Comments (0)

By Mark D, April 13, 2011 8:00 pm

EA’s NHL 99, back when I used to buy the yearly release of the NHL series, suckered me in pretty well with this promise:

In NHL 99, Marc Crawford sat down with the development team and helped divide expansive checking ratings. Using this system, certain players will have an easier time moving the opposition to a certain side, while offensive forwards will be better neutral-ice checkers. Also, Marc Crawford guest stars in a brand new feature: Marc Crawford Coaching Drills. Here, you will be able to practice checking, passing, odd-man rushes, and other hockey fundamentals.

That’s right, the one, the only Marc Crawford sat down with the game developers for NHL 99 and made sure they got things right. At the time Crawford was the brightest star in the coaching galaxy. He had taken over the Nordiques in the strike shortened season and proceeded to lead them to not just a Stanley Cup, but being one of the elite teams of the era in the West. Although in retrospect some might point out that the team was absolutely stacked beyond belief and in Crawford’s 12 seasons since leading the Avs to back to back 100 point seasons he has only gotten beyond the first round once.

So it kinda sucked after a handful of games I had figured out the system. Which unsurprisingly has been the system in almost every NHL related game. First off, shooting is almost always useless. You will almost never score a goal with a slap shot unless the goalie is awful. Or if the CPU was desperately trying to make the game close. The other big thing is that it was never worth it to throw a check, the AI always dodged checks and took advantage. But every stick poke would knock pucks loose.

The AI was so bad that 3 days after I bought it I was able to defeat Team Canada with Team Italy on the hardest mode 5-2. That also included me out shooting Team canada 62-11 in a game that had 5 minute periods. The game was so awful that the only thing which was fun was playing the Olympics as Team Italy and winning them the gold. Otherwise since the NHL teams are so close (having almost all ratings between 70-90) that stickpoking, never checking and one timers was always the key to victory. I remember being disgusted just a week or two after buying it. The AI sucked and apparently having Marc Crawford (who wasn’t coaching at the time) didn’t help.

Thankfully it seems like places are less and less likely to bring in a big name to “help” develop a game. Madden hasn’t had anything to do with the Madden series in about 20 years now. Even his big addition was kind of idiotic. He complained that it wasn’t football without 11 players. Apparently he couldn’t wrap his big fat head around the idea that processors at the time couldn’t handle creating that many sprites. Personally I think some of the best football games are the ones that cut down the number of players on the field. I used to love the NFL Blitz games.

I always remember though reading through the manual and cursing at every image of Marc Crawford in it for fooling me into buying a crappy game. I was already uneasy about NHL 99, but I figured the brilliant Marc Crawford had to have helped fix some of the problems. In the end he probably just got a check, hung out and got treated like a superstar by the NHL 99 team and added almost nothing to the actual game.

Comments (2)

By Mark D, March 2, 2010 2:01 pm

And for that matter keep Roenick. Since the start of the Olympics, my blog has gotten more hits then ever before. Other then my complaint about Milbury commentating I haven’t done anything that should attract more attention then normal in terms of Olympic coverage. Yet my hits over 30 days have gone from my average of 99-120 to nearly 200 hits for the last month. This is all due to NBC having Milbury as an analyst for Olympic Hockey.

You see, people are searching Milbury more then they ever had before. Since I tend to tag a lot of stuff with “Milbury Sucks”, they find my blog. That’s right, since the Olympics started people searching for “Milbury Sucks” has gone through the roof. For that matter, People are actually searching Milbury like never before, just go by this Google Trends report of Mike Milbury for the last 12 months. It spikes at the start of the Olympics. Lets just say that’s not the best sign.

Going by my google analytics, here’s how people have found my site for the last thirty days.

Mike Milbury Sucks = 32
Mike Milbury = 10
Mike Milbury Comments = 2
Milbury Sucks = 2

So 44 hits, about 1/4 of all my hits are coming via Milbury. Trust me, as much as I use the tag Milbury Sucks, I averaged 2 – 4 hits a month via Milbury.

Also interesting, my main page has 77 hits. Basically when you land on /blog is what I’m talking about. My second most hits? The page for the Tag Milbury Sucks with 34. Its halfway to getting more hits then my main page.

So if somehow NBC somehow sees this, you’ve hired a moron. A pea brained idiot whose better at saying dumb stuff then actually analyzing hockey. Meanwhile I must applaud your hire of Jeremy Roenick. He’s proven to be astute, hard working and with great relevant insights to the current game. I realize some people have issues with Roenick, but you have to ignore that feeling and realize he’s good behind the mic.

In the End though, I have to thank NBC.  Without your hiring of one of the biggest morons in hockey history I wouldn’t be getting nearly this level of exposure. Sure, its not much, but every little bit of traffic I get the better. At some point I’m going to write something that takes off, its just a matter of time.

Comments (0)

By Mark D, March 1, 2010 11:29 am

There’s a lot of talk going on about hockey at the Olympics. Especially the debate about whether the NHL should stay or go. Its not just about the shortened season or stopping an NHL season in its tracks. The argument now is that Canada or the USA is too good, and the games do nothing for Hockey. That you can’t get a read for how the Olympics effect hockey’s popularity. I for one think that a simple look at the difference between 2006 and 2010 Olympics shows that hockey is gaining traction in Europe. Especially in the smaller hockey playing countries of the world.

