EA Sports NHL Games **Part 2** Evolution, Strategy & Game Modes

Shawn, Platinum J, Scotty, and Piel “The Beer Guy” are back on the digital ice for Part 2 of our NHL deep dive! 🏒

This time, we move beyond the covers and rankings to explore how the EA Sports NHL series has evolved, from gameplay mechanics and graphics to the overall direction of the franchise. We debate where EA should take the series next and what strategies could breathe new life into the games.

Then it’s time to break down the most popular game modes, including:
🎮 World of Chel – EA’s hub for online hockey fun.
🏆 Franchise Mode – its strengths, design functions, and areas for improvement.
🥅 Ones – the fast-paced, 1v1v1 mode that shakes things up.
💳 Ultimate Team – building squads with cards and the excitement (and challenges) that come with it.

🎮 At GameVerse Pub, there’s a place at the table for everyone. Whether you game once a month or every day, we’re here to help you find your next favorite game! Casual players can enjoy the fun, while hardcore gamers can contribute their insights and experience to the conversation.

🎧 Listen now on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and more!
🚗 Perfect for your morning commute, a chill evening, or whenever you need a dose of gaming fun.
⭐ Don’t forget to subscribe, share, and tell us: Which NHL game mode do YOU play the most?
🙏🏻 Special thanks to:
🎵 Angelica Jones (Music intro - Crispy Bill | Music outro - Let it Slide)
🔗 https://angelicajones.ca

Thank you so much for listening!! Please follow us on all our socials: https://linktr.ee/gameversepub

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Thank you so much for listening!! Please follow us on all our socials: https://linktr.ee/gameversepub

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hey everybody! Welcome to part two of our NHL episode and so let's get cracking with our, oh no we don't have the beers to crack right now, but let's get cracking with our ongoing conversation that we had technically two weeks ago if you're watching this episode in two weeks from the first one that came out. So it's a continuation and right now at this point we're going to talk about the Eva of the NHL games throughout the years as we remember it so of course we're not going to touch everything because it's as we remember it if we didn't say something because we didn't live it so I'll start off because the only one that I can remember the earliest one I played was 96 because I had it on the SNES or the Super Nintendo as normal people call it did you know that Scott Stevens and Steve Iserman were on the cover? I did. Because I have the game. I remember that. Yeah, you remember that. Nice. Because of some sort of activity we've done. They don't know that we know they know we know. Oh, there you go. It's a friends thing. Don't never know. They won't. So, okay. I love a friends joke. You know when we do a friends reference because you understand our faces by having done a lot. And your excitement. Yeah, that's what gives it away. You get to a certain level of excitement. I don't know. I think even Friends has that sound. A he-he-he sound? No, no, like they have their... No, that's Seinfeld. He sounded like Terry Seinfeld. Really? A little bit. George! You're not supposed to put milk in the fridge! That's actually pretty good. That's good. That's good. I'm going to clip that. No, it's not a game thing. Okay, so the evolution of games. So what I remember about 96, and we played the other day, I think. Did we play together? I did not. No. It's so basic, man. You can't replay these games now. It's too, like, I'll play Blades of Steel just for the nostalgic 30 minutes max of just going through it. There's no nostalgia, though, in 96, right? No, well, for me, a little bit. Okay. So I can still play it, but it's not enough to get me to play more than a game. No. And that's it. And I think we talked briefly about that before, too, where we were talking about NHL games and we were saying, like, you're not going to just pick up NHL 2002 and say, hey, this is nostalgic to me. Like, it's not. It evolves with the years. Maybe 2002 because if it's really the first year that had the slow-mo heartbeat, yeah, I'd maybe want to go try that. But again... How many games are you going to play? Yeah, one. Just to get a breakaway. Exactly. Put in a rookie and just get a breakaway. Yeah, exactly. Well, you're right. So we usually tend to if I'm gonna play a game I'll play the better version of it if it's the same game with the updated players yeah still as we were growing up with these NHL games every new one was the best one yeah so we got to play I skipped quite a few years of it so it'll probably be you guys telling me all about it well I found that like getting close to the 99 and 2000 then you really started to have a good game together like you say 96 if you take 96 and you look versus 2000 it's not even the same game I think you're jumping from 3D yeah 3D versus 3D and like there was different different camera views as well like that evolved that evolved with the game so the first I know it's not an NHL game but it was Wayne Gretzky 3D hockey was the first out of the 2D experience that you would that we would have that was pretty cool that kind of brought us to that and which one was was the first game for PlayStation 1? 2001. Nolan? I could be kidding. No, I think it might be 2000. 2000 was there for sure, but was 99 a PlayStation 1 game? Oh yeah, you're right. 2000, PlayStation 1. I don't know. Was 99 Forsberg? No, 98 was Forsberg. 