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*** UPDATED V1.1 below *** What started as a quick and dirty little project to scratch the itch for modding NHL 94 into a Hockey Night in Canada themed ROM, became a full scale experimental playground. This is the first release of... Based on the 1990 - 1991 season, this mod recreates the league from opening day: October 4th, 1990. Using the famed "Hockey Night in Canada" branding from the late 80s, this ROM features a number of new innovations. A completely revamped intro theme, using the iconic HNIC theme instead of the traditional NHL94 theme. A completely custom main menu screen (featuring the 89-90 cup finalists) Team and player introductions by the famed PBP commentator, Bob Cole (on a completely customized late 80s powder blue HNIC themed background!) In-game menu screen edits (timekeepers, Zamboni & scoreboard branding, team banners, fonts) In-game menu changes - HNIC branded custom backgrounds, colours and fonts Player Cards brought to you by EA Sports (in conjunction with the NHL and PRO SET trading cards) Era specific centre ice logos (shown here: Northlands Coliseum logo in Edmonton) Player sprite modifications for more colour variation and uniform accuracy (shown here: MTL blue helmets, no shoulder stripe tied to arm/sock stripe colours) Cleaned up large heading font (GOAL!) and HNIC/CBC branded scoreboard (bottom left) Molson 3 Stars of the Game (Molson was a HNIC title sponsor in the 80s-90s) The hot-shot rookie goaltender takes on the tried and tested former cup champion. (over 500 original old-school player portraits ingame, as close to the 1990-91 season as possible) Modified goaltender graphics (pads, trapper and NEW masks) ...and many more tweaks and graphic surprises and ideas based on the great work of folks like @clockwise @Jkline3 @AdamCatalyst @Sean@kingraph @smozoma and more... Included in the package: A custom updated version of NOSE 1.2c beta with additional options to properly change colours in any "Drezz" sprite hacked ROM. ---------- Some quick notes about this ROM: - This is version 1.0 of the mod. There are bound to be some weird glitches in there somewhere. If at any point you encounter them, please report them to me and I'll see if they can be rectified or improved upon in subsequent patched releases. - The rosters are based on THE BEGINNING of the 1990-1991 season. Trades and Free Agent Signings were valid up until the 4th of October, 1990. A playoff edition featuring player re-assignments to NEW teams will be released next. - Team strengths and player overalls/stats were based on the results of the END of the 1989-90 campaign. If you are disappointed at the rating given to X player, please note that ratings were based on how players ended the previous season. Rookies will have lower ratings, regardless of historical significance (Jagr, Blake, etc). There is a good chance the same player will have accurately expected ratings according to their effort in the 1990-1991 campaign in the followup PLAYOFF EDITION version. - There are a large number of hacks to this ROM. The intro theme. Custom background and splash screens. In-game sprite overhaul Player portraits for ALL 500+ players Team banners Fonts The ROM was modded to create the illusion of playing Hockey Night in Canada from the early 90s as opposed to being a crummy ROM hack of NHL 94 with HNIC graphics. I hope it transports you back in time to a period before modern expansion, the rise of salary caps and the glory days of hockey's heroes like Lemieux and Gretzky. Enjoy. - Drezz HNIC 90-91 Season v1.1 (NHL 94).zip

I guess I'll start with the obvious. "What? But you two don't do NHL stuff!" True, normally we leave that to the other guys, but admittedly we started this project when it seemed that there was going to be no updated NHL ROM for this season. And admittedly it took us a while to complete, since you know, life stuff. But to whip out a tired old cliche; At the end of the day, we figured that third place was okay too, and we had gone in a different enough direction that this is more a companion piece to the other great updates that @AdamCatalyst and @seamor have released while we were dillydallying. To that end, @Jkline3 and I would like to submit: NHL 2023 Reverse Retro '94 Edition Defining Characteristics: Every team is geared up to use their Reverse Retro uniforms. Alternate uniforms are given preference when opportunity presents itself for whichever uniform is not the RR. Team Select screen features Reverse Retro logos with uniform background. The Team Select screen also features art changes like new "Home" and "Away" banners with colour sections adapted to the team's uniform colour. Trade Deadline Edition features a new background with a special thanks to @Drezz And some new branding and adverting for the community. New player sprites for more versatility and accuracy in how team uniforms are presented. Might have to fix that ref staring off... Every player gets a player photo. From the first line cover athlete to the obscure third line winger. Logos and fonts also got an update too. So. Many. Photos.... Was originally even going to try the colour photo trick, but the team photographers were so wildly inconsistent that this proved a fools errand. Presentation brought to you by: Ray gives his pre-game analysis of newly minted Islander Bo Horvat [rosters updated as of 01 Feb, 2023] I keep wanting to call that place USB Arena... Main menu lineup scrolling has been expanded to allow viewing of the entire roster. And all those damn pictures. In addition to guys going to their new teams, we'll say "several" players also got some colour adjustments to their photos. Player benches reduced to original size so no coach, but kept the goalie and grey rubber floor. Some teams had to use some creativity to get the on-ice logos to look right. Team banners got flashy new fonts too. Zamboni repainted with modern EA logo. ... same Cup though. Probably a bunch of other minor things that I don't recall anymore. Under the hood stuff: Original custom player attribute stats based on NHL23 updates. Weight bug fix is applied. SmozROM Ratings consistency fix - player ratings will match hot/cold overall. Freeze Bug applied so no player stats and player name on second line. User Records set to "ON" can still cause crashes with Vegas, Washington and Winnipeg so caution is advised. Tighter puck collision on boards and net making for pucks that hit closer to the boards sprites and a slighter smaller scoring area on the nets. Expanded goalie roaming area. Go out to the edge of the trapezoid out to the faceoff dots to cut down the angle. Goalie can also carry the puck out to the blue line before the automatic whistle. [if play isn't blown for holding the puck too long] *NEW* Goalie Y-button control hack applied. *NEW* Edit Lines hack for any player to play at any position. The three stars calculator hack didn't seem to play nice in our games, so we left it out. Might revisit it in an update if it seems like it needs fixing. Glass still breaks [okay, it's just been a long time since I've managed to break the glass, so I'm just balancing the space and keeping a shot for posterity.] Probably forgetting something... well let us know if I missed some info or credits. Hope you all enjoy it. Ah. Remembered what it was. Went through and made sure that every possible divisional home and away matchup was possible in playoff mode. NHL2023 RR94 Ed - V1.0.bin NHL2023 RR94 Trade Deadline Ed.bin NHL2023 - 94 Edition TD.bin NHL2023 RR94 Playoffs Ed [v3].bin NHL2023 94 Edition PO [v3].bin NHL 2023 RR94 SC Finals Ed [v4].bin NHL 2023 94 Edition SCF [v4].bin

THIS. IS. MARCH! Hi everyone! I have FINALLY finished the complete overhaul of the music, logos, presentation, and rinks of this ROM and I am excited to share the results. I haven't merged the regions for the superset yet, but in the spirit of the conference playoffs, here are the east and west ROMs in a .zip. The branding on the ROMs has changed from ESPN+ College Hockey Gameday to NCAA Hockey 23: Road to Tampa Bay. Only the ECAC and Hockey East are on ESPN+, so the fictional NCAAtv covering games felt like a much more natural fit. Integrating Unique College Assets Team branding has also been shifted to embrace two unique aspects of college sports - rankings and mascots. When possible, a mascot was either emphasized or replaced a team's current logo. NCAAtv Presentation The pre-game experience has been updated with new background graphics (thank you @Drezz) and new background music (thank you @smozoma, Stompin' Tom Connors, and The Alan Parsons Project). Colby Cohen replaces Barry Melrose, because the imaginary NCAAtv network wanted a college hockey alumni doing pre-game. In-Game Experience The in-game experience has been changed somewhat radically - stats have been entirely recalibrated, the crowd wears team colors, center-ice logos have been turned, and organ music has been redone to have more modern songs or college arena/band classics. Lines are as accurate as possible. Line charts were taken from CHN Now app. The most noticeable change will be stats - I did a preliminary round of ratings based on season and per-game numbers and then followed that up with a sweep through each team to ensure greats felt like greats and no one who will be an accountant in two years time plays like a future NHL legend. ________________________________ Download here! NCAA Hockey 23 - Road to Tampa v1.0.zip ________________________________ Dev Notes - There will be no outdoor patch or "expansion pods" for the foreseeable future - I cannot watch 62 teams and make notes on 20 players. If a player you like has bad ratings, it is because he has bad counting stats. Stats were generated using counting stats put on a percentile scale and then placed in a custom range of overalls for each stat that was different across positions. A manual sweep was conducted to accommodate for injured players or D3 games. Goalies were rated manually.

Well, a massive thank you to the organizers of this tournament. @halifax, @smozoma and everyone else that helped organize and keep things running smoothly, like @TecmoJon and anyone who chipped in. The tourney gets better and better every year, and without you guys, this community would be nowhere near what it is. For me personally, this weekend could not have gone any better. Entering three tournaments, and winning three tournaments, including the big one, is just unbelievable and completely surpasses any hopes and expectations I had. When someone asked me about my chances of winning, I said they were about 33% for Griffey, 33% for 2vs2, and 10% for King (at most). I’m no mathematician, but I think that means the likelihood of winning all three was literally 1%. I feel like I won the lottery. Friday night was a blast. I was pumped to have a solo weekend to play retro sports games, meet a bunch of you guys I’ve only ever played online, and see the guys I already know and love. Thank you to everyone who got me a drink. @TecmoJon I still owe you one. Many laughs were had. Good times! For 2v2, I was very fortunate to have @annatar as my teammate. A consummate professional who weathered some storms and captained our way to the championship. Thanks bud! We may not play 2v2 the conventional way, but we score some pretty nice one-timers! Shout out to @angryjay93 and @TecmoJon who played amazing, beat us once, and gave us a good run in the championship game with a low, low score of 2-1. Griffey was tons of fun and I wish it had a higher profile and more of a following. @Stantonator is a natural; despite not being familiar with Griffey, he gave me a scare early on with a four run lead that I had to surmount. But after that it was smooth sailing as I did not lose a game. I figured I’d meet @TheWiz84 @angryjay93 or @halifax (or maybe even @Mooney) in the semis and the finals, but I never had to play any of them! Instead I had to play the local ringers who were actually awesome players. Apparently these guys still play the game. They knew things about the game that I did not. My semis win was a walk-off double in extra innings and I think the final game was 0-0 until the last inning when I strung some hits together and won 5 or 6-0. It was nice of the venue to let us finish after hours. It was hilarious when I won and turned around and there were only like three people there! @halifax handed me the trophy and we left immediately. As for the King tournament itself, what a rollercoaster it was. My round robin was not good. @TheProfessor and @TecmoJon both beat me and the games weren't even close. I was not feelin' it, at all. And due to my very average 4-2 record, my playoff path was set to be extremely challenging. I got matched up in round 1 with @angryjay93 one of the toughest tacticians in the game. I must have smartened up because I think I won 5-1 and 3-1. But I still feel like he subconsciously wanted to be done with SNES so he could go win another GENS trophy. Next up was another legend, @kingraph. We always have these super tight-checking battles that go down to the wire. I was fortunate to surmount a game 3 deficit to squeak by. I feel like we had the same kind of series in Vegas. After that, it was @TheProfessor who was actually my slight favourite to win the whole thing if I had to pick someone pre-tourney. He has the hometurf advantage, tons of online wins, and he's always near the top of the King results. Anyway, at that point, we had to start playing on the stage/stream, which is always nerve-wracking. But again, I somehow pulled that one off and got the wins. Next was @dangler who just absolutely dummied me. He mercied me 8-2 TWICE in a row!! On the stream, in front of my poor family. I don’t know what happened. I just got dangled, HARD. Then I had to play @koke_45 in the "losers" final. He took game one 5-3, but then I buckled down and only allowed one goal in the next two games. Against one of the most dangerous scorers, I consider that a major accomplishment. I think knocking Roenick out for game three might have helped me! But then again, Joe Murphy is pretty much on the same level as Roenick, right @halifax? The finals were a bit of a blur because at that point, I was getting delirious. Tired from a long day, and a late night Friday. But I’ve watched the stream a couple times now so I have some idea of what the heck happened. Winning three of four against @dangler is a tall task under any circumstances. Especially with that kind of pressure, and after he had just mercied me twice. But I guess I got some hot teams, I had some success/luck with the double-pad stack, and I got some timely goals. In the final game, I was losing at some point, but I didn't really panic. I think because I was already happy with my weekend, and because I have already suffered the most heartbreaking loss imaginable (see Vegas, 2017). When the final whistle sounded, it took a while for things to set in. I felt like there was no way that it was actually over, that I actually ended the tournament with a win. It took a while. I STILL don’t have the full perspective on what happened. To beat the two GENS giants, and three of the top five SNES players, is pretty huge. This field of competitors, even without Mikail, was outstanding. I have been wanting to win one of these badly, ever since the first was announced in 2015. This game, this hobby, is admittedly a big part of my life, as it probably is for you if you're reading all this. So, it feels GREAT to be King! I’m so fortunate to come away from the weekend fully satisfied. It’s rare in life that things work out so well so I gotta savour this. But I think even if I finished top 12*, I still would have been very pleased with the weekend. I had so much fun. I really appreciate that everyone in this community loves this game as much as I do, and that you continue to play and travel for these tournaments! You guys all f**king rule! Cheers! *maybe top 8 Note : if I didn't mention you here, it's not because I didn't love seeing you. It's because you didn't fit into the narrative.

I have fixed the playoffs bug in NHL95. You can get a fixed version of the game here. If you don't know what this is about: There was a game-breaking bug in NHL95 that made it so you missed the playoffs if you got 128 or more points in the regular season. (See some discussion about that in this other thread) I made a short video covering the fix The short story of the bug is that the programmer accidentally used some CPU instructions that only work for numbers up to 127. I switched them to use the instructions that work for numbers up to 255. If you have a season you've already started (but haven't started the playoffs yet), the fix will work for it (you don't need to start a new season) There are 3 different ways to get the fix here. You just need 1. I recommend getting the fixed ROM. Option 1 - Download Fixed ROM Here is the fixed ROM (complete game file). You can play this file in any emulator software, or on original hardware with an EverDrive cartridge: NHL95-PlayoffsFix.bin Option 2 - IPS Patch Here is an IPS patch for if you want to update the ROM yourself: NHL95-PlayoffsFix.ips Option 3 - Game Genie Codes And if you want to use the fix on an original cartridge on an original Sega Genesis, here are the Game Genie codes to use: MUST DO before beginning playoffs: ATDA-AA6T - Disable Checksum (if you don't do this one, other codes will cause game to refuse to load) ADLT-WE7L - Playoffs Fix 1/2 ADLT-WL7R - Playoffs Fix 2/2 OPTIONAL: AANA-WE4E - Standings Fix 1/2 AANA-WL4J - Standings Fix 2/2 I verified these in an emulator, so I am just assuming they work on real hardware. You only really need to enter the first 3 codes once you finish the regular season, but before selecting the "Move on to playoffs" option. The last 2 codes just fix the standings display, so you would use those ones during the regular season to see yourself at the top of the standings -- but they aren't needed for the playoff seeding. If I made a mistake in the game genie codes and it doesn't work, I'm sorry. I will test it out when I can. Game Genie is in the mail.