2006 had a different format, but all you have to do is look at what happened when the playoffs came around. In 2006 in the Quarterfinals the games weren’t close except for Finland – USA. All the other games were 2 goal wins which except for Russia-Canada were out of reach by the 3rd period. In 2010 two games went to OT (one requiring a shootout) and those two teams that lost supposedly didn’t have the talent to push it that close. Norway, another team which was supposed to be routed, mounted a huge comeback after a major penalty gave Slovakia a 2 goal lead right out the gate. Only Germany facing a pissed off Canada team truly got manhandled in the Qualification round.

Twice in the Quarterfinals a team won only by two goals in the third period. Canada again ran over a team, but it wasn’t a small country or non hockey country. Russia had no right to be destroyed, and were one of the top rated countries going into the Olympics. A round later little Slovakia put up a better fight against Canada then anything Russia managed. Russia coming out of these Olympics should be embarrassed and ashamed of their performance.

Little Slovakia took out the last Gold Medal winner Sweden. Finland defeated the Czech Republic just barely by 2 goals in the third.  USA beat Switzerland but it was another close game only won by a goal in the third and an empty netter. You couldn’t have gotten any closer then these games. These close games weren’t with teams overloaded with NHL talent, especially the Swiss and Slovaks.

The 2006 Olympics saw two blowouts in the Semis. Although the US manhandled Finland, the incredible Canada – Slovakia game was well worth every moment spent watching. Slovakia spent the game protecting their zone and counter punching. Finally when Canada started playing not to lose, Slovakia came back with two goals and if not for Demitra missing two shots at a wide open net in the closing seconds it would have went to overtime. Although the finals ending up USA – Canada, you can’t deny the improvement of a lot of smaller teams. Maybe not during pool play, but definitely once the games started to matter.

Plus if the NHL wasn’t in this Olympics, you wouldn’t have Canada’s golden boy scoring the winning goal in overtime. Obviously the US amateurs can play to the same level of the Canadians, but its much more likely with the pros. The US – Canada game was an instant classic. The great goaltending at both ends can not be denied. Ryan Miller definitely deserved to be voted MVP of the tourney. Even more incredible is that Canada had 3 goalies on their bench. Two of them have been to the Stanley Cup finals multiple times, one had one Stanley cup win, the other had multiple wins. Yet the goalie that leads them to the Gold has never been past round two of the playoffs. Hopefully Roberto Luongo will get some more respect that he deserves.

I say keep the NHL in the Olympics. Its obvious that the sport in Europe is only getting bigger as time goes by. Just like when the Dream Team in the Olympics routed everyone the first time, in a few years the Dream Team became the Nightmare Team and Europe overtook Team USA. We are getting closer and closer to the day that Russia/Canada/USA aren’t going to run roughshod over the Olympics.

Comments (0)

By Mark D, February 17, 2010 2:08 am

Watching the USA Vs Switzerland (Lets Go Swiss and Mark Streit!) this afternoon, I asked myself a question. Why is Milbury on TV? Your looking for analysts when you start up, but please NBC, consider his history. Consider the absolute path of failure he lead the Islanders to. Look at his disastrous trade after trade after trade. A complete lack of knowledge when it comes to current players. This was someone who traded you AND THEN you became an All-Star. Only after you left his reign of insanity did you become the player that everyone said you would become.

So why the rant this time? Obviously if you’ve been here before you’ve seen my many posts on Milbury and his destruction of the Islanders. Today during the second intermission of the USA-Swiss game the analysts began talking about Team Canada. The decision was made to go with Roberto Luongo over Martin Brodeur for today’s game. Milbury was immediately up in arms over the matter. Proclaiming that Brodeur was the greatest ever and there was no reason to go with Luongo. Thankfully the person in studio with him began arguing for Luongo to get the start, that at the very least they should see what Luongo could do or at very least give Brodeur a breather. Milbury was unrelenting on his Anti-Luongo crusade and saying that this was a bad move for Team Canada.

What doesn’t Milbury or anyone in studio mention during this rant? That Milbury originally drafted Luongo and after one season behind an awful Islanders team decided to trade him. That this trade is usually considered one of the worst trades in the history of the NHL. It’s no surprise really that Milbury would take a shot at Luongo. Could you imagine what Milbury might feel like if Luongo helps lead Team Canada to the Gold? Probably nothing because he’s a heartless spawn of the devil who was only created to ruin the New York Islanders for 10 years. But whenever someone goes into detail about Luongo they’ll talk about that trade. Point out that when Florida traded Luongo they had no choice because they couldn’t afford him. But Milbury’s trading of Luongo? It was insanity.

So thank you NBC for making Milbury an analyst again when no real network would touch him with a ten foot pole (He was fired from Hockey Night in Canada) unless they are in the Boston area. I hate you Boston. It’s amazing because NBC loves to bring in questionable analysts. With all the possible talking heads for Hockey and Football, NBC decides that Mike Milbury and Matt Millen are the two best qualified guys for the job. I would love to see those two team up together and take over a franchise. Then see how far they could bury said franchise into the ground. Please NBC, there are lots of other better analysts out there. There are lots of talented former NHL players around who probably know the league and the talent far better then Milbury.

In case you thought Milbury was right in his arguement, here’s a little something about Brodeur. Brodeur has a 2-3-1 record in February, has given up 18 goals in six games and played to a save percentage of .850 or below in three of them. I would also go with the seven year younger Luongo. Luongo also hasn’t been played to death like Brodeur has with the Devils. Lets go Luongo, win a gold for Canada!