99 was... Oh, Pronger. No. No, it was 2000. You wrote... Not Ronny. Jesus. Lindros. Lindros. Yeah. I don't remember Lindros in PlayStation Me neither. Right. It wasn't really playing then. Okay. Yeah, then we move on. Who remembers? I know you do. NHL hits 2003. Scott Stevens. Oh my God. How much time do you have? No, but seriously, I want, okay, this just got fun because I want to do an episode at some point about the NHL hits games because I love the NHL. It doesn't have to be an hour episode. It can be 30, 40, minutes but I think well officially we got a third NHL hits player and you got time oh yeah and you know what it was really kind of looped that back in since we're stepping away from the NHL hits to a certain kind of game that was introduced later on in the NHL games it's the three on three I love that aspect of it yeah and in the recent games I think they brought it back and they started like having the mascots and there was some kind of game where you needed to unlock let's say old players or mascots. Right. Like a mini game. Yeah, it was like a mini game. In what game? The newer NHLs. Okay, okay. In the later 2020s. And it's similar to Hits, eh? Like you said? It is in a sort of way. Not as arcade-y though. No, exactly. Not as arcade-y. So you still have the NHL aspect, but you're playing on outdoor rings. Yes. You're moving across a certain map. So like, it's different from the NHL game and that's what I liked about it because at a certain point, you're playing the same seasons year after year. Yeah, just different roster. Or just playoffs. offs or just hockey ultimate team or like you're doing the same thing over and over and that kind of just brought back that NHL hits era and yeah I was a little bit nostalgic about that okay good everybody loves three on three because it opens up so much yeah right even if it's probably on a shortened ice just the fact that there's not traffic everywhere like it's it's it's less complicated to go from one player to the other when you're trying to select which one you're going to control very fun what I that brought me to something about the outdoors remember when they brought back like the winter or they started putting their winter classics and all that stuff that was really cool and impressive they did I know yeah they took it out yeah yeah they took it out every year they add stuff they subtract and then they say it's new the next year but it's like something they had years before it's like the threes this year you know the you can have icons that pop on the ice for big hits speed make a guy really small right really and there's even the more arcadey one where there's like a lightning bolt and stuff like that where if you pick up the lightning bolt it electrifies everybody else on the ice except yourself you know that's kind of fun like Mario Kart did it become very small yes and then there's bananas on the ice no I'm not even joking yeah I'm not even joking okay so it's Mario Kart NHL that sounds pretty fun actually it kind of does like I said it's something different than the actual game so I'd be curious to play that yeah I'm an arcade fan right the arcade part of things is what make things fun really fun like remember we didn't live those glory days different type of glory days and I wish I did the times where you get with your buddies and you go to arcade places right an arcade room where you get there with all your quarters and you just play arcade a bunch of times and Gab was mentioning that the other day where you know button smash button masher games he'll like if he's at an arcade beside a buddy and they're just having fun and you know playing a whatever street fighter or whatever you know what like you should be like the spokesman for NHL 25 I will be because that right there is what they took and I found that it turned the game into something that most people that don't like really yeah so 2025 is more arcade sadly you don't like that no well it's I want strategic I want passing I want teamwork I want the real game I want the real hockey and they took that out in 2025 Yes. It's making it more accommodating for all users, no matter what. So you can dominate 40 shots and then still lose. And the other team had like 12. Exactly. You're going to lose or like, you know, even if it's like 35 to eight to shots, you might lose six, five. Okay. You know, it's all about the glitch plays this year, but because they brought back a big act aspect of the three on threes. Right. So with the threes, they added so much to that. Hmm. They thought, what's the best way to get people to come back and play? And I think Sean brought it. A perfect example of it was, you remember those times when we used to sit and we'd play arcade and, you know, three on three hits, three, you know, all these arcade version games. And that aspect is what they brought to NHL 25. So they have different aspects of it where you can tell that the people that you play against online play a lot of threes. So I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here okay um what if all this is still perfect and i'll make you see my perception of it yeah you know how i think there's too much nhl games like every year guys it completely makes the one previous that doesn't matter anymore absolutely well what if every year that's it every year well every two years they make a strategic one and every two years they make an arcadey one so then you're kind of buying the game you want every two years and then you get to play the the game you actually like without having to rebuy it for two years straight. And by the time there's a new version of the game you like, maybe the changes for two years will actually be significant where you'll enjoy more of the change. But see, well, oh, sorry, go ahead. No, no, no. I just would like to blast my mind just before we all start talking again. Mind-blowing. Bring that up. I know this is about NHL, but F1, right? they do have two different teams working on each like every other year so that team A and team B let's say so team A does 2020 and then 2022 and you know in 2024 and so on and those ones it's always by team A every two years and then 2021 and really the other one you know that and apparently you play a lot and I thought it was EA sports now but I don't know the yeah well team B apparently is like really it's not good so that's so you always people always want team a so the most recent one that just came out uh f1 i had no idea of that and yeah because i wanted to make sure but yeah so you'll notice differences from like so is the recent one the good one yeah yeah so that's why i waited for that one because i had the other one yeah i have the other one and it was still good oh it's still good 2022 was shit right 2023 was okay like gameplay wise yeah excuse me we did our sim racing episode already all right i it's episode 8 you might want to catch it on the pod here's the link but going back to like going back to your point about every two years having a different