Recent breakthroughs developed the necessity to Revisit this one, but then the question was what to call it. It's not an update since the original 30-team game was abandoned in favour of a ground up Rebuild with 32 teams. So what "Re" word applies here? Remake? Remaster" Redux? Rewind? Nah. On second thought, to paraphrase a '90s icon, "That previous one was just a mic check." Or maybe "Retcon" is the word I'll use now. So yeah, you might find some other version on the interwebs out there, but that one isn't the Real version. You might call it a prototype, or a poor excuse for a hack that was put together by some hack, whatever. Time to Reload. Back in 1988 SNK released arguably the best baseball game ever made for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was loads of fun back in the day [as long as your Nintendo's 10NES chip didn't erroneously flash the memory and erase your save] and despite the engine being reused for three more, less successful, NES entries, as well as seeing two pretty solid, but much less charming sequels on the NEO•GEO MVS and AES systems, which were later given NEO•GEO Pocket/Colour ports, it remains a classic to this day. So in reverence to that game, we're going to try to fix the story of what the hockey version would be. The backstory for this one is that it was released in 1992 by Romstar [SNK's North American distribution arm in the late '80s/early '90s] on the Sega Genesis, the first Hockey Stars features many recognizable teams and player names from it's baseball contemporaries as well as familiar box art. Although it looks like it was completed with some of the prototype art as screen photos. Eh well, these things happen. On to some familiar art... Okay so some of the assets were good enough to keep from the prototype. Including the trademark stark white splash screen and "Be a Champ" words of encouragement. Might have taken the advise of reformatting the title screen to the more common English layout. The main menu got a face lift thanks to some amazing "behind the scenes" work and calls back to design elements from some of the baseball games, while the Pre-game intro screen has some fixes and a new subtle background. Teams are still divided up by league; You will find mention of the "Exciting", "Fighting", "Professional" and "Legends" leagues in the team intros. These are not exclusive in Versus play as in the NEO•GEO releases, but will determine what division you play in during the Playoff mode. Although not as sharp as you will find on AES hardware, full colour cartoony depictions of player photos are still present and take their art style from the previous "Professional" game. And just as in most other SNK games, the pre-match presenter has another SNK character making a cameo in Athena from Psycho Soldier. Got her moved down to line up nicer with her text block though. The jumbotron gets a Stars-y facelift and the arena looks bigger, while the classic Zamboni returns with a perspective shift. Each player has an individual photo and stats you can look up. The fixed View Player screen gets a treatment similar to the NES games, although the NES wouldn't have been able to handle the colour shifting. In another similarity to the Baseball games, player stats seem to be directly imported as they are wildly different. Meaning that play-style can vary quite drastically even among line mates. Some may wish to play with line changes off and create a "super line" of each team's best players, but if you are looking for the added challenge of having to adapt to each player's varying abilities, you may want to keep line changes on. As an aside, as one of the now six "Create-a-Team" options, the Turtles are the "Veterans" and submitted the old photos. While each of the other teams take their skill set theme from the original baseball game as well. The Playoff Cup from Professional makes a return, only this time it is put on a pedestal as hockey deserves. The colour coding now makes sense as each "League" is contained to a divisional playoff format and the faint watermark on traditional green is carried through. There's more of that SNK branding... And since "Stars" is in the name they get some adjustments and prominent features as well. At least the 3-stars icon isn't another SNK logo. AI shooters could use some help though. There, that's a little better. Hockey Stars 1 [1.2].bin

This was a dumb idea. But as it is my habit for doing weird and/or esoteric stuff, the question started off innocently enough. "What if there was a game where you play in a beer league, that is sponsored by actual beer companies? I mean... Breweries used to have teams back in the day... granted then so did factories, offices and banks." "Except instead of real company teams, you make it play like a typical beer league." "Yeah this is already sounding silly." "No, it's sounding funny and awesome and you have to do it." "I *have* to eh? Ah what the hell..." So with that mindset, we dive into: The backstory on this one was that, while developing IIHF Hockey [1991] for the Genesis, a small section of Team 1920 was unwinding with a few brews after hours and thought it would be funny to use the game engine to make a beer league game. This breakaway group called themselves the "Twist Cap Division" and did the work in their free time, which they had some of since crunching wasn't as prevalent back in those days. They took 22 of their favourite beers and named teams after them, subbing them in for the international teams. Bottle caps made for great logo references and a Beer League Hockey logo displaced the EA Hockey League logo because never mind them. The idea was that these guys would never play in a big arena, so the smaller community centre look was used for the pre-game team preview screen. Playoffs were divided up and Easter eggs were thrown around willy-nilly. Just assume that everything is an Easter egg. Such as the black and white Elsinore brewery teams. If you've seen Strange Brew, you know exactly how well these guys play hockey. The kids today might be tempted to call this team the "Dark Souls of Hockey", but they aren't *that* bad. Broadcast sponsorship was "provided" by local channel C-BRU - Channel 13. Fittingly, the beer leaguers are playing for glory and a golden trophy. Based on a real trophy, which is just a regular keg painted glorious metallic yellow. The actual golden trophy was the stuff inside it. This was a dumb idea. Please enjoy responsibly. Beer League Hockey 91.bin Disclaimer: This game was based on the PAL port of EA Hockey [1991] as I am apparently obsessed with the extra speed and arcadey physics that it provides. For best results, set your device to 60hz NTSC.

My turn to talk about the weekend I spent 14 years of my life running a yearly retro game tournament; I have the benefit of an inkling of what @halifaxand @smozomawent through over the course of the weekend. The tournament, with big help from @UltraMagnusand the generally polite and accommodating members of the community, went off without any major issues. That can only happen from hard work, dedication, and a love of doing something right for a huge group of people. Big thanks and appreciation for the work those guys put in to make the tournament a huge success. On to the boring part..... I flew in on Air Canada on Thursday and managed to get to the AirBnB in enough time to get some games in with @Scribe99 @danTML7 and Szpakman just as a nice welcome to the weekend. The Friday events were awesome and well run, due to a family issue my original partner @DanKcould not make the tournament, so I was saddled with this @angryjay93guy for Super Nintendo 2 v 2. By staying out of his way, we managed to snag a 2nd place finish in the tournament which was a nice bonus. Saturday dawned with us in the AirBnB running behind for the morning, though we made it in time for the tournament's start. I hit my goal in the Genesis tournament, sneaking into the backdoor of the King Bracket before bowing out almost immediately. But as a bonus, I got to play Smoz which was incredibly fun. In the Super Nintendo tournament, I managed to surprisingly cruise through group play taking a single loss to @TheProfessorand Bob Essensa's skate blades 4-3. I upset the future champ @Bob Kudelskiin a Rangers/Kings game that - unfortunately for the rest of the field - I was never in any danger of losing and led him to refocus his efforts. Bracket play opened against @Stantonatorand this is where I wish we had the series on stream. First game he called Boston/Pitt - I grabbed Pitt, both teams were equally matched, and I managed to pull out the game 1 win. I called Washington/St Louis for game 2 (a personal favorite of mine and @annatar) and Stanton grabbed the Caps. For most of the game, he kept me out of reach, scoring timely goals, securing his defensive zone, and playing well. I managed to claw back to a one goal deficit with 40ish seconds to go and a center circle faceoff. Stanton won it, got the puck to Bondra, and decided to (and I agree with this decision) use Bondra to just play keep away from the center of my zone and run out the clock. Somehow, Jeff Brown and Garth Butcher managed to catch that little guy and check the puck away from him. A pass to little Nelson Emerson kick started a race toward his goal. Ridley failed to square up Emerson, Hatcher and Iafrate were just out of position, and Stanton was caught between trying to hit Emerson and take Beaupre. I managed to sneak a short side deke just inside the post and hit the game tying goal with 3 seconds left on the clock. I personally thought Stanton was going to either a. have a heart attack, b. break a chair, or c. kill me . Fortunately, he refocused and won the game in overtime. Game 3 was a Rangers/Kings call, I grabbed the Rangers as I did against BobK and managed to see out the series win. That moved me on to play @koke_45 one of the more scary players to face in any setting. While I gave a good account of myself in a Montreal/Toronto matchup, I just didn't have the chops to keep up in his preferred Quebec/Edmonton matchup. I'll get him one of these days. That knocked me down into the loser's side where I won my first game against Rooster in a Winnipeg/Toronto matchup before having to face Annatar. As he said above, he has a small score to settle with me and chose a Winnipeg/St Louis matchup. My run of using big, slow-ish, skilful-ish teams ended with a 4-1 defeat to a good friend. And that is really what this tournament was about meeting all of the people I have known only as names and the occasional face/voice behind a screen. It was an amazing experience meeting Szpak, Kaze, Sebe, Scribe, Mr T, Thrillhouse, KingRaph, DanTML, Corbett, AngryJay, Annatar, BobK, Koke, Dangler, TheProfessor, Gambi, Mooney, SlipperyPete, Stantonator, Skankhunt, Halifax, and Smoz. I know I missed out on meeting some other people, but I know I will see them at the next one and the one after that and the one after that..... (Oh, and I finished 4th in the Genesis 95 tournament with UltraMagnus and Segathon pointing out who I should play next over and over again until I was done)

I wanted to write up a bit of a recap here of my SNES tournament while I still remember some of what happened, it might be boring but thanks for humoring me. If I don't mention someone, I probably just forgot to but it was genuinely nice to talk to everyone I did interact with over the weekend, and I'm sorry I didn't get to talk to everyone! Overall, it was a great weekend. Have to say big thanks to @halifax for everything he does - I can't overstate how much the community is in debt to you for putting together these live events and bringing so many of us together. It's also always a personal pleasure to see you and hang out, even though you're usually busy organizing or playing. I'm just happy I've been able to attend so many of these tournaments. Kudos to @smozoma as well who I can tell you spent a lot of time loading up his car with consoles, cables and TVs - along with doing lots of other stuff over the course of the event - to help make this thing happen. This was my second time at Waves and it is (was ) a super venue, we had all the space we needed, great setups to play and stream, and it was nice to be able to grab a beer or a bite without venturing out. Great to run into some of the old guard like @IAmFleury'sHipCheck who also seems determined to attend as many live events as possible. Love to see it and always amazing to chat even though we didn't have a ton of time to hang out. Likewise @kingraphwho is a fixture at these things and always has a smile on his face. Also wanted to shout out some of the folks who came from afar like @Stantonator who has a great attendance record representing the west coast, as well as some of my nWo buddies @TecmoJon @angryjay93 @Gambi and @koke_45 (too sweet). There was a good showing from the Maritimes too with folks like @dangler @Mooney and @slipperypete making the trip, great to meet dangler again after KO94 2 and put faces to names for the others. Mooney also showed he can put away the beers like a champ, I know you are doing the east coast proud. The community right now is just a great bunch of guys and like I said, there's too many others to mention so I'll just say it was great to meet everyone, whether it was SNES or gens people. I drove in on Friday and we did the 2v2 and it was a ton of fun. Nice to bring home some hardware with @Bob Kudelski. I don't really remember too much about our games except for the final where we sqeaked out a 2-1 win over angryjay and Tecmo with a nice passing play. I don't think it was very attractive 2v2 but we got the job done. Saturday was a fairly late start for me as I didn't sign up for Sega so I slept in and got over to the venue around noon to play some exis with @dangler and @koke_45, unfortunately those ended up being some of my best games of the day, should have saved those for when it counted! I started my tournament off with a loss to @McMarkis who always plays me tough. I can't remember the teams but I think it was a one goal game. I then got a much needed result against angryjay who is never an easy out in SNES. I won the rest but we had some bumps along the way, I was losing to The Professor's son who has come a long way with his game but managed to turn it around. I also had a 2-1 win over Yepster where he called EDM-SJ and I only barely won, lol. I think group D was a tough bunch of players, or maybe the overall quality was just really high! My other games were against Johnzors and StreetMage and I did manage to get a mercy in the last game which really helped my goal difference. But it wasn't enough, I finished 5-1 along with angryjay and McMarkis and I had the worst goal difference of the three of us. That put me on the top half of the bracket with dangler who was coming in as #1 seed. First I had to get through sickfish who had also gone 5-1 so I knew I couldn't take him lightly. He won the first game 4-3, I can't remember the matchup, but now I was definitely sitting up and taking notice. I was able to get some momentum going after that and I won 7-1 and 6-2 to ease through, but I was sweating after game 1! That meant last 8 in the winner's bracket and I had to face dangler in a 1 vs. 8 matchup. I normally play dangler pretty close but he can be so deadly if he gets hot, so I knew I'd have to be playing at my best. I wanted to call mid tier teams against him (the Mikail treatment) to try to slow the game down and we went NYI-PHI (I think) with him picking the Flyers. There wasn't much between us in the game and it went to OT and then almost to the end of OT after I couldn't bury a couple chances. He scored with 4 seconds left to take game 1, brutal. Real tough to get back in the right mindset after that but no choice. I'm already forgetting the matchups but I think it was something like MTL-WPG and I want to say I took the Habs. If you have a better memory than me please correct me. But I managed to get hot and it was a pretty easy win, 7-3 in the end to set up a decider. I went against my better judgement here and didn't pick another lower tier matchup, going for WSH-LA. I still think that's a good matchup, but he took the Kings and definitely got the most out of them. It was never really close, I lost 8-4 and got knocked down to loser's. My first elimination game was against @TheWiz84 (another guy I was happy to meet, a great new addition to the community and a solid bud) and I don't remember the teams but we both put some goals up on the board and I ended up making it 10-4 to move on. That set me up for a grudge match against my good buddy Tecmo who got the better of me in the last online King. He was actually higher seed after killing it in the RR, so I had to pick a matchup and again I don't know what teams I picked (he probably does, since he is way better than me at remembering these things). I had to play pretty tight and take my chances, it ended 4-1 and I was happy to inform him after that our lifetime record in King games was now 1-1. Now I had to wait to see who was going to be knocked down from winner's, and it ended up being The Professor who always manages to be a gentleman as well as a super tough opponent. We played on stream but unfortunately it wasn't a great game for the neutral. I picked a NJ-STL matchup, something I felt pretty confident about. I guess I expected him to give me NJ, but he didn't, and I ran into a red hot Claude Lemieux as well as Prof's usual precise play. I kept trying to get behind the net with Janney to feed someone out front and he kept reading the play perfectly. 4-2 loss and my day was done. All that remained was to see how things were going to unfold for the last 4 of Prof, dangler, koke and Bob Kudelski. Not exactly a shocking group to make it to the end, although I had hoped to knock one of them out. Dangler was on a heater and ended up mercying Bob in both games in winner's final, and probably thought he had one hand on the trophy. Bob really had to dig deep to then come from behind to beat koke in a best of 3 before playing some of the best 94 I've seen him play when the chips were down. A bunch of us got up on stage to watch the last couple games and both guys were giving it their all. Really impressive stuff. Ultimately it was Bob who edged it with some super clutch goaltending and I was happy for him. Felt like redemption for that famous Vegas final. Dangler played great and will probably win another one of these if he wants to, I know what second place feels like though bud. Was a pretty relaxing end to the night as we were about to get kicked out of the venue and I had a long drive back on Sunday so nothing much else went down. I was hoping to be top four going into the weekend and I ended T5 so I guess that's close - it doesn't feel like a total success but I also can't really complain as the top guys are just so good now and we had 7 out of the 9 guys in A league at the event. I'll be back!

