All new for Franchise Hockey Manager 9
- College hockey is here! American college teams are now playable, allowing you to run one of over 60 Division I teams. Since college hockey has some unique challenges, we've added a number of special mechanics to college team management, including a unique player recruitment system, details like managing scholarships and academic eligibility, qualification for the postseason tournament, and more.
- Injury Deferral: you can now choose to defer injury treatment for some types of injuries until after the season ends. That will let you keep the injured player in the lineup with reduced performance and a risk of making the injury worse. That will allow you to keep the player in the lineup for key games at the end of the year or in the playoffs, but you'll need to balance that against the possibility of getting the player healthy as soon as possible. And the impact of serious injuries on a player's ratings has been beefed up, so major injuries now have a bigger chance of derailing a player's career.
- The team harmony system has been completely redesigned: "problem" players will now potentially create many more headaches for their General Manager, who'll have to keep a careful eye on their team as off-ice incidents can lead to player conflicts and the formation of divisive factions that can send player morale plummeting.
- New All-Star Games: we've added all-star games (in multiple formats) to leagues outside the NHL, as well as older formats (like the defending champion playing the rest of the league's all-stars) for the NHL in historical mode.
- International play in historical mode has been expanded with the addition of the World Junior Championships tournaments, allowing you to replay all the historical tournaments going back to 1974.