game they don't update the games after a certain amount of time and they want people to buy it every year because there's a lot more people that buy it every year than they would every two years so they would need to put more money into updating and the cards like how much money do they make with microtransaction yeah but I expect I expect that mentality from Nintendo Nintendo sadly because I loved I love the Nintendo world there they do everything to get as much as they can from their their customers right but I feel it's less like that with PlayStation Microsoft Sony and Microsoft so I think that they want to please their fans before and they're still very good strategic ways to do that. I disagree. Yeah, because you just want the money. They just want the microtransactions. They do, but what do we want? And maybe if you do it in a different way, you don't just get one clientele. Maybe now you can go get the arcade-y type of clientele and people like me will be more keen to want to buy that kind of game. So instead of cutting, you have the same amount of purchases every year, but now you have a wider clientele and people are more satisfied because now when I buy a year, okay, Well, it gets this year and the year after that the teams continue to... You can get the change of the team, right? Because I got this year's 2025. I got the sends of this year. But as soon as there are already trades made, if I'm continuing playing, I'm not even playing with the newer players that I'll be having. That sucks. So if at least I had two years of that without having to buy a second game, I'd be pretty happy as a customer. Can I actually update your roster? I didn't think we could. You can, yeah. You can go to somewhere in the settings... update roster. It'll load everything. I think they update every week. Not for the newer ones. Really? Yeah, I tried. In 25, you can't. The reason why they're holding back is because people want the new rosters. So now, right after, if I'm not mistaken, don't know the exact date, but by playoff time, right after the free agents, the trades and everything come through, they update the trades, they update the rosters, then they do not have it yeah yeah so until next season yeah and even there like it like and then you got free agency you got all the stuff to come in and yeah they're not gonna update to 25 right but like coming back to your arcade thing which is you know I bought 25 early and I didn't play it until December Wow because I was so frustrated with the arcade when did it come out September and I went back to Really? Yeah. I could not stand. With an unupdated lineup. Honestly, if I got games online, that was fine. The moment that we stopped getting games online was the moment we changed. Oh, it does stop. So wouldn't you prefer that, though? You have a game every two years, but you keep getting the online thing all on the same game that you had? I wouldn't mind that. As a customer, wouldn't that be something that would be really cool? really useful to you. But who is your most, who are your best clientele? Like your best clientele, right? The people that have been playing since 2000, since the, you know, and was it Arcady back then? You know what I mean? Dude, you get an upgrade patch if you want to pay for it. If you're really that much, you get the game once and if you want to pay for the upgrade patch, you pay for the upgrade patch, you get the upgraded version of your game. Or if not, you get the Wait for the second year for the complete new game. See, what I would do with NHL 25 is separate the arcade and what got your game to where it is today. The way they got the game today is that they just completely made it arcade-y. Why not please both parties and grow your business instead of one year just, oh, we're going to please these guys this year. You know what? The other guys, we'll wait another couple of years and then they'll be happy. but if you think that's not going to hurt your sales, I think it's going to hurt your sales. People are still going to buy the game. They're still going to buy the game, right? At$29.99 at the end of the year. And they're not going to put as much money into it because when you get started and you want to become the best from day one, you need to put a lot of money and buy a lot of packs. But there's not that many people who do that. Compared to the amount of people that buy the game, that's a very low percentage. There's some people that put a lot of money into this. How much do you think percentage is? A lot more than a lot of people buying the game put together. It's a huge industry, especially for FIFA. You're absolutely right and I think college should fact check this in terms of how much money they make just by ultimate team, all that microtransaction. And it wouldn't surprise me if it would hit hundreds of millions or maybe even a billion because they don't need to do anything else apart from roster updates and then fool us with like we're adding this but really they had it before yeah like that's why that it's gone arcadey it's because that's where the money is nobody wants to play the same old hockey pass plays and you know what so if you don't have the IQ to play hockey you can't play our game yeah okay so why don't they do just the games they have both games are so large now you can have a 200 gigabyte game why don't you just do one of those and have everything have something in the same game for one clientele and it's the other for the other. I think Madden has that football. I think they have like choice of simulation or arcade. Madden is the game. It's from EA, man. So EA probably is on the ball with this. I forgot what I wanted to say. What do we want? We want the truth. What do you want? See, Ryan Gosling in the notebook. What do you want? What do you want? Yeah. Did you just quote Ryan Gosling in the notebook? I think so. It's like Classic. But let's be honest. NHL is not EA's top product. No? No. What is it? FIFA's got to be up there. Microtransactions are crazy. Madden is up there. If you just look at the quality they put in the games, the effort they put into every motion. Yeah, they try that with hockey. It doesn't change much. No, it kind of makes it worse. They don't take the time to analyze. the way they do with those