NHL Stanley Cup

If you'll indulge him, your correspondent will begin this review with an autobiographical sketch. The year was 1993. Your late-adolescent correspondent was in Wal-Mart (perhaps it was Wool-co at that point), and in the aisle leading to the electronics section, a promotional booth had been set up. The booth had a large TV screen and a Super Nintendo under the giant cardboard logo with the blown-up title and box-art of a game: NHL Stanley Cup. The store employee running the display booth called me over and suggested I take a turn what she described as the "best hockey video game," or something to that effect.

"But I already have NHL 94," your correspondent remarked, not as a crack-back but rather in that innocent, matter-of-fact way that incorrigibly earnest children have.

"Oh no," said the store-appointed spokes-lady. "NHL Stanley Cup is much better."

Your correspondent was unconvinced but not un-intrigued. The demo clips from NHL Stanley Cup that played on the giant screen drew the eye. The sprites were big, and, more jarringly, the game was played at ice-level in what appeared to be 3D. This was completely unlike NHL 94. But could it possibly be better?

In hopes of answering this question, your correspondent waited by the booth as the god-bless-her-she's-trying spokes-lady attempted to flag down another customer. Eventually, she commandeered an older boy—a taller boy—who was red-faced and trim, who looked like he might even play some hockey himself. Smilingly, he picked up the controller, and we started into a game.

Your correspondent and the older boy played through one period of arduous lumbering and puck-chasing. They each had a few good scoring chances in front of the net, but neither could put the puck home. The goalies were too good. The period ended scoreless.

The spokes-lady took the liberty of declaring the older boy the winner. She based this on the fact that he had had more shots on goal. Your correspondent drifted away the loser, but not exactly feeling like he had lost. He only felt like he wanted to play NHL 94.

In retrospect, your correspondent is not convinced that that compulsion to play NHL 94 was the sour grapes of a child who had been "defeated." It was more likely the nascent discrimination of a discerning gamer in the making. That said, one does not have to be particularly discerning to realize that NHL Stanley Cup is inferior to NHL 94. In retrospect, your correspondent feels a measure of pity for that Wal-Mart (or Wool-co) spokes-lady. She'd been saddled with the ultimate tough sell: pitting the mediocre NHL Stanley Cup against NHL 94, widely agreed to be the greatest sports game of ever released.

If judged by the cover, which formed the backdrop of the display booth in that aisle, NHL Stanley Cup promises exhilaration. In a scene that could have been taken from the 1993 Stanley Cup Finals, the cover drawing depicts a generic blond member of the Los Angeles Kings skating in on the Montreal Canadiens’ goalie. The subtext is that the latter is Patrick Roy, though it's not really Patrick Roy because NHL Stanley Cup did not have an NHLPA license. Sweat is beading on the brow of the Kings' attacker (too blond and handsome to be Gretzky) as he follows through with a snap-shot, which has already been kicked away by the twine-minder.

Unfortunately, this cover drawing is more exciting than anything that ever happens in NHL Stanley Cup itself. The game is based entirely around dump-and-chase, the boring style of hockey that became more commonplace in the NHL post-1993. In that sense, NHL Stanley Cup was ahead of its time, but not in a positive way. Indeed, it's full of the boring 1-0 and 2-1 games that defined pro hockey for the next decade. And as per that scoreless period played between your correspondent and the older, taller, red-faced boy, the game is irredeemably boring. The Mode 7, pseudo-3D graphics catch the eye at first, but they quickly grow tiresome and bewildering. 3D scaling may have worked for NCAA Final Four, on the grounds that changes of possession in basketball are generally tied to scoring plays, but it renders the game of hockey, where possession-changes are fluid and constant, almost unplayable. As such, the camera is constantly flipping around. NHL '94's top-down style is far superior in this regard; indeed, even with all the camera angles available on present-day systems, the rooftop view is simply how video game hockey has to be played.

But NHL Stanley Cup is not entirely forgettable. It bears repeating that the goalies are just too good, both defensively and on offense. Indeed, it is distressingly easy to score a goal as the goalie, and not just with the other team's net empty (as per the real-life Ron Hextall, the goalie who scored two empty-net goals). Rather, when your goalie has the puck, you can skate him out of the crease for an inordinate amount of time and space before drawing a whistle. If you get to the red line and then dump the puck, you can score on the other team with some consistency. It's easier, then, to score as the goalie than with the average attacker. If only your correspondent had known about the goalies’ scoring touch while he was playing against the older boy. Perhaps this is the real thesis of NHL Stanley Cup—that one day the goalies will rise and come unshackled from their creases, taking back the ice from their free-skating oppressors. Perhaps this is the reason why the pseudo-Patrick Roy on the cover of NHL Stanley Cup is making the save rather than giving up the goal. Its status as a radical, pro-goalie manifesto, then, is the one reason (and one reason only) NHL Stanley Cup remains noteworthy.