Erik Karlsson
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WILL THE CAPS BUY 1 GET GRITTY: WHICH CAREY PRICE 3 FREE! LOVE HIM OR HATE HIM? BE HUNG OVER? WILL SHOW UP? Special offer inside BURNING ERIK QUESTIONS KARLSSON ISSUE WILL PEKKA RINNE ARE THE LOSE HIS JOB? WHICH TKACHUK SHARKS WOULD SUDDENLY YOU TAKE? HOW WILL POT THE TEAM IMPACT TO BEAT? THE NHL? HUMBOLDT THE HEALING CONTINUES ORAL HISTORY OF NHL ’94: REMEMBERING THE GREATEST VIDEO GAME EVER NHL ’94 NHL ’94 AN ORAL HISTORY AN ORAL HISTORY were going to convert the Madden model to the NHL to play a hockey game. We’d get NHL, and if it was successful, we’d take it further.as much Unlike as we withcould Madden in the first Football version, I re of- ally wanted to get the league license and player license for our hockey game. Back then, Time Warner handled the licensing for the NHL and the NHL Players’ Asso- ciation. You couldn’t go to the NHL or the NHLPA directly. Time Warner only gave us the NHL license. Despite the lack of a license from the NHLPA, EA develops its debut hockey game, simply titled NHL Hockey. Jim Simmons, who programmed John Madden Football for SNES and Genesis, also programs EA’s first hockey game. As producer, Brook imparts his vision of T’S THE DEAD OF NIGHT what a hockey video game should be like: fast during the spring of 1993 and hard-hitting, with players willing to drop in the rural town of Brook- the gloves. lin, Maine. No cars popu- late the few streets that BROOK: I grew up in Philadelphia in the wind through the town, 1970s, so, as you can imagine, I was a fan of and almost no one in their the Broad Street Bullies. That actually had right mind is still awake. Adjacent to the town’s sec- a brand of hockey I was trying to build into ond-oldest house is a two- thequite game, an influence it was more on the like game. the IfFlyers there than was story white barn, whose rustic exterior be- the Soviet Olympic team. I Although NHL Hockey does not have play- computerlies its contents. programmer Above the Mark hay-strewn Lesser is floors busy er names, the players in the video game are atin workthe loft coding is a state-of-the-artNHL ’94 for the Segaoffice, Genesis. where clearly based on their real-life counterparts. Lesser, a transplant from New York City, For example, in NHL Hockey, No. 99 on the knows little about hockey and has no formal Los Angeles Kings is great at scoring goals training as a computer programmer. Yet he’s but not at fighting. about to develop the greatest feature in the most beloved hockey video game of all-time. BROOK: We brought the game to the On that night in 1993, after many hours of changing variables, debugging code, and testing, testing, testing, Lesser has a break- 1991 Stanley Cup final. It was set up in the- through. “Suddenly, I pulled a one-timer, pen.media We room. didn’t Some have of thethe reportersplayers’ license,figured and it was perfect,” he said. “I got a shiver. It butout prettyit’s obvious quickly who how No. to make99 on fights the Kings hap was a really joyful moment.” was supposed to be. So, they were getting That might have been the turning point in the creation of NHL ’94, but so much hap- this was all about 10 feet away from the pened before and after in creating hockey’s tableWayne that Gretzky NHL presidentinto fights. John Unfortunately, Ziegler was best classic video game. Oddly enough, it all sitting at with the NHL’s top brass. By the started with football. time I arrived home from Pittsburgh after Game 2, the NHL contacted me and wanted Electronic Arts, a company specializing in computer games, attempts to break into the too late, because the game was already ap- booming market for home video consoles like proved,us to remove and we fighting had like in the $10 game. million But worthit was Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo (SNES). The of cartridges ready to go. San Mateo, Calif., software company releases John Madden Football for both systems. Fea- NHL Hockey is released for Sega Genesis in turing two-dimensional scrolling and arcade- August 1991 and becomes an immediate suc- ’94 FOREVER style play, Madden is immensely successful, so cess. Right away, EA decides to make a sequel EA decides to try making a hockey game. for the 1992-93 season. However, it will be THE MAKING OF NHL ’94: AN ORAL HISTORY without the NHL’s blessing. MICHAEL BROOK, [PRODUCER, NHL BY SAL BARRY HOCKEY, NHLPA HOCKEY ’93 AND NHL BROOK: The NHL said that we’d have to ’94; DESIGNER: