Milwaukeehockey.com

Summer nights and my Playstation

June 13, 2007

That's all we need baby don't cha know

It was revealed this week that the EA Sports NHL 08 hockey video game will include AHL teams and players. It will be available for PS2, PS3, XBox, and PC's. Expect it to be released near the beginning of the season.

This is not the first video game to feature the AHL. Gretzky NHL '06 was the first. Unfortunately, that game only allowed use of the AHL teams in individual games, and not in any type of season or playoff mode... and because of that, I grew tired of the game a little quicker than I normally would have.

I'm not a hard-core gamer, so this news doesn't blow me away, but I will likely pick up a copy in a few months and get what fun I can out of it. The first few days I own a hockey game, I spend most of the time updating the rosters... a tedious task, especially on console systems, as you have to go one player at a time through various menu screens... and not having a view of the entire roster at a glance... scroll, scroll, scroll... "nope, he's not on this team"... menu, menu, scroll, scroll, scroll... rinse, lather, repeat.

Not only would I save a version of the real-life updated rosters, but I also like to make up an Admirals Past-and-Present Superteam using the players available in the game. In the Gretzky game, I think I remember counting more than 100 current and ex-Admirals to chose from, so it wasn't an easy task to choose who made the Superteam, and what line combinations were most appealing.

The last PC hockey game I owned (02?) was a lot easier to update, as I found a utility program (Blomman's), which allowed me to move players from team-to-team much easier and gave complete team rosters onscreen without endless scrolling and menu-hopping. Not sure if such a utility still exists (Blomman's was around from 99-03), but I would love to find one for the 08 game.

For information on the upcoming game, visit the official site. Not much to see on that page right now, but I'm sure it'll explain more as the game is about ready to hit the store shelves.

Former Admiral goon Jeremy Yablonski made his mixed martial arts debut at an event in Idaho last month. Before becoming a pro hockey player, he was a Golden Gloves boxing champ, and the only useful part of his hockey game is dropping the mitts, so it's no surprise he has an urge to enter the octagon.

He played with the ECHL champion Idaho Steelheads this season, but did not participate in the playoffs. You can watch the entire bout on Youtube. Perhaps we'll see him on one of the many televised MMA series in the near future.

Program alert - now that the short final season of the Soprano's is history, I now look forward to tonight's season premier of Rescue Me on FX. Denis Leary plays a hockey-playing FDNY fire fighter who has so many problems in life, making everyone watching the show feel better about themselves afterwards. Good stuff.

posted by Todd # 2:01 PM

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