huge market games that's what I was going to bring about the last games right I bought the last few games honestly 24 and 25 I bought because at the end of 24 the Sens teams changed so much and me and my sons were like I don't want to play with this old stupid Sens team like it's not even the same level as Sens I don't want to play with them right like what the hell and now we have a team like this year was a fun team to have and play with so that's why I got 25 but since 2020 I think I've been like close to buying or we do PlayStation Share so one year I think you had bought it played that like I don't didn't change much like there's not much change in graphics there's not much change in what I can do as a normal person playing NHL so like what's really changing out there so I think that's why they have to try Arcady because they're realizing that okay well if they want to sell a game every year they're not making enough of a difference with the normal stuff the best especially because I think this is related to what you were mentioning too and it's now that games are now that games are more digital for a lot of them they don't need to pay to have them physical so then they just have digital release and then they can make all their money with the micro transactions so they're making so much money why would they change there's no need see like they added World of Chell a couple years ago Have you guys ever played World of Chell? No, but I want to get into that. I would like to get into the different game modes and talk about them. So World of Chell. World of Chell. So what you do is you have a player that you create and you can give him, you can put him to be a playmaker, a sniper, a dangler, whatever. Doesn't that be a pro? Online. Yeah. World of Chell is online. So it's you. You create Sean Marino. Yeah. Oh. And I can be Scott, and I can be on your team. You pick winger, and you're locked. Sorry. You can play center, or you can play winger, and you are locked as a position. And you can only play on that team. No, on his team, you're playing together. So it's an online... My team versus PL's team. Okay, but can you play when I'm not there? Or can I go play for another team? It's two on two? No, you can be up to five. Oh, okay. Six. Okay. So the idea is that we grow our team, right? And there's Division 10 is what you start at. And then you work your way up the more you win, and then your player upgrades as well. And so there's also presets for snipers, and they have all these presets. But you can create your guy the way you want to create him, right? If you put him taller, bigger, he's going to be slower. If you put him smaller and skinny, he's going to be faster. And according, if you're a sniper, you're going to have a crazy shot. Anyways, so you build your guy, you build your guy, you build your guy, and we're a team. I feel like doing that, boys. No, it's pretty cool. And then, you know, you work your way up to Division 1, right? Which is... How far did you get? We're in Division 1 right now, but it's... In the world? Studs. No, but it's... Let me get to that point, okay? Okay. We're like, it's not like it used to be. It's not that impressive, guys. Well, it's tough to get to. It's very tough to get to because you need a certain amount of points to get in. So you play 10 games. You have to win 7 out of 10 to move on. And if you win 9 out of 10, you get the division package. So you get this hockey bag that you open and it gives you perks to build your arena because you start in a little, small, crappy arena. No way! Okay, you build a franchise. Yeah, you build your jerseys, you get, you know, so you actually icon yourself. Who do you play with? Your brother? Yeah, my brother, Carol's brother, Rick, and my other brother, Matt. And who's your team? What's the name of your team? Death Rose. Nice. Yeah. Death Rose or Throws? Rose. Okay. Because you're a good baseball thrower, so I thought... So we just said, you know, every time you play against us, you're pretty much on your death row. Did you say throw or... Very subtle name. So yeah, we built up to this one. My team is death row. What? So yeah, my stats right now, I think in like 410 games, according to ESN, I'm at like 1110 points. So it's not bad, but I am the scorer. My brother, Sean, is the playmaker. Matt is the speedy winger. And Rick is the defense or the power forward So we like to switch, you know what I mean? I go D or he goes forward just to even it out a bit sometimes. Is it normal five on five? Yes. Okay. So you got to know your role, right? Because you can't just run around. You got to play your position, back check. Oh, nobody's playing the AIs. No, it's fixed position. It's fixed position. So your AI, which leads me to the actual gameplay, okay? And the glitchiness of it, which we're going to get to later on. But yeah, so that is a very interesting aspect of the NHL way to play online yes okay so there's not just there's multiple ways to play online it's not just versus you don't just go on it matches you and then you play with whoever chooses you could yeah yeah but that's just different ways of doing that and is Chell just another way to say NHL we're playing Chell yes and it keeps your Chell game and it keeps your records right game to Chell they shortened the abbreviation yes yes yeah they keep your records and everything right so since the beginning of your team's franchise they keep you know and then if we play a team at certain times then it's a grudge match right so oh the last three games you guys are two and they are one the last game played you guys lost 5-3 and then you get this one player on each team gets a special perk because it's a grudge match meaning it's like rivalry kind of deal so we'll say okay since you got 10 hits last game you got the defensive boost so then your hitting is almost maxed out your poke checks are maxed out and then so on there's a playmaker one and then there's a scoring one so it accommodates your style of play exactly but like I meant to score in the game but sometimes I'll get the defensive one because we played a good team and we had to play defensively okay that's cool yeah so the more you are the easier it is to play the less Sorry. AI has an impact on your game. Oh, okay, cool. Oh, well, nice