NHL (video game series)

NHL is a series of professional ice hockey simulation video games developed by EA Vancouver and published yearly by Electronic Arts under the EA Sports brand. The game is developed under license from the National Hockey League (NHL), which enables the use of the league's team names, stadiums and colors in the game, and the National Hockey League Players' Association (NHLPA), which enables the use of the League's player names and likenesses.

For the NHL 2K series, see NHL 2K.
NHL
NHL video game series logo
Genre(s)Sports (ice hockey)
Developer(s)
Publisher(s)EA Sports
Platform(s)Mega Drive/Genesis, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega CD, DOS, Game Boy, Sega Saturn, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Game Boy Color, PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Game Gear, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation Portable, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
First releaseNHL Hockey
1991
Latest releaseNHL 21
October 16, 2020

Installments
Video game platforms
DOS MS-DOS
GB Game Boy
GBA Game Boy Advance
GBC Game Boy Color
GCN GameCube
GG Game Gear
N64 Nintendo 64
PS1 PlayStation
PS2 PlayStation 2
PS3 PlayStation 3
PS4 PlayStation 4
PSP PlayStation Portable
Sat Sega Saturn
SCD Sega Mega-CD
SMD Sega Genesis / Mega Drive
SNES Super Nintendo Entertainment System / Super Famicom
Wii Wii
Win Microsoft Windows
Xbox Xbox
X360 Xbox 360
XBO Xbox One
Title Year Platforms Cover athletes, worldwide Cover athletes, specific regions
NHL Hockey1991SMD
–
NHLPA Hockey '931992SMD, SNES
–
NHL '941993DOS†, SCD, SMD, SNES
–
NHL 951994DOS, GB, GG†, SMD, SNES
–
NHL 961995DOS, GB, SMD, SNES
–
NHL 971996DOS, PS1, Sat, SMD, SNES, Win John Vanbiesbrouck (Florida)[1]–
NHL 981997PS1, Sat, SMD, SNES, Win Peter Forsberg (Colorado)[1]–
NHL 991998N64, PS1, Win Eric Lindros (Philadelphia)[1]–
NHL 20001999GBC, PS1, Win Chris Pronger (St. Louis)[1]
NHL 20012000PS1, PS2, Win Owen Nolan (San Jose)[1]
NHL 20022001GBA, PS2, Win, Xbox Mario Lemieux (Pittsburgh)[1]–
NHL 20032002GCN, PS2, Win, Xbox Jarome Iginla (Calgary)[1]
NHL 20042003GCN, PS2, Win, Xbox
–
NHL 20052004GCN, PS2, Win, Xbox Markus Naslund (Vancouver)[1][3] EU Olli Jokinen (Florida)[2]
NHL 062005GCN, PS2, Win, Xbox Vincent Lecavalier (Tampa Bay)[1] EU Tuomo Ruutu (Chicago)[2]
NHL 072006X360, PS2, PSP, Win, Xbox Alexander Ovechkin (Washington)[1]
NHL 082007PS3, X360, PS2, Win Eric Staal (Carolina)[1]
NHL 092008PS3, X360, PS2, Win Dion Phaneuf (Calgary)[1][4]
3 on 3 NHL Arcade2009PS3, X360 None –
NHL 102009PS3, X360 Patrick Kane (Chicago)[1][5]
NHL 112010PS3, X360 Jonathan Toews (Chicago)[6]
NHL Slapshot2010Wii Wayne Gretzky (Edmonton) –
NHL 122011PS3, X360 Steven Stamkos (Tampa Bay)
NHL 132012PS3, X360 Claude Giroux (Philadelphia)
NHL 142013PS3, X360 Martin Brodeur (New Jersey)
NHL 152014PS4, XBO, PS3, X360 Patrice Bergeron (Boston)
NHL 162015PS4, XBO Jonathan Toews (Chicago)‡ SUI Nino Niederreiter (Minnesota Wild)
NHL: Legacy Edition2015PS3, X360 None (Stanley Cup pictured instead) –
NHL 172016PS4, XBO Vladimir Tarasenko (St. Louis) SUI Nino Niederreiter (Minnesota)[17]
NHL 18 2017 PS4, XBO Connor McDavid (Edmonton) SUI Roman Josi (Nashville) (The Josi cover was officially released as a downloadable cover by EA Sports, but the McDavid cover was sold at retail in Switzerland)[18]
NHL 192018PS4, XBO P. K. Subban (Nashville) FIN Patrik Laine (Winnipeg)[19]
SWE William Nylander (Toronto)[19]
NHL 202019PS4, XBO Auston Matthews (Toronto) FIN Patrik Laine (Winnipeg)
SWE Elias Pettersson (Vancouver)
NHL 212020PS4, XBO Alexander Ovechkin (Washington) –

^† 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.[2]
^‡ ‡ Patrick Kane was originally slated to share the cover with teammate Jonathan Toews, however, following sexual assault claims made against Kane, he was dropped from the cover.[20]
^EU in Europe; ^DEN in  Denmark; ^FIN in  Finland; ^RUS in  Russia; ^SWE in  Sweden; ^SUI in   Switzerland; ^CZE in  Czech Republic

Leagues

In addition to the NHL itself, the different installments of the game include development leagues like the American Hockey League and ECHL, European national leagues from Russia, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Czech Republic, and the European Champions Hockey League.