Thanks Bahhhhhhhhhhb. Big thanks to @halifax and @smozoma for putting this thing on. They say, "if you build it, they will come", and that's all well and good, but someone still needs to build it, and you sure do lots of the heavy lifting. I mean look at Metaverse. Their budget is basically... their entire budget more than YOUR budget, and we almost had more active users over the weekend than they did! Arrive at Pearson airport super early, 9am Thursday, same time as Scribe. We meet up and share an Uber to a random Internet cafe because our airbnb doesn't allow entry for another 7 hours LOL. We end up paying $20 in Chinatown for an hour of internet and two sodas. We don't even use the Internet. We end up firing up my laptop and playing exis for about 2 hours. Nobody says anything to us except a non-english speaker who mumbles "you guys.... smart" as he sees us playing on our own computer. I'm still confused, but we nod and continue. Scribe won 4-3 in the BO7. We head back to our airbnb finally, and szpak meets us there with BEER! But even better, he brings a perfectly sized CRT tv. We jam out another 20 exis as TecmoJon and KingRaph finally arrive. As an aside, moving from CPU to CRT was a shock for both scribe and I. I didn't ask others, but it felt different than online. As a plus though, it went away pretty quickly, and nearing the start of night 1, and I can say that scribe, myself, and TecmoJon were all feeling pretty good. Raph having only played a few times in the previous few months was a touch leery. But frick, he's starting from a different place than us dregs. We run out to get some minor groceries and supplies for the next few days, and then head to Waves Gaming for night 1 of 2v2 and some early group play. I personally didn't play any round robin games that night. I was just walking around, taking it all in. Saying hi to the likes of corbett, mr. T, thrillhouse, kgman, sebspakaze, for the first time IRL was amazing. I think I hugged everyone. Maybe everyone but corbett, kgman, and sebe. They just didn't strike me as huggers. Apologies if I'm wrong, hug me twice next time if you want. Thinking that from the typically accepted list of top 10 NHL94 Sega players, the only 3 missing were schmidt/plabax/seth/tick, odds were stacked against me. But still, those guys better be there next year. Raph and I were called to do our 2v2 matches and we were off and running. I didn't jot down any of the games, but we crushed mr. t and Thrill in the round robin, but on our way to the finals, they gave us the biggest scare. we were up a few late, and they kept coming back. with 10 seconds left, somehow mr. T gets a semi-break, flips in the PERFECT rebound try, and grabs puck....... crossbar. everyone watching couldn't believe it. whole place erupted. The finals was vs. scribe/corbett who also had a good time on the way to the finals. Sadly it was only a best of 1. It was so quick and done, we didn't have a chance to really even try new things and learn from mistakes, but was I happy to win it? OH YEAH!!! next year, I'd like it to be a blind entry process where you just enter and you're matched with an automatic partner (skill based matchmaking). It could even take up an entire half day. such a high entertainment value. have its own dedicated stream. Anyways, thanks Raph for the carry, but it was more about HIS raw skill; we had amazing chemistry and made some cool plays and saves. The other 2v2 started going then, as well as some Sega matches. everyone was wrapped up at the moment, so being at Waves was pretty cool because I could just hop onto one of their gaming computers and play some rocket league. it felt way better on their comp, so now i'll be going through that rabbit hole to find out what's wrong with my comp. probably time for new vid card. When we were all booted out at midnight, I screamed "HEY EVERYONE! WE HAVE A VERY SERIOUS DISCUSSION THAT NEEDS TO OCCUR. IT'S ABOUT TO CLOSE, AND WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT WHERE WE'RE ALL GOING AFTER THIS." nobody said s**t. So feeling like the dude that held up his hand for a high five and was collectively shunned by 30 hands, I said nothing more. NEXT TIME, I would like there to be a planned but optional event after each day because degenerates exist that want to get 4 hours sleep each night because we can sleep when we're dead, and we travel with the boys to PARTY!!!!!!! A small consolation was that we headed back to our airBNB, got a few more hours of exis and conversations with scribe, tecmojon, and Raph, and had a nice decent sleep. WAKEY WAKEY toast and bac-ey. I woke up the boys with some coffee, and some bacon/tomato sandwiches, which incidentally was quite better than day 2 breakfast of choice for Raph..... unbuttered brown toast. we hopped off BRIGHT AND EARLY to get to the vent already like 15 minutes late. haha. Sorry Halifax. and I mean it. at 1015am you could already feel his stress. I could read his eyes and face "oh man, no way I'm gonna pull this off. way too many events, not enough time". But in no time flat, we had our intros, country photos, and group brackets ready to go, and vague instructions on what to do. Being adults, we eventually found our way to a TV, found an opponent, and started to play. I do think there's an opportunity here for some of us to bring our 10+ aged children next time, and have them work each group. Making sure there's no downtime between systems. That's what caused us to go so much later. Halifax can only call so much. Downtime between games is ok, but not like 10-20 mins. Take a piss, grab a beer, 2 mins, get your next game done. Anyway, I digress. Here's what happened to me in the round robin. Game 1: Fella named LHX. I think I heard he was a 95 guy perhaps. He chose QUE/DAL. I picked DAL because I know how to use their unique players better, at least that's what I told myself. This guy caused havok like no other. I was down 1 early, and he just kept slapping it from all angles and checking well. It took me until midway through to find my bearings. I was able to get a couple slappers, eased up on myself, and then I think I got a pass shot, and I knew it was going to be a good day. WIN 4-1 Game 2: Gentleman named Handzus. The name sounded very familiar. He picked LAK/DAL, and having just PLAYED as Dallas, I thought let's mix it up. So I figured I'd run standard Sandstrom at C, but after he pumped a few one timers wide, I subbed him for Robi at C, and was able to mount a comeback to win 4-2. Game 3: Ben Fisher - He starts talking right away about how he's not good as some of the other guys, and hey, that's both the point of these things, but also can be a downer for some. I would like to see some changes on this in future to keep these things going and growing. Anyway, I'm away this time, and call STL/WSH - he picks WSH (sadly), but I figure I know enough about STL to bring in a win. Again I go down, but this one is more high flying andback and forth. I end up winning 6-4 in a fun one. I played Robert as well, but I messed up my notes and forgot what happened, but I won. So I was 4-0 and feeling good, but knew I had two hard matches still left. Game 5 - don't need to say much. It was angryjay93, and probably the most hilarious thing happened. we were talking about all his games being 6 goal wins so far, so my goal was to be the first. I set a micro goal of getting the first goal. I actually DID get the first goal, and made a HUGE save near the end of P1. he yawns audibly, I chuckle, and he gets 7 in a row and we are at the 430 mark of third. he says "are we done here?" and we both laugh and I say no f**k you, we finish. I get one back, but lose 8-2. He chose the matchup of PHI/EDM. I took PHI and he Klima'd me with 6. Game 6 - szpakman rolls on over to play my final round robin game. We normally go pretty even online. I call the "bait" matchup for TOR/CGY, thinking I know how to neutralize him with TOR, but I was just wrong. he rolls me over 4-1. I finish the round robin at 4-2 and I'm on my way to the upper bracket. What I'm NOT expecting is for them to say "first round playoff matchup is danTML vs. kgman". my stomach dropped. the kgman that went 6-0 and +31 gdif? I REALLY wanted this to be on stream, but they kept saying we were behind, so we had to just play. I tried to stream and record, but the TV we were on was so tiny, that the phone had to be too close and just got in the way. I thought he was getting antsy to play, so I just said f**k it. Game 1 – I pick WSH/HFD, he goes WSH and wins 4-2. It was close, nice plays all around, but I thought I was in it still. I realized I needed a little something extra by this point, so I head outside and have a quick hit of my cannabis vape. Heartrate slows, focus intensifies. I run back in. Game 2 – he picks WPG/LAK. I chose WPG for the speed. He played McSorley which was odd to me (weight bug), and I think I was able to overwhelm the team with speed. Still, I'm up 1 with a minute left, and ice it twice. Then, 15 seconds left with goalie pulled and Gretzky at C, Gretzky floats the slowest one timer over Essenza to send us to OT. Early in OT, I do a rebound goal with Davydov who was on fire, and he pots it for the win. I run outside for another hit. Game 3 – I pick EDM/PHI. He picks EDM. It’s clear from the get-go that Klima isn’t functioning well. For anyone who knows Edmonton sans Klima, they are akin to maybe like a SJ or OTT. Anywho, then Klima takes a penalty, misses the net… It’s 1-0 for me after 1. Early in 2nd period, Klima gets injured for game. Lights out. Pot a third one late, but kgman had trouble figuring out what to do against a speedy Eklund. With nothing working, the game coasts to an anti-climactic 3-0 win. A few came to thank me for sending him to the losers bracket, making their upper bracket path a touch easier. Next up was Sebe. It was a glorious overtime loss, to send me to the loser’s bracket. I suggest you watch it here though. You can speed through the breaks. I took a cannabis break after game 1, but I was gone so long because I thought someone stole my phone (hint: it was streaming our game the whole time LOL) https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1626263850 After losing that, it was time for Smozoma in the loser’s bracket. This time, I wanted to do a reverse Toronto bait, choosing PHI vs. TOR, but Smoz screwed it up and took PHI. Another intense overtime loss, and the sad reality that my day was done finally set in. This was on the KO94 stream on that day around the 5 hour mark. The best part was like 7mins into OT, and yet another crazy save or miss, I hear someone in the crowd say "WHAT IS THIS GAME EVEN?!?" and I lol'd so hard. After the loss, I was feeling pretty down. I put my headphones on and played rocket league for a couple hours to calm down, and then it dawned on me that I can play rocket at anytime, but this was my only chance to make some more connections and watch some amazing 94 action. So that’s what I did. I went around challenging ppl to exis, watching some streams, commenting, cheering, and having a grand old time. I gained a ton of respect for @Bob Kudelski this tourney. I care about SNES bud. It's a worse game, but because I like you and all the others who play it, I care too! I tried again to get everyone to go to a bar or out for sushi, and nobody spoke up, so I figured everyone was tired. By the time we got back to our Airbnb, it was nearly 2am. I warmed up some bacon, and brought out the ketchup chips and all-dressed chips, and we stayed up another hour just talking about our nhl94 theories, while raph jotted down ideas for his podcast. That might have been my favourite hour of the entire weekend tbh. All in all, most of the NHL94 guys seem like very mature and well-adjusted men, but also very fun-loving and polite. And I offered tons of free weed to everyone I met, but only @Stantonator responded positively by offering me some of his in return haha. I order my weed by asking what will put me to sleep. He asks for the strongest. We wake up the next day to a message from Raph saying he left to airport and wished us well. The rest of us chatted another 2 hours while we waited for Airbnb checkout time. We had to leave szpak’s CRT TV in the garage. I figured they wouldn’t notice until we were ready to grab it. Instead, they nearly immediately text me a picture of the TV and leftover beers LOL. Oh well. I went to the airport early and started writing this. Only funny things there were running into Halifax at a nearby gate, and Scribe randomly giving me the edibles he didn’t eat, and I took them without considering travel limits. So I walk up to the security screening and say “I’m concerned about the amount of cannabis I have on me.” Ended well though, but really it's just hilarious from like 3+ years ago where I'd be in jail right now. All in all, I had a great time and I learned SO MUCH that I want to use forward and hopefully join the team of Halifax and smozoma to help provide some needed administration and acceleration. I have SO many ideas, but I want to wait until everyone does their write-up, and everyone does their survey, and then incorporate my event and marketing ideas into things, and see what I can do. Had a wonderful experience meeting everyone and playing some games with NO LAG!!!!!! I'm in for every event from now on. Nothing will keep me away, except the cold cold hand of the specter of DEATH (knock on wood).

Been too long since completing something, so I figured I'd put the more ambitious projects on the back burner and bang this one out. After getting the most and least recent [as of 2022] versions of the Olympic hockey tournaments, figure there is no harm in bouncing around a bit. So, for the next retro review... Presenting: Released in late January 1994, and with the Olympics no longer doubling as the World Championships, this was one of two international tournament ports for the '94 season, and third game overall in this incarnation of the game engine including the original NHL game. 3rd party developer Team 1920 is continuing to partner with the IIHF and featured 1994 Olympic mascots Kristin and Håkon on the splash screen. Prior to the banning of official National Team iconography by the IOC, team logos are allowed to be featured. The IOC did make sure however that there was no shortage of ensuring that you know that this is an Olympic game by making sure their Rings emblem got in there too. The official broadcast sponsor for this year's games was CTV in Canada, with lead presenter Rod Black getting the nod to present the games here as well. While the Lillehammer logo's "snow drift" was copied over to the team banners, the Olympic Rings logo got copied over to everywhere else. Just in case you might have forgotten what game you were playing. All teams play out of the same two arenas in Lillehammer and Gjovik, and the 1994 Olmpics "hockey player" logo that was featured at center ice is adapted well here. More Rings for the Stars. Obviously a tournament mode for the Gold Medal is featured in the game. With only 12 teams taking part, some teams are given a bye in the first round. A cleaner look with blank bye rounds would have been nicer for this, but it is clear that the limitations of the game engine influenced the presentation. Each team gets full player cards, plus a bonus. In addition to the twelve teams that competed at the Olympics, teams from Great Britain, Japan, Latvia and Poland, [that competed against eventual winner and final qualifier Slovakia in the pre-qualification tournament in Sheffield] are available for exhibition and a "Re-write the Road to the Championship" style mode. While not originally featured in Playoff mode in the demo copy sent for evaluation, it seems the sneaky devs went ahead and unlocked them for the the final release. Final score: 3/5 Rings - A bit of a lazy art asset swap, but still has the same solid game play of a main EA release of those days. Olympic Hockey - 1994 Lillehammer.bin EDIT: Upgraded the non-qualifier's attributes to match the more "arcadey" [faster] feel intended for this game. Olympic Hockey - 1994 Lillehammer 1.1.bin

