Technically, yes, it still would have been possible, but I can assure all the information obtained prior to my entry into the scene has greatly shortend my learning curve and allowed me to continue on with new findings from existing knowledge. It also brought to my attention that there was still an active community of old skool ea hockey enthusiests who would benefit from not losing have their life in a hex editor in the attempt to keep the scene alive with updated rosters etc.
Without those two insentives, I probably never would of started programming an editor as I would of assessed the time commitment for the return/outcome would of just not been worth it.
That, together to with the fact I wanted to give back to the emulation scene as a whole for the joy it brought to me reliving old games, finalised my decision. We can't forget those who dumped roms and those who wrote emulators, as without there efforts, none of this would be happening!
So the results of all those efforts will one day soon be that fact that even the most hex editor fearing gamer can customise their own NHL rom without the headaches....
... and everyone lived happily ever after... The End.