EASHL Championships

After months and months of grinding it out online, the inaugural season has come to a close. While teams continue to duke it out online for bragging rights, we have gone ahead and selected 16 of the top Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 teams to take part in this year's post-season tournament, the NHL 09 EASHL Invitational.

The online portion of the tournament will have the eight teams per console squaring off against each other in a first-round elimination game on June 27th. Winners will then move on to the second round on July 4th and the winners from there will then advance to the Console Championships taking place online July 11th. Console Champions will earn an invite to EA Canada in Vancouver to then play in a Best-of-Seven series to take place August 5th-7th.

Here are the tournament match-ups for the first round:

PlayStation 3 Console Championships

#1 No CryBabys vs #8 MiNNeApoLIs KiDs

#2 Angry Whoppers vs #7 HE HATE ME

#3 NHL Regulators vs #6 ATLANTIC DANGLERS

#4 Mega Meat Stars vs #5 RapidCity Riot

Xbox 360 Console Championships

#1 Shammers United vs #8 THE HITMEN

#2 DREAM KILLERS vs #7 Dragon Force

#3 The White Church vs #6 xX DiRtY SniPe Xx

#4 13th Amendment vs #5 Purple Cobraz

With the invites sent to the GM's there has already been a lot of talk about the competition in the tournament and it's looking to be quite a fierce race to the EASHL Championship. MORE

NHL10 - Update

Overview


"The NHL franchise that has won 19 sports game of the year awards over the past two years begins a new era with gameplay innovations that deliver a new standard of toughness, the emotion of playoff hockey on the ice and in the arena, and over 200 gameplay refinements that replicate the skill and finesse that every fan sees throughout the NHL playoffs.

A new first-person fighting engine enables players to trade punches with an NHL tough guy. Feel what it’s like to be on the ice in the skates of an NHL player to throw and dodge punches. Grab and tug an opponent’s jersey to land a punch that ignites the fans and sparks your team to victory. Challenge a skill player and an opposing team tough guy will step in to settle the score.

On ice toughness and intimidation is taken to a new level in NHL 10 where winning one-on-one battles for possession of the puck along the boards becomes a test of will and skill. Utilizing an all-new board physics engine, players can use their body to shield the puck on the boards and then kick-pass it to teammates. Bigger, stronger players pin opponents to the boards while fanatical fans bang on the glass, just like real life. Fore-check defenders, pressure the puck and finish checks to intimidate your opponent into mistakes. Players fatigue, bobble passes, and avoid collisions under threat of constant physical pressure. Inspire teammates, ignite the fans and change the momentum of a game by instigating scrums, drawing penalties, and mixing it up — all after the referee blows the whistle!"


Known Key Features and Updates

• All new 360° precision passing system
• "Authentic" board play
• Post-whistle face washes and scrums with penalties
• First-person fighting
• Intimidation tactics
• More detailed and dynamic crowd
• Crowds respond more realistically to play and players
• Animated player faces during play
• Over "200 game play enhancements"
• Deeper game play sliders affect human or AI attributes
• Ability to one-time loose pucks
• Leg fake deke, shots from knees and out of the air
• Glitch goals and exploit goals from '09 will be fixed for NHL 10
• Curve shot goal will be gone. Animation removed.
  
• 150+ new Goaltender saves
  
• Cross-crease five-hole goal will be fixed
• Winger/Center 4-on-4 faceoffs will now have the center taking the draw
• AI defencemen will be harder to work around and play stronger positionally
• Line changes and line matching will be fixed and work in NHL 10
• Player disconnects are tracked more accurately
• Player color indicators are fixed positionally
• Teams will be matched up according to overall team ranking
• Team match-making will be based on the number of human players playing
• Greater variety of jerseys
• Gameplay pausing restricted to after the whistle only - 3 pauses per team
• Camera settings can be set to "Prefer up" permanently
  

From Cursed to Immortalized

Stanley Cup Curse
Losing Streak
HCMT's Line-up Changes and Traps
10th & Not making Playoffs
Criers
Caps
Canes
Touching the Prince of Whales
Wings



