I have to admit, I’ve always loved video games. Especially those that are hockey related. In fact, my first video game system, Coleco‘s Telstar (cir. 1976) had just 2 games. Tennis (i.e. Pong), and hockey. It was primitive, black and white with the bare minimum in graphics and sound but it still was lots of fun. No controllers, you simply turned knobs on the console itself and selecting the game was literally was done with a flip of a switch.
My next hockey video game was Activision‘s Ice Hockey for the Atari 2600 console. Basically a 2-on-2 game of shinny but in this game you could switch which player you were and felt more like a real hockey game than simply an electronic version of air hockey. Fast forward a few more years (to 1988) and I was playing Nintendo‘s Ice Hockey where you had a choice of six international teams; Canada, Czechoslovakia, Soviet Union, Sweden, Poland, and the United States. From their you had a choice between small and fast, taller and medium speed (shot), and fat and slow (but a hard shot). It was fast and furious 4-on-4 hockey. I preferred to dress 2 small and fast guys, 1 medium and 1 fat guy. Now you had to pick your shot direction and passing was a more integral part of the game play. Also for the same Nintendo Entertainment System, Konami‘s Blades of Steel was more refined and even had the element of fighting added to the game play. However, hockey games would get its revolution in 1993 when Electronic Arts introduced NHL ’93.
This really brought the NHL into hockey video gaming that became the core of what we experience today. You have teams with digital characters based on real-life players. Teams were given overall grades in terms of their rosters and players could make trades and make deals they could only dream about. There were flaws though, as players could start with a simple trade of a marginal player one could continuously trade up to get the best players in the game so if anyone wanted a ‘dream team’ it simply was a matter of taking the time to make all of the deals. It was sort of like high schooler Steven Ortiz starting by trading an old cell phone and continuing to make swaps for the next two years until he ended up with a Porche 911. Who wouldn’t want to start by dealing Valeri Zelepukin and continue wheeling and dealing until you ended up with Wayne Gretzky, Ray Bourque or Mario Lemieux? Steadily, Electronic Arts would improve the artificial intelligence as well as making it more difficult to make trades. I must admit these are some of my favorite video games of all time and I own every Electronic Arts’ NHL game since 2001 as well as NHL ’99, NHL ’95, and NHL ’94. However as time went on, Electronic Arts embraced the ‘Fantasy hockey’ idea and made it an option for players to ‘fantasy draft’ the entire league. Almost no matter what sport, people have used video games to simulate league championships as a way of predicting the winner. For their soon to be out NHL ’12, Electronic Arts fantasy draft are predicting the Minnesota Wild will win the 2011-12 Stanley Cup! Start planning the parade route now right?!?!
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I am sure the Wild’s front office at 317 Rice Park in St. Paul, is just giddy over this item of good news. Then again, probably not. Obviously the result is meaningless since it literally was a fantasy draft and there was only 1 current Wild player on the team’s roster (I hope that isn’t a sign) in Brad Staubitz. 15 ‘experts’ were tasked with drafting for two teams, where they utilized the same drafting order as this year’s NHL Entry draft. The Wild’s expert was Dave Lozo who also drafted for the Philadelphia Flyers as well. Here are the draft selections for the Wild in the order they were taken and I must say the results are fairly realistic in the sense its not simply a collection of dream teams.
Lozo’s Wild ‘fantasy’ roster
D – Shea Weber
F – Matt Duchene
F – Thomas Vanek
G – Kari Lehtonen
F – Mike Ribeiro
F – Martin Erat
D – John-Michael Liles
F – Ryan O’Reilly
D – Pavel Kubina
F – Blake Wheeler
F – Ryan Smyth
F – Sean Bergenheim
D – Rostislav Klesla
G – Brent Johnson
F – Patrick Kaleta
D – Mark Eaton
F – Shawn Thornton
D – Oskars Bartulis
F – Josh Bailey
F – Brad Staubitz
D – Ben Lovejoy
D – Mark Fayne
F – Tim Stapleton
Would Thomas Vanek lead the Wild to a Stanley Cup victory?
You can see the rest of the fantasy rosters here. You can see small reviews of these fantasy lineups here. In the fantasy season, the Wild are predicted to defeat the Ottawa Senators in six games in the Stanley Cup finals. If you look at the rosters, you’ll notice that the Senators likely goaltender would be none other than Roberto Luongo so he can’t even win a ‘fantasy’ Stanley Cup. Better luck next time Roberto! If it were only true, right? I guess I should take EA Sports’ motto “If its in the game, its in the game” at their word huh? In a few days (August 30th, 31st), the league will start the simulation and we’ll find out of these ‘fantasy’ prognosticators are right. As an annual ‘fantasy hockey’ participant on yahoo! in two different leagues the last 7 years its always fun selecting one’s team and trying to guess which players are going to have sensational years.
I fully realize its just a game, and if I were to have a season with the Wild they undoubtedly would win the Stanley Cup no matter who was in their lineup. However, you can expect a level of objectivity from a computer simulation still makes for some interesting debate if the ‘fantasy’ version of the Wild really could win the Stanley Cup. Lozo certainly took a lot of players that have mostly played in the Eastern Conference throughout their careers with a slight lean towards the Colorado Avalanche.
Will Jordan Hendry surprise everyone and make the team?
Wild give tryout to defenseman Jordan Hendry
Unrestricted free agent defenseman Jordan Hendry accepted an offer by the Minnesota Wild for a tryout. The 27-year old, 6’0″, 197lbs defenseman plays an unflashy, and safe stay at home style similar to that of Wild veteran Nick Schultz. Last year, Hendry played just 37 games for the Chicago Blackhawks registering a single goal and 4 penalty minutes. His season was cut short by a torn ACL he suffered in late February. The Lanigan, Saskatchewan-native will find himself in an already crowded mix of defenseman vying for that final roster spot, his addition sends a message that the team really wants to see players compete hard for that position. The team has a stable of youngsters who have bided their time in Houston who seem to be on the cusp of accepting such a role in Jared Spurgeon, Marco Scandella, Nate Prosser, and Justin Falk. I’d also throw in AHL journeyman Drew Bagnall into that mix as well since he still is the only physical blueliner of that group of hopefuls. The team has accumulated quite a few mobile but not necessarily offensive defenseman in their ranks and with this year’s top pick Jonas Brodin probably a season or two (at the most) away the organization is keeping the competition fresh. Not sure how I’d feel if I were Spurgeon, Scandella, Prosser, Falk and Bagnall though, but hopefully they take it as motivation to continue to improve and not be complacent. The move also may simply be an experiment to add more depth for the Houston Aeros. However, there are still more defenseman in the mix there as well with college grads Chay Genoway and Kyle Medvec likely to be added to join disappointing 2008 1st round pick Tyler Cuma who is also trying to get through a full season without any more major injuries since he blew out his knee at Xcel Energy Center last winter when the Aeros played against the Peoria Rivermen.
One last thing…
Check out this article and video clip from yahoo!’s Puck Daddy on a shootout goal by none other than Wild super prospect Mikael Granlund. Very similar to the one he scored on Stephen Michalek at the Wild prospect camp scrimmage.
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