It started, appropriately, in an old barn. Here is the story of how NHL '94 came to be, its enduring popularity and impact on pop culture, and how gaming fanatics are doing their best to keep it alive a quarter century later, one flawlessly executed one-timer at a time. 'It laid the foundation for every hockey game after it and influenced the genre.'īrian Jennings, NHL executive vice president of marketing and chief branding officer, said, 'I don't think it would be overstating it to say that this game put NHL video games on the map.' 'NHL '94 in my opinion is the greatest retro sports video game in history,' said hockey broadcaster Arda Ocal, who will announce an 'NHL '94' championship tournament Sunday in Vancouver, as he did last year in Las Vegas. He is far from alone in championing the game and finding it to have timeless appeal. Matthews said he and his friends played the game as recently as this past summer, on an arcade-style console at his parents' house. There are fighting games and all this other different kind of stuff, but I kind of like NHL '94 because it's pretty simple and I was good at it.

'There are so many different games, thousands of different games on this system I got. 17, 1997, about four years after the game's release. 'I'd always have buddies over at my place in Arizona,' said 21-year-old Toronto Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews, a huge gamer who was born Sept.

The game is even held in high regard by some who know a thing or two about NHL hockey but are too young to have played it when it came out. Simple gameplay, quirky-if-distorted 16-bit graphics and music, and the inclusion of both NHL team and player names for the first time (the result of joint backing by the NHL and NHL Players' Association) helped make it a classic. But NHL '94 had many other memorable components. Roenick was the game's star, seemingly scoring every time he shot the puck. 1 thing that people talk to me about everywhere I go.' 'It's my claim to fame,' Roenick said of the video game that was released 25 years ago. But when fans see him in public, they usually want to discuss his exploits on a virtual (and mysteriously blue) sheet of ice, not a real one.

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