With one big project out of the way, it was time to finish another one. So we're going to frame this one as a retro review. With the "wild" success of Hockey Stars, [the hockey version of the critically acclaimed Baseball Stars on the NES] SNK decided to release a follow up two years later. This one however drew more influence from Baseball Stars 2 and Professional for the NEO-GEO AES and MVS systems respectively, as opposed to the Baseball Stars 2 port for the NES. [which was actually just a re-skin based on the original Baseball Stars engine with some features stripped out] But enough of the history lesson, this review is about... Based in a different engine from the original, this game has all of the favourite teams from the past games, plus four additional custom teams for 34 in total. The pregame amble features this old guy. For context, he was also the commissioner in Baseball Stars 2. I guess he got fired or decided that he wanted to be involved in a more exciting sport. While the entire roster no longer has individual player photos, the starting lineup still has wonderful images. [with character art adapted from the same game, and with cameos from other SNK titles] Starting a game you have a menu screen that looks like an old familiar jumbotron with a lot of statistics and options in addition to accessing line and goalie changes. Full roster stats and ratings are available for picking your best line[s] as line changes can be turned on or off in the pre-game options. The branding should be noticeable by now, and it carries over to all the stats screens as well. The Playoff mode supports single game and best-of-7 play. The Championship trophy seems to have been removed from its tall base since the previous incarnation. Wonder if there was a scaling issue in the new engine. While the pregame announcer gives individual names to the home team's arena, like the baseball games, the art assets are not individualized for each team. Judging by the amount of detail in each teams' logo, I doubt it would translate well to the smaller scale anyway. SNK did take the opportunity to add more branding in case you weren't sure who developed the game you were playing. Winning playoff mode treats you to your victory on the front page of the national sports page with a close up of the large gold "loving cup" style trophy. While the reduction in player profiles is a bit of a let down in this new entry, SNK figured they would make up for it with added features like Signing, Trading, Releasing players and even a Create-a-Player options. And to top it off, a full season mode. Much like a college style season, games are played almost exclusively on weekends, with some back-to-back home-and-home series to add to the drama. Seasons are a 32-game affair, which is nice and quick especially since you can play every single game if you want, allowing you and your friends to pick their favourite team and face off in the same season for the Championship. If 32 is still too long a season for you, the season can be ended after any day, and with each team playing on the same days, games played in the standings will be equal for all teams on any day. At the end of the season, regardless of how your team fairs, you will be treated to an awards ceremony where the best players are awarded a gold medal of excellence. Nice touches like that make the game feel like a real season and not something completely player-centric. To cap it off, the game offers Practice and Shoot-out modes to test your skill. There also seems to be some Easter eggs in there for fans of SNK games as well as some general pop-culture of the '80s and early '90s. In the interest of full disclosure, there are some instability issues with this game, likely due to the added teams and players and it being considered to be rushed out in prototype state in order to meet publisher obligations. This, as well as the Genesis losing ground on the new SNES at the time, would appear to have affected sales at the time, leaving the game a bit of a rare gem for collectors. A solid 7/10 Hockey Stars 2 [v1.2].bin Leaving the old version here. Pre some minor graphical fixes and puck collision set for slightly more difficult scoring. Hockey Stars 2.bin And now I have to do this version too. Hockey Stars 2 [v1.3] Wide Screen.bin

Hey all. I have finished my music patch and created an accompanying Excel Music Table Generator that will expedite the process for anyone looking to plug the songs into a ROM. I don't know if any of this is useful to anyone except me, but please feel free to use it if you want a more modern sound in your game. The music catalog has mostly stadium jams and a few pep/marching band songs just to accommodate my NCAA project, but also a feel references either to the original NHL 94, other video games (New Vegas and Undertale fans may find a surprise inside), and TV shows in NHL markets. The patch is compatible with any ROM and only updates the music notes, not the table because the location changes in different ROM sizes. There are 66 total songs added in, and only a few from the original game remain as the "tone" didn't match on many of the longer/more advanced songs. The Excel Spreadsheet has an input page you'll type songs in on, and then an output page that will spit out the hex combination for you to paste over your table. I recommend not leaving any song slots as "Random" if you're doing retro ROMs because I don't know how to control what that pool pulls from, and Kanye West or Metallica might throw off any 70s vibe you're going for. I don't plan on updating this any soon because it was a slog, but if there are bugs please let me know. Download here. v1.1 Updates I tried to live with it, but The Sopranos Theme midi was so bad. It's been replaced with some ABBA, and the spreadsheet had a new offset added for no music per discussion on Discord. Sean's NHL 94 Music Patch v1.1 Update.zip

Update: Putting this project on hold because AdamCatalyst is back and I'd like to give my NCAA ROMs more love. Hey all, Tried my hand at a NHL roster update using the College Hockey Gameday ROM as a base. All uniforms updated with the JKline template and NHL logo added where TV would typically superimpose a sponsor Barry Melrose returns to cover the American version of the game (ESPN), and James Duthie does the honors for Canada (TSN) My VonOzbourme-esque head canon for this is that the game is a release on ESPN+ that is meant to help the Disney Bundle compete with Netflix Games Both ROMs are in the folder you can download below Ratings are inspired by a mix of NHL 23, personal opinion, and various sources of analytics Overalls are somewhat largely swayed by hot/cold, so don't put too much stock into them. My overall formula gives more stock to physical hockey because in '94 it is very important. The player class system I used to rate players in CHGD makes a soft return, mostly just to help give value to grinders/forecheckers. Player Cards are of the players in game situations. I personally don't like the portrait style, so I choose to do this. Rosters are "best case scenario" minus players who are on LTIR for the whole year (these players are scratched). So a guy like Ehlers skates, but Backstrom is on the bench if you want him to play for WSH. Future Updates Winter Classic ROM - target date: Christmas 2022 Reverse Retro or 90s Graphics Edition - target date: ? 2024 Roster Update - target date: ? Known Bugs Replay buttons are compromised as part of rink layout overhaul Laine's player card routing is bad - not a CBJ fan so might not update that one so quickly because I am still mad about 2019 I am busy Special thanks to... AdamCatalyst, JKline, Smozoma, Slapshot67 and many more for laying the groundwork this ROM was built on KidsWasted and ComicalFont for beta testing ________________________________ Releases v2.1 - released 12/19/2022 ESPN-TSN NHL 2023 v2.1.zip @Drezz's background hack added into the menus of both versions of the ROM. v2.0 - released 12/14/2022 Many player ratings tweaked to combat power creep from strong early season performances Agility/Speed Ratios tweaked to add variety to skaters (straight line speed VS agility and quickness) Stopping/Crossover Rate Tweaked Notable trades up to date as of 12/14/23 Winter Classic ROM added v1.0 - released 12/7/2022

Started this one about a year ago and finally finished. For those unfamiliar, the USHL is the top junior league in the U.S. The main difference between the US/Canadian juniors is that 99% of USHL players go on to play NCAA D1 hockey. There were 57 USHL players selected in the 2022 NHL draft including 23 from the US National Team Development Program and 34 from other member clubs. Without further ado: 2023 #2 pick Adam Fantilli scored 37 / 37 in 54 games. 442 player photos: Full playoffs: Accurate center ice logos for the 2021-22 season. As always, thanks to @smozoma @slapshot67 @clockwise and all the fun new tricks made possible by @von Ozbourne @AdamCatalyst @Drezz and @Sean and anyone I may have inadvertently overlooked. 2022 USHL.bin

Hi all! I am new to the community, I have been registered for a couple of months although I have known this website for several years! I admire the work they do and the passion they have for this game. I discovered this game in 2005 when I had my SNES. In fact, with that cartridge I learned the rules of the game and became a fan of this sport (I love Flyers). Unfortunately here in Buenos Aires, Argentina, ice hockey is not popular, so much so that the only rink that exists in the country is in the southernmost city we have, Usuahía. But a couple of years ago I discovered by chance that Roller Hockey (Inline Hockey) is played in my city, so I decided to do a edited game with this league! I taken as base the game Ball Hockey from user TheTome. (love the grey rink he maked) and i edit all the teams, logos, rosters, uniforms and split screens. (the choice of the 3 stars of the match is imprecise, despite the fact that it is patched and I can't edit the title screen credits. If anyone knows how to modify them with TM, tell me, thanks!) LARH (Liga Argentina de Roller Hockey in spanish or Argentinian Roller Hockey League in English) It is a league divided into sub-divisions and into male and female categories. Made up of clubs and small "franchises". Obviously taking advantage of the great slot of teams that the game admits, I gathered a lot of teams in a single space. A curious detail, although there is a women's league, many men's teams are mixed, have female players and even in the men's league there is a team made up only of women (Metropolis). Maybe this will happen in other leagues, I don't know, but it caught my attention. Features: - 29 Teams of Men League (Elite, A, B and C leagues) - 1 Team of Women League (Punchers, last champion of the league) - The orange ball is replaced by an orange puck - 4 on 4 teams Download: LARH 23.bin Images:

Playing around with rink and crowd tiles, it occurred to me that it might be possible to relocate the crowd animation to make some different animated sections. Then I wondered at what possibilities this could open up. Then I realized exactly where this is going and decided to try a mock up to see what it would look like. I must stress at this point. DO NOT. I repeat, DO NOT explore this idea any further. It is not worthy of your time. It's a non-issue.

Hey folks, I've been quietly practicing with my ROM hacking here and there - trying out small hacks on my own, figuring out how things work and delving deeper into more complex things like pointers, tables, decompressing graphics etc. I finally figured out how to insert an image to take the place of the tiled rink graphic in NHL 94. Using @clockwise NHL 91 mod as a study guide, notes provided by @wboy and @kingraph 's Decompressing Graphics guide, I muddled my way through several attempts to place a background on the main menu screen until I got to this point. As you can see in the first image, a full 320x224 background image can be done! But in the second image, there seems to be an issue when the player cards appear (green circles). I am going to try a different approach and see if I can push the starting offset of the player cards to a spot after the main menu BG to see if these graphical errors disappear. So far so good - it looks promising. Fingers crossed. I'll update this thread with some more info soon.

