NHL (video game series)
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 the National Hockey League, which enables the use of the league's team names, stadiums and colors in the game, and the National Hockey League Players' Association, which enables the use of the League's player names and likenesses.
Installments
| Title | Year | Platforms | Cover athletes, worldwide | Cover athletes, specific regions |
| NHL Hockey | 1991 | SMD | ||
| NHLPA Hockey '93 | 1992 | SMD, SNES | – | |
| NHL '94 | 1993 | DOS, SCD, SMD, SNES | – | |
| NHL 95 | 1994 | DOS, GB, GG, SMD, SNES | – | |
| NHL 96 | 1995 | DOS, GB, SMD, SNES | – | |
| NHL 97 | 1996 | DOS, PS1, Sat, SMD, SNES, Win | John Vanbiesbrouck | – |
| NHL 98 | 1997 | PS1, Sat, SMD, SNES, Win | Peter Forsberg | – |
| NHL 99 | 1998 | N64, PS1, Win | Eric Lindros | – |
| NHL 2000 | 1999 | GBC, PS1, Win | Chris Pronger | |
| NHL 2001 | 2000 | PS1, PS2, Win | Owen Nolan | |
| NHL 2002 | 2001 | GBA, PS2, Win, Xbox | Mario Lemieux | – |
| NHL 2003 | 2002 | GCN, PS2, Win, Xbox | Jarome Iginla | |
| NHL 2004 | 2003 | GCN, PS2, Win, Xbox | – | |
| NHL 2005 | 2004 | GCN, PS2, Win, Xbox | Markus Naslund | Olli Jokinen |
| NHL 06 | 2005 | GCN, PS2, Win, Xbox | Vincent Lecavalier | Tuomo Ruutu |
| NHL 07 | 2006 | X360, PS2, PSP, Win, Xbox | Alexander Ovechkin | |
| NHL 08 | 2007 | PS3, X360, PS2, Win | Eric Staal | |
| NHL 09 | 2008 | PS3, X360, PS2, Win | Dion Phaneuf | |
| 3 on 3 NHL Arcade | 2009 | PS3, X360 | - | – |
| NHL 10 | 2009 | PS3, X360 | Patrick Kane | |
| NHL 11 | 2010 | PS3, X360 | Jonathan Toews | |
| NHL Slapshot | 2010 | Wii | Wayne Gretzky | – |
| NHL 12 | 2011 | PS3, X360 | Steven Stamkos | |
| NHL 13 | 2012 | PS3, X360 | Claude Giroux | |
| NHL 14 | 2013 | PS3, X360 | Martin Brodeur | |
| NHL 15 | 2014 | PS4, XBO, PS3, X360 | Patrice Bergeron | |
| NHL 16 | 2015 | PS4, XBO | Jonathan Toews | Nino Niederreiter |
| NHL: Legacy Edition | 2015 | PS3, X360 | None | |
| NHL 17 | 2016 | PS4, XBO | Vladimir Tarasenko | Nino Niederreiter |
| NHL 18 | 2017 | PS4, XBO | Connor McDavid | Roman Josi |
| NHL 19 | 2018 | PS4, XBO | P. K. Subban | Patrik Laine William Nylander |
| NHL 20 | 2019 | PS4, XBO | Auston Matthews | Patrik Laine Elias Pettersson |
Game covers
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. This photo is surrounded by eight small portraits of players. This changed with NHL 94, which featured a goal situation for Tomas Sandstrom against Andy Moog. 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, 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. 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.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. 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, Bill Clement, Don Taylor, Craig Simpson, Eddie Olczyk. 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.NHL series in popular culture
''Swingers''
The removal of fights in "NHL Hockey 94" was addressed in the 1996 movie Swingers:However, this is not completely accurate, as bleeding players were also removed.
Furthermore, they 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.