lips into the world of Chell. Is it called the world of Chell? Yeah. It was just Chell. No, world of Chell. Oh, cool. That's why they called that. And you know what? That leads me into the next, I guess, topic, which I did a lot of. For the time I played NHL, I played a lot of NHL alone at home, but there was also another period in my life where I played a lot of multiplayer and we did we did exactly that we were we were at one of my buddies house then we were each grabbing like bringing our own controllers and then each locking into one specific position and then you had to like play the game like that play your position and all that and then sometimes like well it was a learning curve you know like get out of here you're right wing well pretty much it is we used to say at some point that we were flocking because like the whole five players were oh my god it's like watching novice hockey guys another 5 on 0 exactly spread out do this box keep your positions oh that's cool I love that like just the fact that you could lock into one position and just play cooperatively so I'm gonna put a little side note on that just quickly World of Chell we can't couch co-op meaning if you come over you have to be in your place yes or like me and my brothers do. Land party. Yes, I actually land party it where I have two computer screens at home and they play on my computer screens. They used to bring their TVs. It got a little, it got to be a little excessive but then they started using computer screens so then they can play with their guy beside me and which is, that's pretty cool. It's very cool. It's fun to play with people, right? We play online a lot. That's the point, right? Which is unfortunate with any need for speed game you can't play with two people beside you that's annoying so that's what I missed about racing games and that's what I loved about hockey was you could play with your friends and like when I you know stopped playing online because it was getting too frustrating and too much time consuming I would end up playing with my friends or family when they came they came over to my place we would play best of sevens all the time nice so we do rock paper scissors before to see who starts at home and what a Cause it'd be fire. It's fucking fire. Well played people. Yeah. And I would play best of sevens. And what I love about the best of sevens was that the mental fortitude and longevity that you needed to play. So like if you, you win your first two games, are you going to get cocky? Are you going to, you know, are you too comfortable? Hockey. Right. That was good. That was good. It's pronounced nuclear. Yeah, no, it's okay. And then like, can you last till game seven? And if you do, who's like mentally strong in that then? Cause it's exhausting playing the best of seven straight. Yeah. Seven straight games. Yeah. Are you tired? Are you, are you going to make a mistake? Right. That's going to be costly in game seven. So I always love the best of sevens and I would always do that. So sometimes what I would do is I would purposefully lose the first three games. Of course you did. Of course you did. God, what a blast. Just such a jerk. Just to win four straight. Just to give you fucking hope. Robin Williams. Fuck no. Then I threw a pool in the sandbox to fuck with your ball again. Put a little flag at the end. Just to give you fucking hope. That's pretty much what you did. You put a little flag at the end yeah and then win four straight one of the because we're speaking of multiplayer but in house you know that's we won't say it a million times that's always the best when we play games with a buddy not just online separately although more convenient was when we would meet at our buddy's place and we would do a fantasy draft so the fantasy draft itself for one thing in the years that I have that we had that game the music would be on repeat because we would do the fantasy draft for like two hours it would take us for the whole thing and while you do the fantasy draft the music just goes on repeat and on repeat so you end up really getting nostalgic with these songs like the punk rock 101 was it punk rock 101 contagious I don't remember that one of my favorite was Oh Helen Oh, Helen, what can I do? Yes. But anyway, so we would do two hours of choosing our teams with a fantasy draft and then play one game and we have to leave. We made it, boys. Save it. We'll play it again. Get home and do the same, but alone. But what a two hours it was, right? Dude, so fun. So fun. At the end, shit, I don't like my team. I'm starting over. But you know what? When I went to my buddies and we played on the same team... It's usually what we did. Well, we actually played this season until the next NHL. So we would take the same team. And then during the year we would trade. So we go into, okay, so who do we go pick up now? And then, you know, you start digging into the trades and all that. And then, okay, I'll give you a ninth pick in 2027, an eighth, a seventh, a sixth, a fifth. Okay. Now you accept. Let's go. That's right. They had a brain. Yeah, exactly. He needed to give as much value as he can. So you know you won't be playing five seasons or something like that. So you just blow them out. Other game modes that we enjoyed? Well, I don't know if it's a game mode, but do you guys remember when they started doing playoffs mode? Well, I guess it is a mode. The playoff mode. From the beginning? There was always playoffs. I don't know, but I know when they added fans with the towels I thought that was really cool it just added some realism to it and I think one of the last few games I forget which one it was they added that back because they took it out then put it back right and when they added it back it only lasted for like two three seconds like something really quick the Stanley Cup celebration no the intro when you see the players on the ice to start the game and the lights are all dim and flashing and then you see all the fans like this in the playoffs in the trailer it acted like this is going to be this huge presentation and then I forget which game it was and the game came and it was super disappointing yeah because that towel raising and all that was like a second or two the hype they slowed it down maybe your breasts