- NHL series
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NHL 
The current NHL series logoGenres Sports (ice hockey) Developers - Previous developers:
Budcat Creations, EA Montreal, High Score Productions, Park Place Productions, Tiertex Design Studios, Visual Concepts, HB Studios
Publishers EA Sports Platform of origin Mega Drive/Genesis First release NHL Hockey
1991Latest release NHL 12
- NA September 13, 2011
Official website http://www.easports.com NHL is a series of professional ice hockey simulation video games developed by EA Canada and published yearly by Electronic Arts under the EA Sports brand. The game is developed under license from both the National Hockey League (NHL), which enables the use of team names, stadiums, and team colors in the game, and the National Hockey League Players' Association (NHLPA), which enables the use of player names and likenesses.[citation needed]
Contents
Features
The Free-4-All mini-game was introduced in "NHL 2005", letting gamers compete with each other by scoring goals on one goaltender, either in a certain time limit, or until someone scores a certain number of goals. With appropriate settings, defensemen can be incorporated into the game, making it more challenging.
The NHL is not the only league in more recent games: A Nordic expansion of NHL 2001 was published by EA Sports Nordica introducing Finland's SM-Liiga and Sweden's Elitserien. Germany's Deutsche Eishockey Liga was introduced in 2004 and the two previous leagues made a return. The game has expanded to include the Czech Republic's Tipsport Extraliga in "NHL 07" and in "NHL 10" the Swiss NLA. Before "NHL 07," users could only use European teams for Exhibition and Season modes. Now, users can bring a European team into Dynasty mode. NHL 08 saw the addition of American Hockey League clubs, while NHL 11 saw the Canadian Hockey League and all 60 clubs from the Western Hockey League, Ontario Hockey League and Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, along with the Memorial Cup added into the game.
A revamped Create-a-Player feature is available after being taken out of "NHL 2005." Gone are the pre-modeled faces to choose from and in comes facial sculpting, inspired by that of the Tiger Woods PGA Tour videogames. The addition of Female faces for players were added in NHL 12 after a long absence. Create-a-Team has remained the same. Players have the ability to recreate defunct or vintage teams, or start new ones with plenty of logos and jersey designs to choose from. The Hartford Whalers logo was not included due to the fact that the city of Hartford owns the team's rights and has prohibited the team's inclusion in the game. In "NHL 11" though, the logo and jersey appear. Create-a-Team is unavailable for the "NHL 07" Xbox 360 game, but returned in "NHL 08". A Shootout mode is introduced in "NHL 07," emulating a true-to-NHL shootout. It is used to get Xbox 360 players familiarized with the game's new Skill Stick, as well as a means to practice shooting. Users have the ability to turn shootout rules on or off. Note: Shootout options in actual games will always be on.
International play
The World Cup of Hockey was a feature in "NHL 2005", coinciding with said event featuring authentic rosters and uniforms. It has been relabeled as "EA Sports' World Tournament" from "NHL 06" onward with non-licensed jerseys due to the lack of the IIHF license. Rosters for international teams in "NHL 06" were based on the real rosters of the 2006 Winter Olympics. NHL 10 did not feature the Olympic rosters of the teams playing in the 2010 Winter Olympics upon release; a later roster update corrected many national teams.[1]
This feature does not appear in the console versions, only the PC versions.
Installments
Video game platforms DOS DOS / MS-DOS GB Game Boy GBA Game Boy Advance GBC Game Boy Color GCN Nintendo GameCube GG Sega Game Gear N64 Nintendo 64 PS1 PlayStation / PSone PS2 PlayStation 2 PS3 PlayStation 3 PSP PlayStation Portable Sat Sega Saturn SCD Sega Mega-CD SMD Sega Mega Drive / Genesis SNES Super NES / Super Famicom Win Microsoft Windows Xbox Xbox X360 Xbox 360 - ^† as NHL Hockey
- ^‡ Joe Thornton was originally chosen, but EA switched to Dany Heatley after Thornton was accused of assaulting two police officers. Thornton's cover was never produced. After the 2003–04 season had begun, Heatley was involved in a car crash that killed teammate Dan Snyder, prompting EA to switch covers to one featuring Joe Sakic.[3]
- ^EU in Europe; ^DEN in
Denmark; ^FIN in 
Finland; ^RUS in 
Russia; ^SWE in 
Sweden; ^SUI in 
Switzerland
EA has also produced 3 on 3 NHL Arcade and NHL Slapshot using the NHL license.
Game covers
NHL 95 cover for the Mega Drive.
As is traditional with EA Sports, the NHL series boxes feature live action photos instead of drawings. As it lacked the NHLPA license, the early titles staged photos without real players. NHLPA Hockey 93, on the other hand, had the rights to use player images, but not of the teams. On this cover, the main action photo features the New York Rangers' Randy Moller checking the Philadelphia Flyers' Rod Brind'Amour while Rangers goaltender Mike Richter makes a save (in this photo there is the logo of the New York Rangers located on the bottom right of the goaltender's pants). This photo is surrounded by eight small portraits of players (Steve Yzerman, Andy Moog, Pat LaFontaine, Brian Leetch, Ray Bourque, Patrick Roy, Jeremy Roenick, and Rick Tocchet). This changed with NHL 94, which featured a goal situation for Tomas Sandstrom (LA Kings) against Andy Moog (Boston). NHL 95 featured an in-goal camera during a goal scored by Alexei Kovalev of the New York Rangers during the '94 Stanley Cup Finals against Kirk McLean of the Vancouver Canucks. NHL 96 featured New Jersey's Scott Stevens and Detroit's Steve Yzerman. More recently, Steven Stamkos has been announced to be on the cover of NHL 12. The last goalie on the cover of an NHL game (including the NHL 2K Series), was Marty Turco, then of the Dallas Stars, who appeared on the cover of 2K Sports' NHL 2K6. The last goalie on the cover of an EA Sports NHL game was John Vanbiesbrouck, then of the Florida Panthers, who featured on NHL 97.