NHL ’95]: The idea was we remove fighting from future versions of our | 50 | THE HOCKEY NEWS NOVEMBER 5, 2018 NOVEMBER 5, 2018 THE HOCKEY NEWS | 51 | NHL ’94 NHL ’94 AN ORAL HISTORY AN ORAL HISTORY BULLY to license the use of us a while even to do that, let alone for us KUPERMAN: It was all handwritten on MENTALITY the players’ names these forms that EA would send me, be- The game’s rough, cause personal computers were just at their fight-filled style was was kept realistic. to BROOK:figure out When what waswe were wrong making or abnormal. NHLPA beginning. I’m a perfectionist, and I wanted inspired by producer as long as fighting Hockey ’93, we had to bring it to the NHL- this to be perfect, too. It was hard without Brooks’ love of Philly’s No NHL license? PA licensing committee for approval. We computers for sorting. I had to visually 1970s Cup teams. No problem. EA weren’t allowed in the room, so I’m sitting cross-reference these pages to make sure gets to work on its in the foyer, waiting for the meeting to end. the ratings were more or less fair. It would follow-up to NHL Saskin comes out and he’s shaking his head. be a lot easier with Excel now, but back then Hockey and calls the Apparently, the players on the commit- it was hard. game NHLPA Hock- tee noticed that they had individual player ey ’93, taking the ratings in the game. Ken Baumgartner was EA decides to brand all its sports games as team logos out but on the committee. He came over to me and ‘EASN’ – Electronic Arts Sports Network. Ron leaving the fight- said, “I’m Ken Baumgartner, the guy you Barr, the host of the national talk-radio show ing in. Meanwhile, gave a zero rating for intelligence.” It never Sports Byline USA, is already involved with CONSOLE Borgen reaches out really dawned on me that I’d actually meet some of EA’s other sports titles and is brought the players. I tried to do my best on these to EA to interview on to be the face of NHLPA Hockey ’93, giving TO CAMERA Brook for an inter- ratings. There was some statistical basis. pre-game scouting reports. Documentary takes unconventional approach Intelligence, it was really Offensive Aware- mission feature. to depicting NHL ’94’s cultural impact This encounter has ness. Baumgartner had one point and 225 BROOK: We had these diverse sports a long-lasting, positive effect on EA’s early penalty minutes in 55 games. So, it isn’t like games out there, which weren’t really con- MIKEY MCBRYAN IS NO stranger to the camera. He hockey video games. he was going to make much of an impact in nected in any way. But the EA Sports Net- starred for six seasons on Ice Pilots NWT, a reality scoring. That led to some changes. We had work, the idea of branding all our games TV show about a small airline that delivers supplies BORGEN: I produced an intermission fea- to take the ratings more seriously. together, made sense as our sports games around Canada’s Northwest Territories. Once that game or they would cut their license. So, I ture for a Kings game about hockey video were starting to take off. We wanted an an- show wrapped up in 2014, McBryan decided to step - games during the 1991-92 season and ar- Borgen gets Brook in touch with Igor Ku- nouncer to tie in with EASN, and Ron Barr TEST behind the camera and make a documentary about ing and keep the NHL logos. Or I could keep ranged to visit EA Sports. I interviewed Mi- perman, a former sportswriter from Moscow had a radio show, so he seemed like he’d be DRIVER NHL ’94 called Pixelated Heroes. “I had no filming experience,” he said. “I called in a bunch of favors and had a choice to make. I could get rid of fight chael and shot footage of them working on who now works in hockey operations for the appropriate. Then-active NHLers funded it myself with no real sponsor. It was a labor wasn’t as big of a deal as you might think, the next game. I did another feature, where Winnipeg Jets, to rate the players. such as McIntyre gave of love, with some of the camera guys from Ice Pilots becausefighting andwe hadtake John the NHLMadden logos Football out, which, and Larry Robinson, Rob Blake, Dave Taylor and RON BARR [RADIO HOST / IN-GAME crucial feedback to helping me out, working for beer and chicken wings.” it did not have an NFL license, but people John McIntyre played the upcoming game, IGOR KUPERMAN [WINNIPEG JETS’ ANCHOR: NHLPA HOCKEY ’93 & NHL ’94]: help the game achieve McBryan spent more than three years making his against each other and the computer.