Back in March the news slipped out that EA Sports' NHL franchise was headed to the Wii. It turns out it won't be a version of NHL 11 that hits the Wii but instead it will be branded as NHL Slapshot and include a hockey stick controller attachment. The Toronto Sun has revealed the news and gone into some details of the game including that Wayne Gretzky will be the cover athlete, how the controls work, and the career mode. It’s hard to say what the biggest news is here. That EA is finally doi...

EA Sports and the NCAA could be close to announcing a licensing agreement that would introduce college hockey into the NHL series. Paul Kelly of College Hockey Inc. has stated that the NCAA has been in talks with EA Sports for some time now and are close to reaching that agreement. Along with college teams a deal would also include Canadian major junior teams. Recently the inclusion of the CHL was announced for NHL 11. It is unclear whether adding an NCAA component would be possible in the ...

A few weeks ago word leaked out that the rights to the Canadian Hockey League had been purchased by EA Sports and would be included in NHL 11. That has now been confirmed. The Western Hockey League, Ontario Hockey League, and Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (the three make up the CHL) will all have teams, players and uniforms represented in NHL 11. The licensing agreement between EA SPORTS and the CHL allows the following to be included in NHL 11: Ability to play with all 60 teams that mak...

EA Sports has released the first screenshot for NHL 11 and teased a major upgrade along with it. NHL 11 will include a brand new real-time physics engine. The screenshot is meant to demonstrate that and also includes another new element of the game with a broken stick visible in the background....

When it was finally confirmed last week that the NHL 2K series would be halted on the 360/PS3 it was stated that NHL 2K11 would in fact be released on the Wii. At the time it made sense considering the lesser development costs and having no competition on the casual heavy console. Now though it looks like that competition has arrived as a Walmart blog posting has revealed that EA Sports will be bringing NHL 11 to the Wii. EA is going to be bringing their NHL game to the Wii system this year f...

Back in December I broke the story that 2K Sports was likely benching the NHL 2K franchise. The company did not confirm that was the case at the time but they continued to let the rumors swirl which was indication enough that the series was being put to a halt. Today 2K Sports confirmed (via Kotaku) that there will be no NHL 2K11 for the 360 and PS3 but they may return for 2K12. The series is not completely dead however as the Nintendo Wii will be will be receiving NHL 2K11. (more...)...

Late last night I posted an article regarding the lack of NHL 2K11 being mentioned in the list of titles for Take Two over the next fiscal year. NHL 2K had been included in the report in previous years making its omission glaring. The situation is mirroring that of College Hoops before it was officially canceled. Chris Littmann at First Cuts was able to get comment from 2K Sports regarding the future of NHL 2K. As he points out the following statement speaks volumes as to the situation. ...

Ever since Take Two decided to shut down College Hoops due to the lack of sales potential vs development costs the next game that appeared to be in danger was the NHL 2K series. Sales have been dropping to miniscule levels as EA Sports NHL has grown and dominated the market. While it has been clear that resources have been limited with NHL 2K there have been no official statements made as to the future of the franchise. However now there is an indication that NHL 2K11 may not be in develo...