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 Bruins). NHL 95 featured an in-goal camera during a goal scored by Alexei Kovalev of the NY 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, Claude Giroux was featured on the cover of NHL 13 and Martin Brodeur was on the cover of NHL 14. On June 24, 2014, EA Sports announced at the 2014 NHL Awards in Las Vegas that Patrice Bergeron of the Boston Bruins would be the official cover athlete for NHL 15. In 2015, during the NHL awards, it was announced that the cover of NHL 16 would feature Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane carrying the Stanley Cup together. However, on August 12, 2015, EA announced that Kane would not be appearing on the cover or participating in any promotional activities for the game in light of a criminal investigation he was involved in. Instead, the cover featured Toews alone. At the 2016 NHL Awards, it was announced that Vladimir Tarasenko of the St. Louis Blues was to appear on the cover of NHL 17.[21] On June 21, 2017, during the 2017 NHL Awards, EA announced that Connor McDavid of the Edmonton Oilers would be the cover athlete on NHL 18.[22]

Commentary

In NHLPA '93 and NHL '94, Emmy award-winning[23] 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. Bill Clement was the sole commentator in the Nintendo 64 version of NHL 99. Gary Thorne provided the play-by-play commentary in all Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions from NHL 07 through NHL 14. NBC Sports commentator Mike Emrick and Eddie Olczyk provided the play-by-play and color commentary on all platforms, with their first appearance together being in NHL 15 and last in NHL 19. James Cybulski is the current play-by-play commentator, starting with NHL 20. NHL 15 was also the first game to introduce an ice level analyst, with TSN analyst Ray Ferraro appearing in the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions of the game. Color commentary has been provided by Daryl Reaugh (1998–99), Bill Clement (2000–01, and 2006–14 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3), Don Taylor (2002–03), Craig Simpson (2004–09), Eddie Olczyk (2014–2019). Ferraro made the jump from ice-level analyst to full color commentator in NHL 20.

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, electronic and Hip Hop music was later added to the mix in later games. NHL 15 and NHL 16 on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One use an original orchestral score instead for the menus, while the soundtrack continues playing in the arenas. NHL 17 returned to the traditional EA Trax feature and also allowed the option to switch back to the original score from NHL 15.

See also

References
  1. Bonanno, Rocky (2009-06-22). "Kane lands on EA SPORTS NHL 10 cover". NHL.com. Archived from the original on 2011-06-28. Retrieved 2010-06-28.
  2. Brown, Erin (2009-08-11). "EA's NHL series: cursed or not?". CBS Sports. Retrieved 2010-06-28.
  3. NHL 10 cover athlete: Nicklas Bäckström [archived June 26, 2009; Retrieved 2010-06-29].
  4. 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].
  5. Samit Sarkar. Watch the NHL 10 international cover athletes do their thing; 2009-07-13 [Retrieved 2010-06-14].
  6. EA Sports. Stanley Cup Champion Jonathan Toews the New Face of EA SPORTS NHL 11 [press release]. 21 June 2010 [cited 21 June 2010].
  7. Jonas Elfving. Game reactor. Swedish. Sedin-bröderna på NHL 11-omslag [Needs translation]; 2010-06-23 [Retrieved 2010-06-23].
  8. The Swiss And The Swedes Get Their Own NHL 11. 24 June 2010 [cited 24 June 2010].
  9. / Jonas Hiller en couverture de NHL 12. 27 June 2011 [cited 27 June 2011].
  10. "Henrik Sedin at NHL 13 Midnight Launch [Pictures]". 604 Now. September 12, 2012. Retrieved May 21, 2018.
  11. "Uudesta änäristä Jari Kurrin arvoinen erikoisversio" (in Finnish). Pelaaja. Retrieved April 9, 2018.
  12. Här är omslagen till NHL 14 EA Sports Club Edition - SHL.se (Swedish)
  13. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2014-08-08. Retrieved 2014-08-06.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  14. «El Nino» est prêt à faire chauffer les glaces de NHL. 22 July 2014 [cited 23 July 2014].
  15. Spelarna som pryder specialomslagen av EA SPORTS NHL 15 (Swedish)
  16. "EA julkaisee NHL15 –pelistä Liiga Edition -keräilyversion" (in Finnish). Liiga. Retrieved April 9, 2018.
  17. "Minnesota Wild's Nino Niederreiter to appear on Swiss cover of NHL 17". FOX Sports. July 28, 2016. Retrieved July 29, 2016.
  18. "Roman Josi PS4 Cover" (PDF). EA Sports. October 11, 2017. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 15, 2018. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
  19. "William Nylander pryder NHL 19-omslaget i Sverige". Gamereactor (in Swedish). 2 August 2018. Retrieved 3 August 2018.
  20. Mike Cole. NESN. EA Sports Pulls Patrick Kane From 'NHL 16' Cover Amid Reported Rape Investigation; 2015-08-12 [Retrieved 2015-08-15].
  21. Gold-Smith, Josh (August 12, 2015). "Blackhawks' Patrick Kane removed from 'NHL 16' cover amid investigation". The Score. Retrieved August 12, 2015.
  22. "Oilers' Connor McDavid named EA Sports NHL 18 cover athlete - Sportsnet.ca". Sportsnet.ca. Retrieved 2017-06-22.
  23. "Sports Byline USA with Ron Barr". Sports Byline USA. Retrieved January 2, 2016.
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