NHL 94: 2023 Edition by Adam Catalyst v4.4 updated 2023 05 14 Hello there friendly strangers, Here is the latest version of my 2023 ROM. The goal is to try to provide the most refined and realistic up-to-date versions of this all-time classic game. I'm thrilled to be able to share this with you. Here are the top reasons you might want to give it a try… Gameplay Revisioned The gameplay has been adjusted for a more realistic modern hockey feel, with harder to score goals, easier to hit crossbars and posts, more realistic speed burst, fewer penalty calls, custom energy depletion and recovery rates (balanced for more realistic line rolling and shift length), and player rating distribution curves that have been carefully calibrated for more realistic gameplay on the ice. New in '23 800 players obsessively rated, up-to-date rosters, and realistic lines, based on extensive 2020-2023 regular season player data and analytics. Team colours, banners, uniforms, and logos all improved to be as realistic as possible, along with numerous other graphical refinements throughout the arena. Graphical Refinements Hundreds of other refinements have been made including title screens, banners, player photos, scoreboard, audience, face-offs, player sprites, nets, ice markings, coaches, scorekeepers, Zamboni driver, and more. The goal is to bring the most graphically refined version of NHL 94 ever made, while remaining faithful to the spirit of the original art direction. And so much more Of course there is the weight bug fix, but also a custom weight scale, less variance in Hot/Cold rating randomization, immediate goalie control by pressing the (Y) button with a six-button controller, a custom 3-Stars of the Game rating formula, a Vegas / Washington / Winnipeg Menu & Player Cards crash fix, and… Every single feature & modification is documented below. I would love it if you would give it a try, and leave me any feedback! -Adam p.s. I'd be flattered if you wanted to lift any of my mods for your own ROM. Anyone who contributes to making hacks or ROMs for nhl94.com is welcome to PM me, and I will happily send you source files, including Tile Molester bookmarks and palettes. Current Version NHL 94 [h] 2023 AC v4.4 - 2023 05 14.zip Previous Versions NHL 94 [h] 2023 AC v3.0 - 2023 03 13.zip NHL 94 [h] 2023 AC v2.0 - 2023 02 10.zip NHL 94 [h] 2023 AC v1.1 - 2023 01 17.zip Box Art Features & Modifications Title Screens & Under the Hood ROM Header: Updated to indicate support for Japan region, 6-Button Controller, both domestic & foreign ROM names, and updated checksum. Title Screen: Opening Logo screens display time reduced by 30%. Graphics: EA logo screen heavily modified. Graphics: High Score Production screen slightly modified. Graphics: Splash image updated with my personal 2022 MVP vote. Graphics: Masthead re-drawn to match EA’s current NHL23 lettering. Graphics: Title screen Logos removed. Text: Credits re-coloured & edited. Above: The player sprites design was revised to more accurately accommodate the wide range of colourations for all 32 NHL teams. Taped taped composite sticks complete the more realistic contemporary look. Above & Beyond: A global colour palette for the entire ROM was built, with all key colour decisions made in this relative context. Teams have been systemically coloured to have as accurate a representation as possible, with a consistent sense of depth, and realistic colour shifts for shadows and highlights. Tests were done with demo play, and final colour decisions were made to give the most accurate impression in motion, and not necessarily what looked the best in stills. Main Menu Settings: Default teams set for the 2022 Stanley Cup finals. Settings: Playoff brackets updated to the 2023 seedings. Settings: 7-minute period length option added. Settings: Line Changes & Penalties defaults set to on "On," because that's how I roll. Graphics: Team Banners & Logos updated, with consistent up-to-date official colours relatively mapped to the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive colour space. Graphics: Team Banner names removed, and replaced with "VISITORS" and "HOME" for clarity. Graphics: Player Photos all updated with official NHL headshot images, custom cropped & colour graded. Graphics: Error removed from the selection box. Hack: Player Photo carousel cycling order modified. Hack: Bug that would causes crashes upon cycling through the Player Photos for Vegas, Washington, and Winnipeg has been eliminated. Please note, this comes at the cost of preventing saved stats from showing under player names. Text: Re-wording of a couple menu options for greater clarity. Typesetting: Player names centred vertically. Settings: Default teams set for the 2022 Stanley Cup finals. Above Right: All logos were revised or re-drawn by hand, and matched for visual weight. Official team colours were relatively mapped to the Sega MD/Genesis colour space, and banners were matched to key logo colours, with some minor re-wording in the menus. Pre-Game Graphics: Banners have been refined to have better typesetting, and colours modified & dithered to look closer to the colours used in the menu screens. Graphics: The Pre-Game Announcer's picture frame has been altered to be more consistent with the design of similar elements throughout the game. Graphics: Ron Barr image restored to be closer to original. Arena Names: All up-to-date as of January 2023. Arizona State welcomes you to Mullet Arena. Pre-Game: Match-up position names have been simplified to “Forward,” “Defence,” & “Goaltender.” Above: When EA released Rewind (left), they kept the same very limited colour palette as the original for team banners, despite decades of new teams and new team colours. I've optimized this restrictive colour palette (right) so that all teams now look much closer to their authentic colours. Furthermore, typesetting has been improved in all banners to also be better than Rewind, with improved, kerning, alignment, and some custom letterforms. Rink Graphics: Colour Palette has been altered to improve the audience affect with more uniform tonal contrast, to improve the accuracy of the team banner colours, and to give the nets more realistic colouring. Sprites: Audience members design and animations have been refined. Graphics: Goal light & animation revised. Graphics: Instant Replay Reverse view inconsistencies fixed. Graphics: Minor refinements throughout the arena. Rink - On the Ice Graphics: Ice Colour lightened slightly. The darker colour was giving me eye strain. Graphics: Centre ice logos updated, adapted from NHL Rewind designs. Graphics: Face-off circles modification. (author unknown) Graphics: Net re-drawn to the most recent (2013) NHL proportions, with an updated goalie crease. Graphics: Trapezoid area lines drawn to NHL scale. Graphics: Glass & stanchions behind bottom net revised to be symmetrical and parallel to glass & stanchions at the top, horizontal seam in top glass has been erased, and on-ice reflections of stanchions have been fixed throughout. Above Top Row: The original face-off animations had a linesman that was looking in the wrong direction (Top Left & Centre), freakishly long & thin stick blades, seemingly random black pixels on some frames (Top Left, Calgary uniforms), disproportionally dark shadows that sometimes overlapped the image frame (Top Centre), stick shadows that would overlap incorrectly (Top Right), and a frisbee instead of a puck. Above Bottom Row: I’ve painstakingly gone through the 108 possible sprite combinations that can occur during a face-off, revised every issue I could find, re-drew the sticks to be more realistically shaped & taped, and perhaps most importantly, turned the Linesman’s head to face the right direction. We all need to do our part to improve the state of NHL officiating. Rink - On the Sidelines Graphics: Bench area modifications, including the addition of coaches. Graphics: Bench backup goalie hack. (slapshot67) Sprites: Bench players "chirping" animations refined to be less cartoonish. Graphics: Time-keepers added in, and time-keeper area Stanchion misalignment fixed. Graphics: Bench, Penalty Box, & Time-keepers area Stanchions modified to be consistent with the Sideboards view. Above: The original (Left) benches had floors coloured like the ice, and the players chirped with unhinged jaws, with no supervision from a coach, let alone a backup goaltender. Over time (Centre), utterly fantastic changes were made by slapshot67, adding a more realistic floor, fitting in a coach, and a perfectly matched backup goaltender! I've built on this work (Right) by getting rid of the leftover teal coloured shadow behind players leaning forward, drawing more realistic shadows on the players arms and back as they move, setting consistent mouth colours with a more realistic “chirping”, and refining the coach to match the other sprites a bit better, with a more realistic shadow too. Above (Botton Left): I really liked The Sauce’s wide take on the EA logo (Centre), as well as the bevelled style of the original (Left). I’ve mixed the two styles together, and refined it to better fit the allocated vertical space. The Sauce’s excellent ROM is shown here for relative comparison only, no criticism implied of his inspiring work. Rink - Sideboards view Graphics: Sideboards Bench, Boards, Glass, Ice, Stanchions, etc. revised. Graphics: Scoreboard Banners refined to have better typesetting, and colours modified & dithered to look closer to the Menu Banner colours. Graphics: Sideboard Scoreboard has custom drawn NHL logo. Graphics: Side-boards Score-Keepers added. (Based on the SNES version) Sprites: Zamboni driver revised to better match the perspective of the side-boards. Sprites: Player in Penalty box refined. Above Top: Beyond the improved banner, the scoreboard features brighter lettering and scores along with custom drawn a modern NHL logo. Above Below: The original Zamboni driver (Left) looked like a small ruddy-faced hunchback. I re-designed him to fit the style and perspective of the scene better, adapted the design of the scorekeepers from the SNES version to match, improved the design of the player in the penalty box (who disturbingly had no lower body in the original), and have made hundreds of minor refinements to the audience, animation, bench, stanchions, the light refraction on the edge of the glass, etc. In-Play Sprites: Player design was revised to more accurately accommodate the wide range of colourations for all 32 NHL teams. Tests were done with demo play, and final colour decisions were made to give the most accurate impression in motion, and not necessarily what looked the best in stills. Sprites: Face-off animations revised. Sprites: Players given grey composite sticks, because grey pixels have better puck feel, more flex, and are lighter weight. Sprites: Goaltenders masks revised to reveal their faces. Sprites: Player Helmet colour patch. (Clockwise) Sprites: Player Eye, Boots & Gloves, and Stick Tape patches. (Clockwise) Sprites: Improved Checking animations patch. (Clockwise) Sprites: Puck and its shadow revised. Graphics: On-Ice Player Numbers changed to white for better legibility against the ice. Graphics: On-Ice Player indicator (star) for Player 1 lightened to be less conspicuous and increase relative on-ice contrast for the Player 2 indicator. Graphics: Penalty box player colour error fixed. (Slapshot67 Above Right: The Scorekeepers in-play have been revised to consistently match the art style used for the Scorekeeper in the Sideboards view. Also, they have been modernized with touchscreens! Above: Note how in the original (Left) the player one indicator is distractingly very high contrast, while the player two indicator is much more difficult to see with low tonal contrast. Brightening the colour of the ice (Centre) helps, but then the already muddy looking player numbers become very difficult to see. I’ve re-balanced the colours (Right) so that the player one indicator is quieter while still being easy to see, the player two indicator is equally easy to see, and the the player numbers are much clearer to see against the ice. There's also a new puck, and revised puck shadow. The excellent Naples ROM is shown for relative comparison only, no criticism implied of their superlative work. Rosters Rosters & Lines: Updated based on extensive 2021–2023 regular season player usage data. Rosters & Lines: 800 total players have been included, covering the 25 players (14F, 8D, & 3G) with the most ice-time in 2022-2023 on each team. Above. 192 official NHL headshots used in-game), all individually cropped and colour graded for visual balance. Ratings Team Ratings: Team attribute & overall ratings updated as per the end of March 13, 2023 regular season data. Player Ratings: Underlying system has been changed from the default 1-6 scale to a 0-15 scale for more accurate differentiation of players. (smozoma) Player Ratings: ustom player ratings based on a mix of real-world data and gameplay oriented parameters. The goal is to make gameplay more contemporary, and individual player performance more realistic. Player Ratings: Custom overall rating formula. Player Ratings: Much more parity between the best and the worst of the league, with all players having a minimum 52 rating, ranging to a maximum 95 for McDavid, before Hot/Cold variance. Player Ratings: Weight scale modification patch. (smozoma) Player Ratings: Edit lines bug fix patch. (smozoma) Above: Here are the top fourteen players rated a 90 or over. If you don’t see your favourite player here, I guarantee I rated them an 89! Gameplay Controls: Goalie control can now be accessed immediately by pressing the (Y) button with a six-button controller. (clockwise) Gameplay: Body Checking and Aggressiveness have been balanced to reduce the penalty rate from the original, and approximate the real body checking and penalty rates of each team in the 2022–2023 season. Gameplay: Hot & Cold range of variance has been reduced by ~25%, and the frequency of variance has been reduced by ~50%. Gameplay: The "goal" area of the net has been reduced slightly, making it more difficult to score, and more likely that you will hit the post. Gameplay: The “goal” area of the net has been reduced slightly, making it slightly more difficult to score, and slightly more likely that you will hit the post. Gameplay: Player Speed Burst set to 25% of the original, for a more realistic feel and higher difficulty. No more winning every loose puck race. Gameplay: Custom Stamina Depletion & Recovery rates. Gameplay: Weight / Checking bug fix patch. (smozoma) Gameplay: Second-Assist bug fix patch. (smozoma) Gameplay: Overtime set to 5 minutes, Penalty Shots set to 15 seconds. Player Ratings: Attribute rating distributions have been careful set and thoroughly tested to produce a faster more contemporary feel to puck movement & gameplay, with better goaltending throughout. Stars of the Game: New custom formula. Behind the Scenes: Rosters, ratings, and lines are based on extensive real-world data and advanced analytics. All of this is conformed to custom ratings distribution curves, which give the gameplay its unique feel. This single most important feature can't be shown in stills. You have to play it to feel it. In-Game Overlays Graphics: Linesman & Referee pop-overs refined. Graphics: In-Game Timer logo has been re-drawn. (based on Sauce's design) Graphics: Line Change Energy bars have been re-drawn to have an inverse quasi-logarithmic gradation. Graphics: Instant Replay controls graphic revised. Graphics: Custom Stars of the Game icon and revised typesetting. Text: "Cross Check," "Face-Off," and "Fight Instigator" renamed to "Cross-check," "Face-off," and "Instigator" as per the official NHL rulebook. Above: Various evolutions… The Net has been re-drawn to closely match the current NHL proportions, an to slightly reduce the scoring area. The crease has been re-drawn to match, along with trapezoid lines and other updated ice markings. The Goalie’s mask has been revised to now show a bit of their face underneath (Right). A custom Stars of the Game icon and typesetting, to go along with a custom underlying selection formula. In-Game Menus Graphics: NHL & NHLPA Logos re-drawn. Graphics: "Hockey Night" Banner slightly re-coloured. Hack: Player Cards bugs that would causes crashes upon cycling through Cards for WSH (and possibly also VGK & WPG) have been eliminated. Hack: Player Stats now showing Checks instead of Penalty Minutes. (smozoma) Text: The “Change Goalie” option for “no goalie” is now in ALL-CAPS for greater visibility. Extras Artwork: Matching box art was made! The artwork is high resolution, print quality, and stays very close to the original North American box design. It is available near the top of this post. Known Issues * Vegas / Washington / Winnipeg Player Cards may crash if User Records are turned on, and there are stored goaltending statistics for these teams. A potential fix was being investigated, but is not at a workable state. For this reason, User Records are recommended to be left off. * User Records may incorrectly store user data if playing with Vegas / Washington / Winnipeg. Builds are tested with Genesis Plus 1.7.4.15 and Genesis Plus GX 1.7.5-RC1 r24-10-2021. If you are having any technical issues, you may want to try one of these emulators. If you are reporting a technical issue, please note the exact console or emulator version that you are using for me. Future Wish-List I'm not sure how much time I will have to work on this in the future, but if I did find more time, here is what I would like to focus on next… Gameplay: Reduce the rebound rate of the puck to be way less bouncy. Gameplay: Reduce effectiveness of B-checks. Line-Changes: Enable line changes to be initiated without possession of the puck, preferably with a dedicated button. Gameplay: Prevent the goaltenders from skating into the trapezoid areas. Gameplay: Enable energy Recovery for players sitting in the penalty box. Gameplay: Improve logic for how icings and offsides are calculated to use puck position instead of player position. Gameplay: Program the CPU to pull the goalie when trailing by 1 - 2 goals (currently only pulls with a two goal deficit). Gameplay: Increase the amount of CPU Checking without increasing the amount of penalties called. Sprites: Redraw Sideboards Referee to better match the art style of everything else (requires "de-compressing" shared tiles.) Sprites: Improve the comparatively low visual quality of the on-ice officials throughout (requires "de-compressing" shared tiles.) Penalties: Rename "Cross-check" to the proper "Cross-checking." Penalties: Re-name "Roughing" period that causes an injury to "Illegal Hit." Player Cards: Eliminate the crash that occurs on player cards for Washington when user records are turned on, and the goaltender has saved stats. User Records: Restore system to be as fully functional as possible. If you were able to help me research or implement any of these changes, please let me know! Credits This project was built decades of work by the NHL94.com community, and never would have been possible without them. I’m sure there are more contributors than I could ever possibly know, let alone acknowledge, but I will do my best… Contributors This ROM contains contributions from the following individuals… Brodeur30 Rink & Net collision logic. chaos Hot/Cold variation logic. Clockwise Goalie Control with a six-button controller. Player sprites helmet colour patch. Player sprites hockey tape patch. Player sprites improved checking animations patch. Player sprites eye colour patch. Player sprites boots & gloves colour patch. Dervin10 Roster extractor & importer tool development. Drezz Team uniforms Yoke colour isolated. kingraph Sideboards modification logic. Stars of the Game graphic hack. slapshot67 30 to 32 team ROM re-structuring. Scorekeepers graphic hack and original design. Bench backup goalie hack and original design. Penalty Box player sprite colouring fix. smozoma 0–15 Player Rating scale patch. Player Stats Checking patch. Credits editing logic. Edit Line Ratings bug fix patch. Player Overall rating formula logic. Player weight scale modification patch. Second-Assist bug fix patch. Stars of the Game formula logic. Weight / Checking bug fix patch. EARE tool development. Tony H. Stopping & Crossover Rate logic. wboy 28 to 30 team ROM re-structuring. Player photo logic. Player energy depletion & recovery rates logic. Speed burst rate logic. Rink modification logic. NOSE tool development. Author unknown Face-off circles graphic modification. Instant Replay controls graphic revision. Team uniforms colour restructuring. Special Thanks to… Drezz - original work and resources. kingraph - tips & resources. Sauce - resources for rosters, ratings, and lines. Seamor - tips, encouragement, and inspiration. smozoma - utterly invaluable tips, resources, tools, & support. von Ozbourme - resources and lessons. …and everyone at nhl94.com who tested Betas or provided feedback. Extra Special Thanks to… Ena - for nothing less than everything. I hope you enjoy!

