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Custom games allow you to create your own hockey leagues from scratch. You can define various details of a custom league, including the league format, team names, cities, and various other settings. Your primary league will be the top-level league in the game; effectively the NHL of your fictional world. You can choose to include the real NHL, AHL, and CHL leagues in your custom game, or build everything youself.
The "Add Regular Fictional League" option will allow you to either create a league entirely of your own design, or import a league from our historical or modern databases. Note that you are able to import a number of leagues in the modern database that are not playable in a standard games; these leagues will not have the same level of research as the playable leagues, and may require you to do some additional setup workup in the league settings to make them into fully-functioning leagues. Additionally, you can choose to import individual teams from those sources, replacing ones already created, on the league setup screen.
Promotion/Relegation
You can add pairs of leagues that use a promotion and relegation system. You'll need to add two leagues via this option to make promotion/relegation work, one upper and one lower. At the end of each season, the last-place team in the upper league will trade spots with the champion of the lower league.
You can create as many leagues as you like. Consult the tips on the "Add a League" screen for guidance on specific settings.
Note the "Custom" option under league structure, which will allow you to set up a league with schedule length, size, and divisional alignment of your own choosing.
After you set up the league(s), you will then be taken to the Set Up Your Manager screen, where you can set up your manager identity, team, play mode, and other options.