Yo I am very grateful for my dual nationality at the moment. The horror of Scotland’s sluggish showing at Euro 2024 has been tempered by a fearless Canada in its first Copa America and a Canadian hockey team in a Stanley Cup final for the third time in 18 years – the Edmonton Oilers, a team so utterly Canadian. They are named after a fossil fuel.
Thank goodness for NHL 93 and 94 on the Mega Drive. Not only were they twin peaks of sports gaming perfection, but they’re also the reason I can walk into any pub in Canada and brag my way through conversations about Mario Lemieux, Steve Yzerman and Mark Messier. And argue why Jeremy Roenick is the most underrated hockey player of his generation based solely on the fact that he was the four horsemen of the apocalypse rolled into one in NHL94. He was right up there with players like Barry Sanders in Madden, Kylian Mbappé in any FIFA, and the Stockton/Malone combo in NBA Jam: players so incredibly good that you can’t lose if they’re on your team.
I hadn’t played the NHL in decades, but inspired by the Oilers’ near-victory, I decided to boot up NHL 24 on Xbox and promptly had a nervous breakdown. What happened to that simple game on the Mega Drive, where you skated down the side, shot at the back post, and put the net in once in four out of five times? Now it’s all become hyper-realistic with 50m control options and massive, icy inertia. In my first few games, I feel like a Rebel soldier during the Empire’s attack on Hoth.
So I’m back to square one. I learn the basics in free skating. Then I move on to the wonderful 1v1v1 mode, where three of you shoot at the same target in a variety of conveniently snowy locations. This is definitely the best place to start learning individual skills, crucial in a game where it’s ridiculously easy to create scoring opportunities, but actually turning them into reality is like threading a needle. With a puck. While you’re sliding. And getting hit.
Once I mastered the basic individual skills, I moved on to NHL three-on-three games. I score my first goal with the team and I feel wonderful. Then the action stops and a Hawks mascot does an annoying dance and starts playing for the Blackhawks. This should definitely happen at the Euro. Can you imagine poor, beleaguered Gareth Southgate trying to explain why he played Hartlepool’s H’Angus the Monkey instead of Harry Kane? Or what could Scotland have achieved if Gunnersaurus replaced the injured Kieran Tierney?
I get too cocky and try my first fake trick, I lose possession, the Hawk gets the puck and a mascot marks me. A pet! And they get TWO POINTS! Because? Because apparently we were playing with the MONEY DISC, which is rhyming slang for what was yelling at the screen. But I put in the hours and am soon earning pets to play on MY team too. And it’s funny!
I’m ready to PLAY ONLINE. But things take a turn, because I’m one of those people with an old EA account tied to an email I can no longer access. I travel through the seven circles of hell that is EA online support and file a ticket requesting to link a different account to my Xbox One. It tells me I have a six-minute wait. That doesn’t sound too bad. There’s a number 6 on the screen, but it doesn’t change. For 10 minutes. Then it finally changes.
At 8.
Then 10.
Then 11.
MY GOD. EA took all the money they stole from the Fifa Ultimate Team people and used it to develop time travel. If I stay a few days, I will eventually see how the dinosaurs became extinct. (Probably starving while waiting for help from EA).
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Decades pass. I finally get through to a human being who tells me I need to correctly answer six personal questions to access my account. Six! I can’t do it. My Canadian citizenship test was easier than this. Six personal questions? That’s more than I asked my wife before we got married. I only need two questions to access my bank account. In a frustrated attempt to prove my identity, I offer to send them a finger, since at this rate I won’t need them to play NHL 24 online.
I turn to Karen and ask to speak to a manager, politely explaining that I’m writing an article about the game. My “helper” says she’ll file a fine with the team and someone will get back to me. No one ever does. I later notice there’s an old case in my account from 2021. I click on the transcript. IT’S THE SAME ISSUE, and they never fixed it either.
I guess my virtual hockey adventures will end in a few decades. This would be never They have happened on Mega Drive.