When the 30-team ROM was released by @wboy and his notes and posts were shared for all of us to use and try to decipher, there was a lot of untapped potential left to discover in the game. One of the things that truly bothered me for years was the stock compressed background graphics used in the main menu screen (the EA rink) and the tiled EA Sports graphics that appear on every other stats screen. The problem with compressed graphics is the tedious and time-consuming affair it is to figure out how to put the pieces together to form a full screen graphic. Thanks to @kingraph's decompressing graphics primer, and all of the hints from users on this site, I was able to figure out a few workarounds to change this TO THIS INTRODUCTION In the 30-team ROM, wboy left almost all of the original graphics intact. Instead of trying to crack the compression algorithm, he simply rerouted the pointers to areas near the end of the ROM and reorganized the tiles and palettes to make it easier for graphics modders to insert graphics. Since he did the first three title screens (first load - EA Logo, 2nd producer logo screen & third game title screen) I figured it should be just as easy to implement other screens as well. The easiest way I found through trial and error was to simply copy/paste the data from one of the decompressed screens and use that as the background. The main issue I encountered was graphic memory limitations making artifacts show up as soon as the player cards were shown. For some weird reason, increasing the tile count got rid of the artifacts. I haven't encountered any further graphical glitches, but if you come across any - please let me know so I can troubleshoot and update this guide accordingly. Here's the LONG version with explanations on how it's done, in order to get a better grasp on more advanced graphic editing - skip to the next post for the easy way (you wimp.) As always - save a backup copy of your ROM BEFORE STARTING. TOOLS: - Photoshop (preferred) or graphic editing program that allows you to create indexed PNG files. - A Hex Editor (I use Hex Editor Neo) - Windows Calculator set to Programmer - Tile Molester 1) Create your full screen graphic (320 pixels x 224 pixels) and optimize it in Photoshop, for pasting into your ROM through the TileMolester program. • In Photoshop, reduce the number of colours to 16 (Image > Mode > Indexed Color) • Select Local (Perceptual) to keep the Color integrity, type in 16 under Colors, Forced: None, uncheck transparency, and if your image isn't dithered, select None. Otherwise, choose the dithering method you prefer (Diffusion, Pattern, Noise) Then under palette, change it from Local to Custom. You'll get the Color Table for the colors used. • Modify your colour table to create colours that are "Sega" friendly (each RGB number should be a multiple of 32, with a maximum of 224) • IMPORTANT: make a note of each colour and their values (you will need this later) • Select OK, then save as a PNG with no transparency (File > Export > Save for Web) 2) Open your ROM in a Hex Editor. Find a spot at the end of the game data in the "free space" (bunch of FFFFs or 0000s) and this will be where the new graphic is located. Remember the offset. (In my ROM, I used 1E2B00) 3) With Tile Molester open, make sure you have the right settings enabled: Palette > Format > 9bpp (Genesis) Palette > Byte Order >Motorola View > Codec > 4bpp Linear 4) Jump to the offset where you are planning on pasting the background: Navigate > Go to > enter the offset value (e.g. 1E2B00) Make sure "Hex" and "Absolute" are selected. 5) Open the viewing window by clicking and dragging the corner. Then open your working area by using the Increase width button until you have 40 tiles across. With the increase height button, extend your workspace to 28, The area counter at the bottom should read 40x28 tiles. This is your working area and the size of a Genesis rendered screen. 6) Using the Plus/Minus tabs for moving forward/backward one byte at a time, move FORWARD 10 bytes (1E20AA). You will need those 10 bytes to add your header data later. 7) Paste in your full screen graphic : Edit > Paste From > (navigate to your background PNG) Then, save it. Don't worry about the palette or tile layout just yet. 6) Open your ROM with a Hex editor. Navigate to the offset where you pasted your image. (e.g. 1E2B00) 7) In the 10 bytes you left available, place the following code (no spaces): 0000 8C2A 0000 8CAA 0480 ** WARNING: Make sure you are overwriting the data, and not inserting/adding the new bytes and pushing the bytes further down as you add data. If that happens, your pointers will be messed up! 8C2A = number of bytes of graphic data + 10 bytes for the header 8CAA = number of bytes of graphic data + palette information + 10 bytes for the header 0480 = number of tiles (in hex) ** NOTE: A full screen graphic is 0460 (1,120 tiles) but using that number on the main menu causes graphic artifacts. I increased this number to 0480 and the player cards show up properly. Not sure why, but it does... 8) To find the end of your graphic data, using a calculator set to Programmer mode: Select the Hex option and type in your offset + 8C2A (from the header, if you recall) - In my case, the value was 1E2B00 + 8C2A = 1EB72A. 9) Insert the following bytes directly after the graphic data (no spaces). 0EEA 0CCC 0888 0444 0222 008C 006A 0000 0822 0600 0042 0020 004A 0006 066A 0246 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 This is the palette data and will allow you to set custom colours for your background. There are 128 bytes that correspond to the 64 colours available for the screen. Typically, you only want to use 16 since there are sprites that often share the same palettes. The colour codes listed above are the generic ones chosen by wboy - we are going to edit these to accommodate your new background. 10) Directly after the palette data, insert the following code (no spaces) 0028 001C This is the layout width/height where 0028 is 40 tiles, 001C is 28 tiles. - Each tile is 8 pixels wide and 8 pixels high. - 40 tiles x 8 pixels wide = 320 pixels! - 28 tiles x 8 pixels high = 224 pixels! - 320 x 224 is a full screen background. 11) NOW - we set up the tile layout. Type in the following code (no spaces) 0000 0001 0002 0003 0004 0005 0006 0007 0008 0009 000a 000b 000c 000d 000e 000f 0010 0011 0012 0013 0014 0015 0016 0017 0018 0019 001a 001b 001c 001d 001e 001f 0020 0021 0022 0023 0024 0025 0026 0027 0028 0029 002a 002b 002c 002d 002e 002f 0030 0031 0032 0033 0034 0035 0036 0037 0038 0039 003a 003b 003c 003d 003e 003f 0040 0041 0042 0043 0044 0045 0046 0047 0048 0049 004a 004b 004c 004d 004e 004f 0050 0051 0052 0053 0054 0055 0056 0057 0058 0059 005a 005b 005c 005d 005e 005f 0060 0061 0062 0063 0064 0065 0066 0067 0068 0069 006a 006b 006c 006d 006e 006f 0070 0071 0072 0073 0074 0075 0076 0077 0078 0079 007a 007b 007c 007d 007e 007f 0080 0081 0082 0083 0084 0085 0086 0087 0088 0089 008a 008b 008c 008d 008e 008f 0090 0091 0092 0093 0094 0095 0096 0097 0098 0099 009a 009b 009c 009d 009e 009f 00a0 00a1 00a2 00a3 00a4 00a5 00a6 00a7 00a8 00a9 00aa 00ab 00ac 00ad 00ae 00af 00b0 00b1 00b2 00b3 00b4 00b5 00b6 00b7 00b8 00b9 00ba 00bb 00bc 00bd 00be 00bf 00c0 00c1 00c2 00c3 00c4 00c5 00c6 00c7 00c8 00c9 00ca 00cb 00cc 00cd 00ce 00cf 00d0 00d1 00d2 00d3 00d4 00d5 00d6 00d7 00d8 00d9 00da 00db 00dc 00dd 00de 00df 00e0 00e1 00e2 00e3 00e4 00e5 00e6 00e7 00e8 00e9 00ea 00eb 00ec 00ed 00ee 00ef 00f0 00f1 00f2 00f3 00f4 00f5 00f6 00f7 00f8 00f9 00fa 00fb 00fc 00fd 00fe 00ff 0100 0101 0102 0103 0104 0105 0106 0107 0108 0109 010a 010b 010c 010d 010e 010f 0110 0111 0112 0113 0114 0115 0116 0117 0118 0119 011a 011b 011c 011d 011e 011f 0120 0121 0122 0123 0124 0125 0126 0127 0128 0129 012a 012b 012c 012d 012e 012f 0130 0131 0132 0133 0134 0135 0136 0137 0138 0139 013a 013b 013c 013d 013e 013f 0140 0141 0142 0143 0144 0145 0146 0147 0148 0149 014a 014b 014c 014d 014e 014f 0150 0151 0152 0153 0154 0155 0156 0157 0158 0159 015a 015b 015c 015d 015e 015f 0160 0161 0162 0163 0164 0165 0166 0167 0168 0169 016a 016b 016c 016d 016e 016f 0170 0171 0172 0173 0174 0175 0176 0177 0178 0179 017a 017b 017c 017d 017e 017f 0180 0181 0182 0183 0184 0185 0186 0187 0188 0189 018a 018b 018c 018d 018e 018f 0190 0191 0192 0193 0194 0195 0196 0197 0198 0199 019a 019b 019c 019d 019e 019f 01a0 01a1 01a2 01a3 01a4 01a5 01a6 01a7 01a8 01a9 01aa 01ab 01ac 01ad 01ae 01af 01b0 01b1 01b2 01b3 01b4 01b5 01b6 01b7 01b8 01b9 01ba 01bb 01bc 01bd 01be 01bf 01c0 01c1 01c2 01c3 01c4 01c5 01c6 01c7 01c8 01c9 01ca 01cb 01cc 01cd 01ce 01cf 01d0 01d1 01d2 01d3 01d4 01d5 01d6 01d7 01d8 01d9 01da 01db 01dc 01dd 01de 01df 01e0 01e1 01e2 01e3 01e4 01e5 01e6 01e7 01e8 01e9 01ea 01eb 01ec 01ed 01ee 01ef 01f0 01f1 01f2 01f3 01f4 01f5 01f6 01f7 01f8 01f9 01fa 01fb 01fc 01fd 01fe 01ff 0200 0201 0202 0203 0204 0205 0206 0207 0208 0209 020a 020b 020c 020d 020e 020f 0210 0211 0212 0213 0214 0215 0216 0217 0218 0219 021a 021b 021c 021d 021e 021f 0220 0221 0222 0223 0224 0225 0226 0227 0228 0229 022a 022b 022c 022d 022e 022f 0230 0231 0232 0233 0234 0235 0236 0237 0238 0239 023a 023b 023c 023d 023e 023f 0240 0241 0242 0243 0244 0245 0246 0247 0248 0249 024a 024b 024c 024d 024e 024f 0250 0251 0252 0253 0254 0255 0256 0257 0258 0259 025a 025b 025c 025d 025e 025f 0260 0261 0262 0263 0264 0265 0266 0267 0268 0269 026a 026b 026c 026d 026e 026f 0270 0271 0272 0273 0274 0275 0276 0277 0278 0279 027a 027b 027c 027d 027e 027f 0280 0281 0282 0283 0284 0285 0286 0287 0288 0289 028a 028b 028c 028d 028e 028f 0290 0291 0292 0293 0294 0295 0296 0297 0298 0299 029a 029b 029c 029d 029e 029f 02a0 02a1 02a2 02a3 02a4 02a5 02a6 02a7 02a8 02a9 02aa 02ab 02ac 02ad 02ae 02af 02b0 02b1 02b2 02b3 02b4 02b5 02b6 02b7. 02b8 02b9 02ba 02bb 02bc 02bd 02be 02bf 02c0 02c1 02c2 02c3 02c4 02c5 02c6 02c7 02c8 02c9 02ca 02cb 02cc 02cd 02ce 02cf 02d0 02d1 02d2 02d3 02d4 02d5 02d6 02d7 02d8 02d9 02da 02db 02dc 02dd 02de 02df 02e0 02e1 02e2 02e3 02e4 02e5 02e6 02e7 02e8 02e9 02ea 02eb 02ec 02ed 02ee 02ef 02f0 02f1 02f2 02f3 02f4 02f5 02f6 02f7 02f8 02f9 02fa 02fb 02fc 02fd 02fe 02ff 0300 0301 0302 0303 0304 0305 0306 0307 0308 0309 030a 030b 030c 030d 030e 030f 0310 0311 0312 0313 0314 0315 0316 0317 0318 0319 031a 031b 031c 031d 031e 031f 0320 0321 0322 0323 0324 0325 0326 0327 0328 0329 032a 032b 032c 032d 032e 032f 0330 0331 0332 0333 0334 0335 0336 0337 0338 0339 033a 033b 033c 033d 033e 033f 0340 0341 0342 0343 0344 0345 0346 0347 0348 0349 034a 034b 034c 034d 034e 034f 0350 0351 0352 0353 0354 0355 0356 0357 0358 0359 035a 035b 035c 035d 035e 035f 0360 0361 0362 0363 0364 0365 0366 0367 0368 0369 036a 036b 036c 036d 036e 036f 0370 0371 0372 0373 0374 0375 0376 0377 0378 0379 037a 037b 037c 037d 037e 037f 0380 0381 0382 0383 0384 0385 0386 0387 0388 0389 038a 038b 038c 038d 038e 038f 0390 0391 0392 0393 0394 0395 0396 0397 0398 0399 039a 039b 039c 039d 039e 039f 03a0 03a1 03a2 03a3 03a4 03a5 03a6 03a7 03a8 03a9 03aa 03ab 03ac 03ad 03ae 03af 03b0 03b1 03b2 03b3 03b4 03b5 03b6 03b7 03b8 03b9 03ba 03bb 03bc 03bd 03be 03bf 03c0 03c1 03c2 03c3 03c4 03c5 03c6 03c7 03c8 03c9 03ca 03cb 03cc 03cd 03ce 03cf 03d0 03d1 03d2 03d3 03d4 03d5 03d6 03d7 03d8 03d9 03da 03db 03dc 03dd 03de 03df 03e0 03e1 03e2 03e3 03e4 03e5 03e6 03e7 03e8 03e9 03ea 03eb 03ec 03ed 03ee 03ef 03f0 03f1 03f2 03f3 03f4 03f5 03f6 03f7 03f8 03f9 03fa 03fb 03fc 03fd 03fe 03ff 0400 0401 0402 0403 0404 0405 0406 0407 0408 0409 040a 040b 040c 040d 040e 040f 0410 0411 0412 0413 0414 0415 0416 0417 0418 0419 041a 041b 041c 041d 041e 041f 0420 0421 0422 0423 0424 0425 0426 0427 0428 0429 042a 042b 042c 042d 042e 042f 0430 0431 0432 0433 0434 0435 0436 0437 0438 0439 043a 043b 043c 043d 043e 043f 0440 0441 0442 0443 0444 0445 0446 0447 0448 0449 044a 044b 044c 044d 044e 044f 0450 0451 0452 0453 0454 0455 0456 0457 0458 0459 045a 045b 045c 045d 045e 045f There are 1,120 tiles here. Each tile corresponds to the 8x8 pixel data that appears right after the header at the start. 12) Save your ROM and reopen it in Tile Molester. Now we're going to set our colours, reimport our graphic and do some fine-tuning. 13) Once again With Tile Molester open, make sure you have the right settings enabled: - Palette > Format > 9bpp (Genesis) - Palette > Byte Order > Motorola - View > Codec > 4bpp Linear 14) Jump to the offset where you are planning on pasting the background: - Navigate > Go to > enter the offset value where the graphic starts (in my example it is 1E2B0A, which is 1E2B00 + 10 bytes (0A in hex) right after the header!) - Make sure "Hex" and "Absolute" are selected. 15) Open your working space to 40x28 - you should be able to see the original graphic you pasted in, with the colours in the default TM palette. 16) Access your new palette here: Palette > Import from > This File You will be asked for an offset, the size, and the format. The offset value needs to be in decimal format. Remember where we placed our palette data? See step 8 to find the start of your palette (in our example 1EB72A). Put that number into your calculator or a converter to find the decimal value. (Our example 1EB72A = 2012970) Offset: 2012970 Size: 64 Format: 9bpp Genesis Your palette is now loaded, and now we can edit it to fix your colours. 17) Remember in Step 1 when you were asked to make a note of the colours in the table used in your image? Here is where you should input the values, in the order listed in the table. Double click each colour, and edit the values to correspond to the ones you have for your image. 18) Your colours may appear incorrect on your image, so once you've added your colours in the palette - insert your image again, and TM "should" correct the colours according to the palette. From there, you can do some fine tuning to fix stray pixels, or sections of colour that did not translate over correctly. Fix your background masterpiece and save your work. Close the file and TM. 19) Open your Hex Editor and do a search for the following Hex String 4B7A0. You will be taken to an area in the file in the F's (depending on your ROM) This is the pointer for the tiled EA Rink graphic. In my case, the offset was 0F823C. We are going to change that to the start point of our NEW graphic (in my examples, it is 1EB200) - replace 4B7A0 with 1EB200. 20) Save your file and fire up your emulator to see the changes. As you can see, the overlays use the palette colours as well, so you'll have to account for that and adjust your palette accordingly. Most of the time, the highlights work well with the background colours. I hope this works out for you. It seems like a lot, but it's really not THAT difficult once you start playing under the hood. You'll have a better understanding of how the graphics are displayed in game, and inspire you to change up your own stuff!