skipped too quickly they got complaints no honestly they started like they got complaints after that Oh, really? From you? Numerous letters. I sent a strongly worded letter. To my MP. But they added it back for like 10 seconds or something like that. Oh, really? Because of you? Plenty of people. People were just pissed off. And I remember at some point, you could start editing your entrance. Then you had like, okay, I want these kind of LED lights in the windows. I want the lats to be a certain color, the seats to be a certain color. You could really... edit your arena, where the smoke came out when you scored, where the scold came out, and then the song you would come out to. I don't know which version that was. So what is that called? So let's not be a pro. Be a pro is your own thing. When you build a franchise. That's in World of Chell as well. Okay, really? Oh, yeah. I can create my arena that whatever I want. That's so cool, though. It is. So you personalize your entrance, right? That's cool. Same thing with the jerseys. I always like spending time designing a nice jersey. Oh, there's so many colors. Just This one logo had like six colors. I'm like, okay. Different patterns, different logos, like everything that you can think of, even your player. You could give him like a, what is it? A Bauer hockey stick, a Victor hockey stick. You had the choice. That was really cool. Speaking of jerseys, because we're on a topic, I want to know your favorite hockey jersey that you like. Either old one, new ones. And obviously me, I love the sense, but it's not even a sense. jersey but I'm curious to know about you guys your favorite jersey either that one specifically or the black version that's the classic yeah okay yeah I really like the black version of the Sens not as a favorite jersey but for the Sens yeah for the Sens I really the black that they wore last year is there a stripe in the middle or no no there's I have one black one of Giroux with the red stripe like a special edition one and then the black one I have of Bathurston of which is maybe the one you're talking about. I'm not sure. But I think they had two different black ones. They're both really, really nice. I like the old logo. Okay. In terms of best jersey, I am a big fan of the new old Vancouver Canucks jersey. Okay. Like with the whale, I guess? The orca? Yeah, the orca. I don't know. It's the old kind of way, but they made it their new jersey at some point. I have to check that out. I don't know. I can actually pull it up. Yeah, very, very nice. I love that jersey. What about you, Scott? A little side. Yeah, so I'm going to stick on the topic, I guess. Yeah, yeah. So honestly, I do love the old school Hab jerseys, but I got to go with the Chicago. Nice. Old school. I like the black Chicago. Right. The old school black Chicago. That's a nice one. Yeah. I feel like the Chicago logo, the Chicago franchise is one of the most retro jerseys But... It's original six, man. But capped. They capped the... Essence. The essential. Yes. Yeah. The authenticity. The cushions, which is the essential. Yes. The cushions are the essence of the chair. What about you? I said it. Oh, that's true. It is that one. Yeah. So, okay. So, let's go back to game modes. So, I find that it all came down... Yeah, nice. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It all came down to the same thing with... with games where you could build something like franchise mode or Dynasty or doing a franchise mode but with it all in the end it's franchise mode but you could do a fantasy draft is what I was talking but it was franchise mode but spend more time building your team than I would actual play because I think that's what was the fun of it and after a few games or whatever little stint I never played a full season of NHL ever I don't have that never I never have that that that stamina to play one game. I've played, of course, not full 20-minute games, but I've played a few seasons in the same console at some point. Really? At some point when I was younger. It was all I was playing. That, maybe sometimes Call of Duty, but yeah, NHL for a while was a big focus. But custom-made everything, I would always put the Sabres. That's my favorite jersey. It's the Buffalo Sabres. with that old school Buffalo on it. Your favorite is now the Sens jersey? No. It's Buffalo. I don't know why. That's right. You didn't even answer your own question. I know. So the Sabres, which one? Yeah. Hashek? The one that reminds you of Hashek? Yeah, yes. Yes, yes, yes. So it's black and then the Buffalo with the red eyes. Yeah, I have it. I have it at home actually. It's nice. It is nice. And I honestly wanted to add one with Anderson, Craig Anderson because I loved him with the Sens and he was with Buffalo. Buffalo for a little bit. So I wanted to add that with the Buffalo jersey, but haven't yet. Did he even play with that one? Yeah, he played with Buffalo, yeah. No, but with that jersey. I don't know. I think they switched over to the blue one at that time. They did, eh? I think so. Not 100%. Maybe they had it as a one-off. To me, that represents Dominic Hasek. Yeah, it does. What do you want to show? I got a little side note. So for Chell, you can actually have your team stats and your player stats online. So if you want to search your player or any player. I could search your player on here to say what team you're on. I know your tag. I can see your stats. I can see your recent performances. I can see your overall. I can see your shooting, your passing. Talk about privacy. So yeah, so my overall is 88. So with my team, so you can also play open, right? So you can go to drop-in. You can drop-in in other teams. But with my team, yeah, so you actually have your whole stats area. Oh my God, you clearly cheat. 