home LW defending.
Now that you know the defender, use the position rating to apply the defense:
- Defense Rating 5: Add 3 to the play result
- Defense Rating 4: Add 2 to the play result
- Defense Rating 3: Add 1 to the play result
- Defense Rating 2: Do not change the result
- Defense Rating 1: Subtract 1 from the play result
- Defense Rating 0/Position Empty: Subtract 2 from the play result
I know this seems like a lot of text, but once you start using this, your games will go faster and are more accurate. The key is setting up the players as in the grid before. You will naturally learn to go the correct column very quickly. The ‘6’ is a bit trickier, but it’s simply who the logical defender would be in a real game of hockey.
Sounds like a great idea. How would do this with a different amount of Forecheckers?
Still would be the same regardless of the number of forecheckers.
I like it! I designed a new game board utilizing your match-up system and played a game. It didn’t take long to get up to speed, and the flow of the game was much better.
So, you ignore the original ODAI numbers associated with APBA Hockey game?
Yes, just use the match-ups when appropriate.
Mike—I’m wondering about the idea of needing a third die. Would you not consider the red die result to be independent of any particular outcome on the boards? What’s your opinion on this? I may be wrong about that. The white die number is definitely biased towards certain results, the most obvious example being 1’s and 5’s. But is that true of the red die also? I’m not sure. If not, then you could just read off the red die for your system on the initial roll—one roll would serve both for the board result and your match-up. I think this “hang-up” about using a third die may just be a artifact from playing the game religiously–baseball in my case—in one’s formative years.
I’ve played 2 games with this new system, and I really like it compared to the ODAI, which I never was a fan of.
Really nice improvement. Dave your recent slow play video made me give this a try. Appreciate it. Really speeds things up. Thanks to both you and Mike Burger
You write this will make the game more accurate. Is the game inaccurate in some way? I’ve only played maybe 20 games so I have no idea about game accuracy.
John
It is inaccurate in the way that you get more offense vs. defense 1-1 on matchups vs. everything being team related. Allows for a top defender to not be hampered by a bad one but allows the bad one to be exploited by a good offensive player.
Mike,
I’ve been using your defensive system for about 10 games and I love the flow. However, I feel my SOG are higher for both teams… in the mid to upper 30s and sometimes low 40s (regulation games). My concern is that if the teams in ABPA under the old ODAI system are weighted by their actual shots they allowed, wouldn’t your new system destroy that safeguard? I’d like to know how many games you’ve rolled with your system and if you did any data to see the difference in SOGs allowed?
I’ve probably played 200+ games with this and really haven’t seen an uptick for regulation teams, it’s roughly within 1 SOG per game. If you’re playing draft teams, there will be a little bit of an uptick because you have so many more better offensive players playing. There I’ve seen a 3-5 uptick but you would see that with the regular rules as well.
Need clarification; when you say “add X to the play result”, you are referring to the red number on the offensive player’s card correct?
Example: Tie Dummy rolls a 32, which is a 40 on his card. The “ODAI” roll ends up matching him against the opposing center who has a defensive C value of 4. 4 means we “add 2 to the play result”.
So does that mean Domi goes from a red 40 to a theoretical red 42, or, does his black 32 end up being a black 34 thus lining up with with a red 36 on his card?
Cheers!
It wouldn’t apply on a penalty result. Only on 1-7 and 11-20.
I do have a question, I love the concept of the individual defense to replace ODAI. My question lies in the facet that a 3 rated defenseman would drop 1 line, is that too much? If all five skaters were a 3 the original defense would not move as it would be a 15 overall. I know you have play tested this so have you seen any drop in shots? Thank you for your great innovations.
It’s been pretty spot on for me for the modern seasons. I did notice when playing a dead-puck era season (2004) they were a little low, but not too bad.