Can't wait until next season to have the chance to play with Connor Bedard in 16-bit glory? Here's your chance to take control of some of the top draft prospects and future stars in the NHL. Uh-oh, is Bedard feeling the nerves? OT thriller! Also included is a playoff mode with (unplayable) Division I teams to round out the bracket: Thank you as always to @slapshot67 @clockwise @smozoma for their original resources. Apologies to anyone I've missed, it certainly wasn't intentional. Looking forward to incorporating some of the amazing new discoveries out there in future projects but I was too deep into this one already. Special thanks to @von Ozbourne for the original opening screen, Zamboni, NHL Network and three stars artwork from the Reverse Retro mod and for general "technical support" aka answering stupid questions. Enjoy! 2023 WJC.bin

NHL '23 (95) IS BACK!!!! A lot of changes are going into this version of the rom MOD. Things that will be included: New Player portraits (Amazing hack from @DeterminedApathy with his amazing portraits hack) Updated rosters and lineups as of August 18th (https://www.dailyfaceoff.com/teams) Player Rating system and ideas (Huge Shout out to @Sauce) 2023 NHL prospects including Conor Bedard, Matvei Michkov, Adam Fantilli, and more. Some Easter eggs as well complaints of @AdamCatalyston the goalie nets. NHL23(95).bin NHL23-1(95).bin

So, I went to go adjust the title screens to put some kind of "do not pay money for this" / "visit nhl94.com" kind of note, and I got totally sidetracked, and hours later this is what I ended up with. I'm unreasonably proud of simplifying the Avs logo to a handle of pixels. p.s. Yeah, I know I got the socks wrong. It's a first draft. I'll fix it up before I put it in the ROM.

Genesis 3-button OEM controllers use a variety of different d-pad designs. I'm aware of at least four different types of d-pads. In the US, Sega released three different 3-button controllers, all with different d-pad designs. Sega also released at least one unique d-pad design for the 3-button sold internationally. I've collected all four versions of the 3-button controller. The following summarizes the different designs and how to tell them apart by the controller shell if you purchase any of them. First OEM model sold in the US. The dpad has a plastic nub inside that acts as a pivot point. You can pick it out by the red lettering. At least one top online player uses this model. The dpad feels stiff and precise and there isn't much travel, or wiggle when using it. The second OEM model solid in the US has no red lettering or accents on the shell. The feel is similar to the first OEM version, but perhaps slightly looser and more travel. Instead of a plastic nub, the second version model has a ball bearing attached to the contact pad that acts as a pivot point. The speculation is that this change was made as the first OEM version plastic nub tended to wear out more quickly with use. You can see the differences between the dpad designs in this picture, with the second version OEM shown on top and the first version OEM on the bottom. The third OEM version solid in the US changed up the dpad design again. This dpad has two interlocking plastic pieces serving as the pivot point, with no plastic nub or ball bearing. This dpad does not feel as premium as the earlier versions. It's much looser and has something of a cheap feel. The second and third version OEM controller shells look extremely similar. You can tell them apart by looking at the connection at the end of the controller wire. The second version OEM has a flatter design. The 3rd version OEM is on the left, 2nd version on the right. Lastly, there is a fourth dpad design on the OEM 3-button controller available only on foreign controllers, so they'll say Megadrive. The dpad has something like an internal joystick piece attaching the pad to the contact board. It feels different than the other dpads. Not all megadrive 3-buttons have this dpad design. You can pick it out by the circular divot on the back of the controller as shown here. That divot indicates it will have the "joystick" dpad model. This site has information on the different variations of the official 3-button controller. It doesn't provide as much detail on the different dpad designs. https://segaretro.org/Control_Pad_(Mega_Drive)

How to Use the Hacks in Adam Catalyst’s ROMs This is a counterpart to my ROMs NHL 94: 2022 Edition, and NHL 94: 2023 Edition, but you can use this information with most, if not any NHL '94 ROM. I wanted to document and share how you could tweak some of the game to suit your own tastes better, and to document what each of these hacks do. Furthermore, I wanted to make it easier for anyone to lift any of these hacks for their own ROMs. Grab a HEX editor (I use Hex Fiend but any will do), download the latest version of my ROM (below) and change things up! A Note on Team Data Allocation (v22.5.0+ / 2022 05 17) If you decide to edit my ROMs in NOSE, please note that the feature “Auto-Byte Allocation” may screw things up. My ROM was structured with a fixed 820 bytes allocated for each team. This should be enough for most purposes, and it is recommend that you do not enable “Auto-Bytes Allocation” unless you know what you’re doing. Hacks Index Each Hack is explained in a self contained post within this thread, and each posted is linked in the index below. You can use this first post as an index to navigate the thread. Allocate Team Data Opening Logo Screen Timing Title Screen Credits Text Edits Menu Crash Fix Player Photo Order Player Overall Ratings Formula Smaller Hot/Cold Variance Rink & Net Size Speed Burst Multiplier Stopping & Crossover Rate Energy Depletion & Recovery Stars of the Game Formula Stars of the Game Typesetting Player Cards - Vegas & Washington Crash Fix ROM Header Additional Resources Index These are separate How-To posts that I've written, outside of this thread. They don't specifically reference my ROMs, but they cover methods that I have used. I've tried to write them to be as thorough and user friendly as possible. Always be sure to check out the comments, as people sometimes share some great tips and tricks of their own. Got any questions? Just let me know! -Adam

Hello, first post! Not sure if everyone saw, but paul_met over at romhacking released wide mode hacks for NHL 94/95/96/97 & 98, these are not widescreen hacks, but wide mode hacks, which change the game resolution from 256x224 to 320x224, still a native Genesis resolution, so it still works in all the usual Genesis emulators. The attached widemode.7z (updated) below includes the patches themselves and pre-patched roms: Patches can be also found on: meduza-team.ucoz.net * note: the nhl 94 patch doesn't work on expanded 2MB roms yet, needs adaptation widemode.7z

As a follow up to my thread on changing the background graphic of the Main Menu, here is the way to update the tiled background in the Team Matchup screen. I think the method will be the same for the remaining tiled background screens (Edit Lines, stats, etc) but I have not reached that far yet - that will be part 2 of this tutorial. EASY WAY : Copy this data. 00 00 08 0A 00 00 08 8A 00 40 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 76 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 65 77 77 65 55 77 65 64 44 65 67 44 44 67 44 44 44 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 75 53 33 33 35 77 44 74 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 4F FF 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 33 33 35 77 44 47 75 33 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 FF FF 44 44 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 35 77 77 77 75 55 77 77 44 47 65 67 44 44 44 65 44 44 44 44 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 67 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 65 77 77 76 54 77 77 6E 44 77 7E 44 44 77 E4 44 44 77 44 44 44 7E 44 44 4F E4 44 44 F7 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 FF 44 44 FF 77 44 4F 47 77 4F 47 77 77 F4 77 77 77 47 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 4F F4 47 77 47 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 74 44 FF 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 44 44 44 44 4F 44 44 44 77 4F 44 44 77 77 4F 44 77 77 77 F4 77 77 77 7F 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 45 57 77 77 44 46 77 77 44 44 67 77 44 44 46 77 44 44 4E 67 44 44 44 E7 4F 44 44 4E 74 44 44 44 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 7E 77 77 77 7E 77 77 77 E4 77 77 77 44 77 77 7E 44 77 77 74 44 77 77 E4 44 77 77 44 44 44 44 4F 77 44 44 F7 77 44 44 F7 77 44 4F 77 77 44 44 77 77 44 F7 77 77 44 47 77 77 4F 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 75 77 77 75 33 77 77 53 4F 77 75 4F 44 77 57 F4 44 77 5F 44 44 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 33 33 77 77 EE EE 35 77 FF FF F3 57 44 44 4F E5 44 44 44 FE 44 44 44 4F 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 57 77 77 77 E5 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 F4 44 44 77 7F 44 44 77 77 F4 44 77 77 F4 44 77 77 44 44 77 75 44 44 77 34 44 44 77 44 44 44 E7 77 77 77 4E 77 77 77 44 77 77 77 44 47 77 77 44 4E 77 77 44 44 77 77 44 44 E7 77 44 44 47 77 77 7E 44 44 77 7E 44 44 77 7E 44 44 77 74 44 44 77 74 44 44 77 74 44 44 77 74 44 44 77 74 44 44 44 77 77 77 44 77 77 77 F7 77 77 77 F7 77 77 77 E7 77 77 77 E7 77 77 77 E7 77 77 77 E7 77 77 77 75 E4 44 44 75 44 44 44 77 44 44 44 77 44 44 44 77 E4 44 44 77 7F 44 44 77 7E F4 44 77 77 EF F4 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 4F 44 44 44 FE 44 44 FF E7 45 77 77 77 47 77 77 77 47 77 77 77 47 77 77 77 47 77 77 77 E7 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 73 77 77 77 34 77 77 77 54 77 77 73 44 77 77 34 44 75 44 F7 EF 34 4F 4E EF 44 4F 77 74 44 FE 77 74 44 47 77 7E 4F E7 77 77 F4 E7 77 77 F7 77 77 77 44 44 47 77 44 44 47 77 44 44 4E 77 44 44 44 77 F4 44 44 77 F4 44 44 77 F4 44 44 77 F4 44 44 77 77 74 44 44 77 74 44 44 77 74 44 44 77 74 44 44 77 7E E4 44 77 77 E4 44 77 77 F4 44 77 77 FF 44 E7 77 77 77 E7 77 77 77 E7 77 77 77 F7 77 77 77 F7 77 77 77 F4 77 77 77 44 57 77 77 4F 77 77 77 77 77 7E FF 77 77 77 7E 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 73 33 33 77 FF FF FF 77 F4 44 44 FF FF FE 77 FF FE 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 33 33 33 33 FF FF FF FF 44 44 44 44 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 33 33 33 33 FF FF FF FF 44 44 44 44 77 77 54 4F 77 73 44 44 77 54 44 FE 73 54 4F 47 75 44 4F 77 34 44 F7 77 F4 4F 77 77 44 4F 77 77 E7 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 7E 77 77 77 7E 77 77 77 7F 77 77 77 7F 77 77 77 E4 F4 44 44 77 F4 44 44 77 F4 44 44 77 44 44 44 77 44 44 FE 77 44 44 F7 77 44 44 F7 77 44 44 F7 77 77 77 EF 44 77 77 7F 44 77 77 7F 44 77 77 77 F4 77 77 77 F4 77 77 77 EF 77 77 77 7F 77 77 77 77 4F 47 77 77 44 F7 77 77 44 F4 77 77 44 4F 77 77 44 44 47 77 44 44 F7 77 44 44 4F 77 F4 44 44 F7 7E 44 44 44 7F 44 44 44 74 44 44 44 74 44 44 44 74 44 44 44 7F FF FF FF 7E FF FF FF 77 77 77 77 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF 77 77 77 77 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 4F FF FF FF F7 FF FF FF F7 77 77 77 77 44 FE 77 77 44 E7 77 77 4F 77 77 77 F7 77 77 77 E7 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 F4 77 77 7E F4 77 77 5F 44 77 77 EF 44 77 77 F4 44 77 5F E4 44 77 EF 44 44 7E F4 44 44 44 4F E7 77 44 4F 77 77 44 4F 77 77 44 F7 77 77 44 F7 77 77 4F 77 77 77 FF 77 77 77 F7 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 EF 44 44 4F 7F 44 44 44 77 F4 44 44 77 7F F4 44 77 77 FF 44 77 77 7F F4 77 77 77 FF 77 77 77 7F 77 77 77 77 F7 57 77 77 4F E5 77 77 44 FF 55 77 44 44 FE 55 44 44 44 FE 44 44 44 44 F4 44 44 44 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 55 57 77 77 FF E5 55 77 44 44 EE EE 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 55 77 77 55 EE EE EE E4 44 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 7E 77 77 7E FF 77 77 EF E4 75 5F F4 44 EF F4 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 EF 44 44 4F F4 44 44 FF 44 44 44 F7 44 44 FF 77 44 4F F7 77 44 FF 77 77 4F F7 77 77 FF 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 7F FF 44 44 77 EF FE 44 77 77 EF FF 77 77 77 7F 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 44 44 44 FF 44 44 44 44 E4 44 44 44 FF FF E4 44 77 EF FF EE 77 77 7F FF 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 FF F4 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 44 4E 44 44 EF FF EE EF FF E7 FF FF 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 44 44 4F FF 44 4E FF E7 FF FF E7 77 FF 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 E7 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 04 00 0E E2 0E 00 0C CC 0C 86 0C CA 0E CA 0C A8 0C CC 0E EE 00 EE 0E 00 0C 00 0A 00 0E 88 0A 66 04 00 0C CC 08 88 04 44 02 22 00 8C 00 6A 00 00 08 22 06 00 00 42 00 20 00 4A 00 06 06 6A 02 46 04 00 00 EE 00 00 06 66 06 66 06 66 06 66 06 66 06 66 06 66 06 66 06 66 06 66 0A 00 06 66 06 66 04 00 00 E0 00 00 06 66 06 66 06 66 06 66 06 66 06 66 06 66 06 66 06 66 06 66 00 00 06 66 06 66 00 28 00 1C 00 00 00 01 00 02 00 03 00 04 00 05 00 06 00 07 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 20 00 21 00 22 00 23 00 24 00 25 00 26 00 27 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 02 00 03 00 04 00 05 00 06 00 07 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 20 00 21 00 22 00 23 00 08 00 09 00 0A 00 0B 00 0C 00 0D 00 0E 00 0F 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 28 00 29 00 2A 00 2B 00 2C 00 2D 00 2E 00 2F 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 00 09 00 0A 00 0B 00 0C 00 0D 00 0E 00 0F 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 28 00 29 00 2A 00 2B 00 10 00 11 00 12 00 13 00 14 00 15 00 16 00 17 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 30 00 31 00 32 00 33 00 34 00 35 00 36 00 37 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 11 00 12 00 13 00 14 00 15 00 16 00 17 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 30 00 31 00 32 00 33 00 18 00 19 00 1A 00 1B 00 1C 00 1D 00 1E 00 1F 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 38 00 39 00 3A 00 3B 00 3C 00 3D 00 3E 00 3F 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 18 00 19 00 1A 00 1B 00 1C 00 1D 00 1E 00 1F 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 38 00 39 00 3A 00 3B 00 20 00 21 00 22 00 23 00 24 00 25 00 26 00 27 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 20 00 21 00 22 00 23 00 24 00 25 00 26 00 27 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 28 00 29 00 2A 00 2B 00 2C 00 2D 00 2E 00 2F 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 28 00 29 00 2A 00 2B 00 2C 00 2D 00 2E 00 2F 00 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15 00 16 00 17 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 30 00 31 00 32 00 33 00 34 00 35 00 36 00 37 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 11 00 12 00 13 00 14 00 15 00 16 00 17 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 30 00 31 00 32 00 33 00 18 00 19 00 1A 00 1B 00 1C 00 1D 00 1E 00 1F 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 38 00 39 00 3A 00 3B 00 3C 00 3D 00 3E 00 3F 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 18 00 19 00 1A 00 1B 00 1C 00 1D 00 1E 00 1F 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 38 00 39 00 3A 00 3B 00 20 00 21 00 22 00 23 00 24 00 25 00 26 00 27 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 20 00 21 00 22 00 23 00 24 00 25 00 26 00 27 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 28 00 29 00 2A 00 2B 00 2C 00 2D 00 2E 00 2F 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 28 00 29 00 2A 00 2B 00 2C 00 2D 00 2E 00 2F 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 30 00 31 00 32 00 33 00 34 00 35 00 36 00 37 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 30 00 31 00 32 00 33 00 34 00 35 00 36 00 37 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 38 00 39 00 3A 00 3B 00 3C 00 3D 00 3E 00 3F 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 38 00 39 00 3A 00 3B 00 3C 00 3D 00 3E 00 3F 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 02 00 03 00 04 00 05 00 06 00 07 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 02 00 03 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 00 09 00 0A 00 0B 00 0C 00 0D 00 0E 00 0F 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 00 09 00 0A 00 0B 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 11 00 12 00 13 00 14 00 15 00 16 00 17 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 11 00 12 00 13 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 18 00 19 00 1A 00 1B 00 1C 00 1D 00 1E 00 1F 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 18 00 19 00 1A 00 1B 00 00 00 01 00 02 00 03 00 04 00 05 00 06 00 07 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 20 00 21 00 22 00 23 00 24 00 25 00 26 00 27 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 02 00 03 00 04 00 05 00 06 00 07 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 20 00 21 00 22 00 23 00 08 00 09 00 0A 00 0B 00 0C 00 0D 00 0E 00 0F 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 28 00 29 00 2A 00 2B 00 2C 00 2D 00 2E 00 2F 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 08 00 09 00 0A 00 0B 00 0C 00 0D 00 0E 00 0F 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 28 00 29 00 2A 00 2B 00 10 00 11 00 12 00 13 00 14 00 15 00 16 00 17 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 30 00 31 00 32 00 33 00 34 00 35 00 36 00 37 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 11 00 12 00 13 00 14 00 15 00 16 00 17 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 30 00 31 00 32 00 33 00 18 00 19 00 1A 00 1B 00 1C 00 1D 00 1E 00 1F 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 38 00 39 00 3A 00 3B 00 3C 00 3D 00 3E 00 3F 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 18 00 19 00 1A 00 1B 00 1C 00 1D 00 1E 00 1F 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 38 00 39 00 3A 00 3B • Open a hex editor, paste the code at the end of the game data in your ROM file. Where the FF's start in the free space. Remember the starting offset you pasted it at - this is your new address. • Change the pointer at this offset value (0FCD4C) to your new starting offset value (The old value is 54E24 - overwrite it with yours) • Save the ROM and close it. • Open the ROM and edit your graphic in Tile Molester, found at the new address you pasted it at. Move forward 10 bytes to line the graphic up, and then paste in your own 64x64 pixel image. • Change palette colour info, clean up your graphic. • Serve hot. LONG WAY with explanations - **REMEMBER - create a backup copy before making edits.** 1) In a Hex Editor, navigate to the end of the last set of data in your ROM to an offset of your choosing where the free space FF's appear. Remember the offset value (in this example, I’m using 1EC070) 2) Insert this header information: 00 00 08 0A 00 00 08 8A 00 40 080A = 2058 bytes (Header + Tile Pixel Data) 088A = 2186 bytes (Header + Tile Pixel Data + Palette) 0040 = 64 tiles 3) Prepare an 8-bit 64 x 64 pixel PNG graphic. Make sure it is no more than 10 colours, no transparency. Make a note of the colour values you used in your graphic (RGB) for each colour. Make sure the values are multiples of 32 because they are SEGA friendly (0 32 64 96 128 etc) 4) Open Tile Molester, and bring up your ROM. Palette > Format > 9bpp (Genesis) Palette > Byte Order > Motorola View > Codec > 4bpp Linear Navigate to the offset you chose - Navigate > Go To > [your offset] and move forward 10 bytes using the byte forward button , so you don’t overwrite the header information. 5) Make your working area 8 x 8 tiles by decreasing the width and height with the appropriate buttons. 6) Go to Edit > Paste From > (navigate to your background tile) to insert the graphic. 7) Save and close your file. Open a Hex Editor and reopen your ROM. Navigate to the starting offset for your graphic. After the header you inserted, there should be a bunch of new data. Scroll to the end of that data (until you reach a bunch of FFFFs). That is the end of the pixel data. Now you are going to insert a palette. 8) Copy/Paste this data right after your pixel data (no spaces) 0EEA 0CCC 0888 0444 0222 008C 006A 0000 0822 0600 0042 0020 004A 0006 066A 0246 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 0EE8 This is the palette data and will allow you to set custom colours for your background. There are 128 bytes that correspond to the 64 colours available for the screen. Typically, you only want to use no more than 10-12 since there are sprites that often share the same palettes. The colour codes listed above are the generic ones chosen by wboy - we are going to edit these to accommodate your new background. 9) Directly after the palette data, insert the following code (no spaces) 0028 001C - this is to specify that we are using the graphic in a 40 tile x 28 tile space, or 320 pixel x 224 pixel screen (Remember 1 tile = 8x8 pixels, 40x8=320 / 28x8=224, 320x224 = full screen on SEGA) 10) Save your file, close it and reopen it in Tile Molester (I know, I know, a lot of back and forth - but there's a reason for it. Each part has to go in stages to build the graphic and set up the corresponding data so you don't miss anything) 11) Navigate to your chosen offset, move forward 10 bytes to get the image to appear in the viewer. Make sure your workspace is 8x8 tiles to line it all up. Your palette information should be at the end of the new graphic file you inserted. To see it in Tile Molester, advance ahead 1 page with the page forward button. At the bottom of your workspace, you should see the offset it is located at. (In my example, it is located at 1EC87A) 12) Convert your offset value to decimal (in my example 1EC87A = 2017402). Then go to Palette > Import from > This File Offset: [your value in decimal] Size: 64 Format: 9bpp Genesis Your palette is now loaded, and now we can edit it to fix your colours. 9) Go back 1 page to return to your assembled graphic. Input the values of the colours you want to use according to the order listed in the table. The colours should be wildly off, so it will give you an easy idea which colour goes where. Double click each colour, and edit the values to correspond to the ones you made a note of in the first step image. 10) Once your colours have been inserted into the palette, reimport your image again - this way Tile Molester can try to approximate the closest colours to the ones in your file. You may have to alter some of the pixels in your image so it displays the way you want it, but it will be fairly close. After tweaking and editing your colours, save the file and close it. 11) NOW comes the tricky part. Since this is a repeating tile, you have to create a tile layout. EA Sports did a staggered repeating logo pattern, and that is what we'll do here. I suggest you have a plan for how you want your graphic to look, because it is difficult to figure out misaligned pixels at a glance. This is the tile layout map I used. You can see that there is a repeating blank pixel I used frequently (2000). Since the tile is only 8 tiles wide, you have to get creative. I suggest you make a 40 x 28 grid, and experiment with how you want the tile to appear, along with spacers. From there, make a note of the tile label (2000, 2001 etc) on top of each tile in the grid in your diagram. Since the tile layout is a continuous string of numbers, it is easy to lose your place. 12) Once your map has been created, open your ROM in your hex editor and navigate to the end of your pixel data. It should be found close to: your offset value + 088A (which is the tile bytes + palette bytes + header bytes) Skip over the next 8 bytes that contain your width and height values (0000 0028 0000 001C) and start inputting your tile layout numbers after 001C. There's 1,120 of them, so it's gonna take a while if you do them manually if you want a special layout. Otherwise you can just copy the ones from the EASY WAY above. 13) Once you've slogged through all of the layout numbers, it's time to change the pointer so it reads your new graphic instead of the old one. The EA Sports tiles graphic pointer is found at 0FCD4C. The value listed there is 054E24. If you go to that offset in Tile Molester, you'll see a lot of garbled pixels and nothing that looks remotely like the tile. It is heavily compressed, and I have yet to figure out what the compression code is (and I'm not too eager to start). So - at offset 0FCD4C, change the existing value (054E24) to your new value (in my case it is 1EC070) 14) Save your ROM and have a look at it in your emulator. Fingers crossed you didn't miss a number in the layout. If all goes well, you will have changed the elusive background tile. **Note: The palette is shared by the text/font information, so be conscious of that when you're adding colours. To be safe, I reduced my palette to 10 colours, included black/white and grey, and left the remaining colours the same. But you can alter the text colours for something a little more "funky." Okay - I'm out. Go break your ROMs. Have fun doing it.