Our Pittsburgh Penguins, Stanley Cup Champions!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

PLAYER ATTRIBUTE EFFECTS

Offensive Attributes

Wrist shot accuracy
-Accuracy of all shots other than slapshots

Wrist shot power
-Power of all shots other than slapshots

Puck Control
-Related to the deking effect of shooting, good puck control prevents the loss of accuracy
-Ability to keep the puck when bumped or there is stick to stick contact on the puck carrier

Deking
-Quality of loose puck dekes
-Speed of right stick deking
-Effect on shot accuracy while deking (O'RLY)

Slap Shot Accuracy
-Accuracy of slap shots

Slap Shot Power
-Power of slap shots

Passing
-Magnitude of the effect on quality of passes outside of the player's field of view (see Off.Aware)
-Also affects the likelihood of pass interception, e.g. a good passer affects opponents ability to intercept passes. This is old stuff, I do not like this artificial approach at all, it should just affect the quality of the pass and the opponents should deal with the puck based on their own situation and attributes. This is part of the cause of the weirdness you sometimes see where players won't intercept pucks it seems they should.
-Automatic saucer passes for humans
-Other effects on CPU passing

Off. Awareness
-Field of view is for making passes, passes to players outside field of view are slowed (see Passing)
-Affects CPU player decision making when passing

Deflections
-Affects the quality of deflections off slap passes.
-Ideally this would have more of an effect on whether the deflection connects in the first place and on how well placed the deflected puck is.


Defensive Attributes

Balance
-Ability to resist hits and keep control of the puck (O'RLY)

Checking
-Ability to hit
-CPU decision to hit

Defensive Awareness
-Pass interceptions
-Reaction time for defensively deflecting passes away
-For CPU, more effort on when backchecking

Discipline
-Takes fewer penalties, for humans this affects calls that would randomly occur on hits (like elbows)

Face-offs
-Better chance of winning face-offs

Shot Blocking
-Bad shot blockers get the standing shot block, good ones get the sliding one which reduces the screen effect.

Aggressiveness
-Tendency of CPU player to body check
-No effect on human.

FreeCandyYan
-Increases the likelihood of 12+ penalty minutes per game.

Athleticism Attributes

Acceleration
-Forward acceleration

Agility
-Turning ability

Speed
-Top speed

Toughness
-Fighting ability
-Increased tendency to take penalties (it will be gone for NHL10)

Endurance
-Recover from fatigue more quickly

Durability
-Ability to withstand injuries

Garbage
-Ability to play more like Eric Politowski


GOALIE ATTRIBUTE EFFECTS


Goalie Reflex Attributes

Angles
-How far out the goalie comes to challenge
-Quickness reacting to a pass

Breakaway
-Modifies save ability on breakaways (essentially a modifier on Agility for this case only)

Five hole
Glove High
Glove Low
Stick High
Stick Low
-Quickness making saves to the respective region


Goalie Puck Control Attributes

Passing
-Goalie pass and clearance strength

Poke Checking
-Likelihood of the goalie attempting a poke check (CPU only)

Puck Playing
-How aggressively the goalie will go out to play a loose puck

Rebound Control
-Modifies how far the puck bounces off the goalie when it hits him

Shot Recovery
-How quickly the goalie gets up when after being down - currently no effect


Goalie Athleticism Attributes

Agility
-Quickness making saves in general, combines with region attribs (5-hole, glove high, glove low, stick high, stick low)
-Acceleration moving around the crease

Aggressiveness
-Should be how far he comes out to challenge, but it is not working currently because it is tied to Angles instead

Durability
-Not used in game because goalies do not get injured currently

Endurance
-Not used in game

Speed
-Speed moving in the crease and when skating

Vision
-Reduces the likelihood of the goalie being screened

Anti-Syniper
-Reduces the likelihood of being scored by your own team.

LETS GO PENS! LETS GO PENS! LETS GO PENS!

Team Pensblog!

Flyers Series Favorites!

(cryafilthia failers)

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