Commentary
In NHLPA '93 and NHL '94, Emmy award-winning sportscaster Ron Barr gives a pre-game scouting report prior to each game. In the Genesis version of NHL 95, KNBR radio sportscaster John Shrader replaced Ron Barr in that duty. Live play-by-play commentary was introduced in "NHL 97". Jim Hughson, currently play-by-play man for CBC's Hockey Night in Canada and also one of Canada's best-known hockey announcers, provided the play-by-play for much of the series. The last games in which he is one of the announcers are the PC and PS2 versions of NHL 09. Gary Thorne provides the play-by-play commentary in all PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the NHL series, starting in NHL 07. Color commentary has been provided by Daryl Reaugh (1998–99), Bill Clement (2000–01, and all Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions), Don Taylor (2002–03), and Craig Simpson (2004–09).
Soundtracks
"NHL '99" was the first game in the series to feature fully licensed music from David Bowie. Since then, each game has had soundtracks of licensed music known as EA Sports Trax, with selections of punk, alternative, and rock music.
NHL series in popular culture
Swingers
The removal of fights in "NHL Hockey 94" was addressed in the 1996 movie Swingers:
Trent: "I wish they still had fights in this game, so I could bitch slap Wayne."
Mike: "What! They don't have fighting anymore?"
Trent: "Doesn't that suck?"
Mike: "Why'd they get rid of the fighting? It was the best part of the old version."
Sue: "I think kids were hittin' each other or somethin', man."
Trent: "Yeah, but you know what, Mike? You can make their heads bleed in this one."
Mike: "Make somebody's head bleed... "
Sue: "No man, we're in the playoffs."
Trent: "I'm gonna make Wayne Gretzky's head bleed for super-fan #99 over here."However, this is not completely accurate, as bleeding players were also removed. They also were playing "NHLPA Hockey '93", which had blood and fighting; but the fighting was strategic and players like Gretzky would rarely, if at all, have fought. This was due to his low fighter and aggressiveness ratings; while higher profile enforcers such as Tie Domi, Bob Probert, Basil McRae and Tony Twist had very high ratings of each, making each more likely to be called for penalties including fighting, others such as Gretzky had low ratings of both, making the latter not only less likely to fight, but also less likely to take any penalties at all. However, in the original "NHL Hockey", Gretzky was able to fight more often.
Mallrats
Kevin Smith's 1995 movie Mallrats featured Jason Lee as Brodie Bruce playing NHL All-Star Hockey for the Sega Saturn (in the DVD commentary, Kevin Smith admitted to loving the NHL series but having to use Sega's game for sponsor reasons.) However, the sound effects used were from EA Sports' NHL series.
[Game audience cheering]
Rene: "What the hell are you doing?"
Brodie: "Finishing my game..."
Rene: "No, no, no! You promised me breakfast."
Brodie: "Breakfast? Breakfast, schmrekfest. Look at the score. I'm only in the middle of the second, and I'm winning 12 to 2. Breakfasts come and go, Rene. Now, Hartford—the whale—hey, they only beat Vancouver once... maybe twice in a lifetime."See also
- List of ice hockey video games
References
- ^ EA Sports NHL 10. Roster Update #9; 24 February 2010 [cited 30 May 2010].
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Rocky Bonanno. NHL.com. Kane lands on EA SPORTS NHL 10 cover; 2009-06-22 [cited 2010-06-28].
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Erin Brown. CBS Sports. EA's NHL series: cursed or not?; 2009-08-11 [cited 2010-06-28].
- ^ a b c d e f NHL 10 cover athlete: Nicklas Bäckström [cited 2010-06-29].
- ^ a b c Dion Phaneuf named worldwide cover athlete of EA's NHL 09 [press release]. Redwood City: Electronic Arts Inc.; 2008-06-09 [cited 2010-06-15].
- ^ a b c d e Samit Sarkar. Watch the NHL 10 international cover athletes do their thing; 2009-07-13 [cited 2010-06-14].
- ^ EA Sports. Stanley Cup Champion Jonathan Toews the New Face of EA SPORTS NHL 11 [press release]. 21 June 2010 [cited 21 June 2010].
- ^ Jonas Elfving. Game reactor. Swedish. Sedin-bröderna på NHL 11-omslag [Needs translation]; 2010-06-23 [cited 2010-06-23].
- ^ The Swiss And The Swedes Get Their Own NHL 11. 24 June 2010 [cited 24 June 2010].
External links
NHL series 1990s 2000s 2010s List of NHL-related topics History Pre-NHL seasons · National Hockey Association · 1917–42 · 1942–67 · 1967–92 · 1992–present · All-time team performance · Seasons · Most frequent playoff series · Retired numbers · First NHL player by countryPersonnel Famous linemates · Captains · Head coaches · General managers · Notable families · Presidents and Commissioners · Referees and linesmenRecords League records (individual, team) · Statistical leaders (by country of birth) · Points, career (min. 1000) · Assists, career (min. 1000) · Goals, career (min. 500) · Points, season (min. 100) · Goals, season (min. 50) · 50 goals in 50 games · Games, career (min. 1000) · PIMs, career (min. 2000) · 5+ goals, game · 8+ points, game · Goaltenders who have scored · Wayne Gretzky's recordsRelated International games with NHL teams · International games with NHL players · Best-on-best · World Cup of Hockey · Hockey Fights CancerOther Categories:- Video game franchises
- Electronic Arts NHL series
- Electronic Arts games
- Video games developed in Canada
- Video games developed in the United States
- EA Sports games
- Previous developers:
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