866 points and 396 stats. a game. It's only two points a game on average, right? A little bit more. Almost three. He's so humble. My shooting is 99. Wow. Shooting and the physical aspect as well. You can see the last five games and then you can actually see how good I am on D. That's cool, man. I had no idea this type of stuff existed. You can actually check out my team too. You can check out our global aspect of how many goals we allow. Buy me beer? No. People can buy me beer. For what? For the game? I honestly don't know. I honestly don't know what it does. That would be nice. So yeah, just a little side note that all your stats are online. For all the Chell players out there, you can go on the Chellstats.app. Are you like selling subscription? Is this a pyramid scheme? I am looking for a good paying job. Sean, just a sidebar on that. Did you know that for F1... in the app you can see like a telemetry of the lap by lap let's say if you do like the time trial no way you can see my car versus your car no way really oh my god and you can see like it's not a real you'll just see it like a on a digital map yeah but you'll see the cars like okay you were ahead there I was ahead there oh that's cool yeah that's cool it's really nice they have a league called EA race play oh I didn't know that do you play no I just bought it because I wanted to I have at least one F1 game and I bought it on the PS5. The reason why is because I'm hoping that within a year from now, they're going to make a VR version of F1. I'm hoping. I didn't hear anything, so I'm not sure. Because I have Gran Turismo 7 with my VR and it's amazing. You don't get seasick? No, I can eat a poutine and play VR. So just remote racing? Yeah, I don't have the steering wheel or anything like that. In our league, we each have our like steering the authenticity yeah it's amazing even Sean has it okay so one of the modes one of the modes I wanted to I wanted to talk about is one I really enjoyed with my kids actually and I don't remember the name but you're you're like playing half of an outdoor ice and you're just you're controlling one player and you're three free skate no it's not a free skate it's a it's like they're they're very short periods and at the the end like it's like a minute and a half or whatever and at the end you have a winner the one that scores the most in 25 points 24 to 25 to you can skate on the Rideau Canal you can choose that one if you unlock that I think it's like a version of threes but it is is it threes I don't know if it's called threes but I remember what you you can in threes I know you can pick your location but it's three on three it is three on three no no no it's one on one on one yeah is the ice oh god yeah okay that's a good but yeah like like you can tell in NHL 25 the number of people that put a lot of time in it like I was just checking and in child there's a guy that's 96 overall he's number one in the world and like I'm I'm at 80 once it's called ones oh and yes yes yes one right yes yeah yes so instead of three is one yeah so it's everybody against everybody one's eliminator yeah it's super fun man because you only control your own guy it's half a nice the ice is so you have so much chance to very fun to hit you can die there's no penalties right so you can just dive you can hit try to line him up you have a lot of opportunities where you'll be on a breakaway can you go through the glass like NHL no no I don't think there's glasses go over the boards if anything but I'm not sure but super fun because if I'm playing with my two boys well we each play one and you have the basic characters to pick from. You can unlock like mascots, other characters. We have like Crosby, Ovechkin and all that stuff. Matthews. But anyways. So yeah, so that I thought was pretty fun to play. But then once you play it, it's arcadey, right? So once you play it, you play it, there's no... Yeah, you can upgrade and move, advance and unlock a whole bunch of stuff. But it's not like a legal cell. no just fun the fun is which is what I think games should all be about and gold should always be fun yeah whether you play half the game or you can platinum it and fun is all subjective right like whatever you like it may not somebody else may not like it but it's still fun for you it's still everything like that right it's just sometimes there's a stigma to games where people are just like oh games are you're too old for games you're this you're that right and then it's like no like what makes you happy what is your version of therapy you know it may not be with someone else but if it hits you in a nostalgic way or calms you down during stressful days then I think why not right as long as it doesn't take over your life exactly we found something that you like that it calmed you down if it makes people unhappy mad on the outside that's not necessarily your family yeah exactly don't ruin your life who cares you know what I mean that's our tip about the outside noise. If you really like games and you can't always just play games, just go on a podcast where they talk about games and drink some fluids with your buddies and hydrate. Other game modes we want to talk about? Well, I spoke about it briefly before. Hockey Ultimate Team. Yes. So I found that I liked that one for a while because at first it's like a new team so you get to open packs and then you have... Like cards? Yeah, it's like cards... You open packs of cards of hockey, then you're playing with the players. Let's say it says 84 Quinn Hughes, and I have an 84 Quinn Hughes. But there's going to be some special cards coming out with a Quinn Hughes 95. Can you play with both? You could. Do you have two versions of Quinn Hughes? Yeah, I think it's a card. I'm pretty sure. But I'll see. I'll let you continue on the aspect. But you don't want to. As you're getting the cards, you're evolving and you're changing your players yeah um but Yeah, you can't play with the same card that I know. How does it work with a team? Do you need to have a specific amount of cards to start playing? Yeah, exactly. So at first, you open a basic pack, which gives you players that's somewhere in the 60s, 70s. And then with special events coming in, you need to do challenges. And as you do challenges, depending where you get in the challenges, you get a certain reward at the end of the week. And then you get to open packs. And then you can get your special packs and then have good players and then switch your lineup. So that was a nice one. You can also buy packs, but I'm not even going to jump into that. Are the players temporary, by the way? Some are. There'll be an event for the week, and then when you open your pack, you have the player for either five games or seven days. They were different. So you lose him, he's a rental? But it's because he's a really good player. He's going to be in the 90s or high 80s, and then the rest of your team's crap. It's an event thing. So you can strategically... Use him when you feel like you need him. If you don't want to lose him too early kind of thing. You could. It's not a time. As soon as you see him, boom, it activates. Sometimes as soon as he plays his first game, sometimes it's like seven days after that. But there's sometimes that it's a certain amount of games. They made different versions of it. I find that buying packs and all that is just a little bit excessive. But the longer the game is, out the easier it gets to get better players right because those players there's also like a market so you can sell your cards to people so the better players that you have and you can make money you can go and buy the players that you want on your team and let's say you start with your 60 70 team if it's been already eight months well an 80 overall player is maybe not that expensive yeah so then you can go buy a few and like custom made your team but when you get started that's why people are spending a a lot of money to open packs. It's to have those good players and they're worth more. And if they're temporary, is that just to add parity in the league so teams aren't like overpowered? No, it's just events. They'll have a special event that week and it's like a temporary player that you get, but you're working to get those kind of players in the packs. So it's like a teaser. It's like a carrot in front. You know what I mean? You're always going to want that and then you're going to want to spend money to get it. You know what I mean? It's not like you're going to open a random pack and be like oh I got a 96 overall you know what I mean if you do you're lucky but you might get one guy after a while but that's where it gets that's where I stopped it's when I knew I had a good team in the 80s and stuff but then you get teams that spend a lot of money and all their guys are freaking you know Mark Messier Wayne Gretzky Paul Curry okay you even have vintage people yeah that's cool okay you just got me there but and just the concept of the cards right that digs to our days of nostalgia the whole Pokemon thing it's still going on you know so it's fun especially when you open cards you click open pack and then then you flip through your cards just like a Pokemon pack but it's digital so you can't smell the packs like real cards yeah you open you have to smell the cards yeah I want to finish this on a thing that I saw and I don't know if it's NHL 24 or 23. I think it may have been 23 because 24 and 25 don't have it. And that was like a Hockey Canada training camp within the game. For somebody like me that just had started to get back into NHL a bit, that was really cool. You could do drills. You'd see a video. It would tell you what to do. Then you'd go and practice it. You'd had things to do to check off. But there's not that anymore. and I think that sucks because I thought that was so useful for anybody that's just getting started versus I don't know like how to poke check out I want an occasion where I just practice poke checks right you have tutorials but like yeah it's not the same aspect as the Hockey Canada bring it back I think that was that might have been the 2023 and the only reason I'm saying that is Sarah Nurse had a Team Canada jersey oh yeah maybe yeah they were like at a skate park or something yeah in street clothes in an Yeah, he was wearing his mighty, well, the Ducks jersey. Not really mighty, but they're Ducks. And hey, if it's not 2023, please, Kyle, fact check, don't be shy. But if they add that, don't say it's new. If they add that in 26, look at our new feature. Hockey US is doing. Did they have, like, was it Hockey USA? Like, did it change? No, it was Hockey Canada. It was Hockey Canada. But good. Good point. Yeah, but did it change with your location? Exactly. That's a great point. Let's say you bought the game in the States. Why would they want to have Hockey Canada? Is it the U.S.? That's a good question. That's a great point. You know, because the covers changed according to your location. Yeah, but North America is always the same. Yeah, but I mean, like, for the States. Who knows? Who knows? You'd have to play with, like, what, a different IP address to see if it unlocks something else. Yeah. don't know or maybe it was just that version because there was Sarah Nurse on the top yeah maybe yeah because that Sarah Nurse on the top was on yeah cool guys thank you so much for having showed up today we drank like almost all of our beer almost all the water no but seriously it was a fun conversation we split it into two parts so we'll have two weeks of episodes for NHL it was fun so much to talk about right oh man we could continue on in there where we're hitting an hour service so yeah yeah so we'll leave it NHL yeah well we're gonna do one on NHL hits you have time to get custom you can come here and we can play it's really fun so satisfying it's the best it is the best out of all I know you don't like arcadey but if that's not what you're gonna be looking for in that game you might you might with a name like NHL hits you can't expect to be you know but it's so fun that's the game where you want to be beside your buddies and just play man and we could have fun especially when you're playing three on three you could just go out like one of your guys just go nails the goalie big interference and the other guy takes a slap shot you can do anything you want it's awesome and they go on fire or something like that at some point big head yeah it was super fun but anyways I know there were empty boys we all have a leak but thank you very much and until next time Until next time. I had in the episode that came out last week. In the episode that came out last week, it was Angelica Jones. She's the... sponsors us in the way with her music lets us use her music and when we got to the end of the the episode she did the but you see in the video that she really places her fingers how they actually play that part i just do i have no idea and you see that there it's so technical it's engraved so i just realized that they never talked about it there you go all right bye guys