version 1.1 released! See the first post for the download. Updates: Likely fixed the issues with the files getting lost, or crashing if you have spaces in your folders or file names. Dithering patterns: Added a few more dithering patterns. I like the Burkes one. Renamed the pattern what was previously called "Atkinson" (atk), since it was actually something I had customized. It's now called Smoz31 (s31). Added the actual Atkinson pattern. Ability to select which patterns to use, and which colour evaluation schemes to use (Linear/Squared/Cubed). So you don't have to do allll the possibilities, you can just do the ones you like. Fixed bug: the files that were marked as "linear" or "squared" in the old version were reversed. So now the files labelled as linear will have the lower error score, which is correct. So be aware that if you used to like, say, the "linear" results, you now should look at the "squared" results. Multicore processing!! Each pattern+mode combination will execute on a CPU core, in parallel. So if you have a 4-core CPU, you might as well choose at least 4 options. You can specify how "thorough" the palette evolution is. Enter a value from 1-5. I recommend 1 or 2 when playing around, but 3 or 4 when you're serious and want to get the best quality palette. The way to enter which pattern(s) you want is a little confusing. If you want to use patterns 1, 3, and 6 from the list, you should enter "136" and hit Enter. "123456" for all the patterns. Let me know if it doesn't run. Might need to install/update the Microsoft C++ "runtimes" package (https://aka.ms/vs/17/release/vc_redist.x64.exe)

If this helps - here's an updated version of wboy's graphic + the reverse angle version used in instant replays. The difference is the extra spacing used behind the bench, the scorekeepers and the modified areas between the benches. If you match up the tile layout to the offsets, it will give you an idea of placements.

The trade deadline? That's ages away! I can't bear to play with Bo Horvat on the wrong team that long!!! I don't want to promise anything, I have poor health, and always have to put that first. All that being said, a tentative schedule… 2.0 All-Star Edition. Released no later than Feb 10th. 3.0 TBD. Will depend on any blockbuster trades, etc., and the progress on internal development here. 4.0 Play-Off edition. Released for the start of the playoffs. 5.0 Final edition. Released once the Stanley Cup final matchup is set. Rosters are to be all be set on version 4.0, however it is possible that there are still extremely minor changes for version 5.0, as I (or someone else) will probably notice an oversight. And of course, version numbers subject to change, based on what is or isn't included on each version. Heck, everything is subject to change. But that is the plan right now.

In preparation of starting a line changes league, here's some proposed team rankings to help guide the drafting process. I'm excluding the bottom 5 expansion teams from this list (ANA, FLA, OTT, SJS, TBL) because they can barely ice one good line. So for the remaining 21 teams I will rank them based on my own opinion of who I'd prefer to play with. You'll notice throughout this topic, I will reference the recent SDL draft history to see how many of these players are included. You'll also notice that I will completely ignore goaltenders in my analysis, I'm only looking at the top 9 F and top 6 D because all SNES goalies suck anyways. All proposed lineups are just off the top of my head while trying to balance the top 2 lines slightly as they'll be the most used in a line change league. You'll want to practice some games and juggle some of the lines if things aren't gelling like you'd hoped. #1 Calgary Flames LW C RW LD RD Line 1 Fleury Roberts Reichel Suter MacInnis Line 2 Makarov Otto Nieuwendyk Musil Petit Line 3 Ashton Ranheim Lindberg Johansson Dahl This is my favourite team for line changes. Look at that depth in the top 2 lines. There is hardly a dropoff at all in skills and the 3rd line can definitely hold its own as well with Lindberg being the only player without SDL draft history. #2 Los Angeles Kings LW C RW LD RD Line 1 Carson Sandstrom Kurri Zhitnik Blake Line 2 Gretzky Robitaille Granato Sydor McSorely Line 3 Donnelly Millen Taylor Huddy Hardy This lineup is scary good as well. Sandstrom and Robitaille centering the top 2 lines with those lethal shots and very good wingers feeding them can definitely do some damage. A very solid top 4 D core as well. The 3rd line takes a bit of a drop off with Taylor and Hardy having no SDL draft history, but you can shield them by heavily using SC1 and SC2 #3 Montreal Canadiens LW C RW LD RD Line 1 Lebeau Muller Damphousse Schneider Desjardins Line 2 Savard Bellows Leclair Daigneault Ramage Line 3 Dionne Keane Leeman Odelein Brisebois There's no doubt about the forward depth on Montreal. The only question mark in that top 6 is Leclair but he can be very effective when he's having a good game. All 6 defensemen also have SDL draft history and anyone that knows me, knows I typically dress Odelein as a starter and I love me some Bellows. Leeman is the only player with no SDL draft history which actually surprises me because he's a pretty good, reliable player. #4 Detroit Red Wings LW C RW LD RD Line 1 Fedorov Yzerman Drake Lidstrom Coffey Line 2 Ysebaert Ciccarelli Probert Chiasson Konstantov Line 3 Gallant Primeau Ogrodnick Howe Racine Detroit is one of only two teams with 15/15 players with SDL draft history. I've tried to balance the lines so only the RW position is getting exposed. Right wingers don't kill penalties anyways so that's the best position for a weaker player in my opinion. Two lines centered by Yzerman and Ciccarelli will be a serious threat with those deadly shots. Thanks to AJ for catching me mistakenly having Ogrodnick on D. #5 Vancouver Canucks LW C RW LD RD Line 1 Bure Linden Ronning Lumme Lidster Line 2 Courtnall Nedved Adams Slegr Diduck Line 3 Momesso Ward Craven Murzyn Babych Vancouver is the other team that has 15/15 players with SDL draft history. They even have a 7th D-man (Plavsic) with some SDL history. That is some impressive depth for a line changes league! There is a bit of a dropoff in talent between line 1 and line 2 which bumps them down the list a bit. I'd be curious to see what Nedved can do with that 6 shot accuracy at 2C. They do probably have the best 3rd line options in the game though. #6 New York Rangers LW C RW LD RD Line 1 Tikkanen Gartner Nemchinov Leetch Patrick Line 2 Turcotte Messier Olczyk Lowe Zubov Line 3 Amonte Kovalev Graves Andersson Beukeboom No surprise that NYR has some depth in this game. Andersson is the only player without SDL draft experience. I like those top 2 lines especially and the 3rd line is decent enough to not get exposed while it's out there. #7 Pittsburgh Penguins PIT LW C RW LD RD Line 1 Jagr Lemieux Francis Samuelsson Murphy Line 2 Stevens Mullen Tocchet Stanton Samuelsson Line 3 Straka McEachern Tippett Taglianeti Ramsey It's a bit surprising to see arguably the best team in SNES 94 this far down the list, but their depth is not as good as others for a line changes league. That 3rd line is atrocious and you're not going to want them out here too long but thankfully the top 2 lines will be able to carry the majority of the play. #8 Toronto Maple Leafs TOR LW C RW LD RD Line 1 Cullen Gilmour Borshevsky Ellett Rouse Line 2 Anderson Andreychuk Clark Gill Macoun Line 3 Krushelski Zezel Foligno Mironov Berehowsky All of Toronto's forwards and all but one defense (Berehowsky) have SDL draft experience which is some impressive depth. The top 2 lines are pretty balanced and will be able to contribute. There's a bit of a drop off in line 3 but that's going to happen with all of the teams going forward. #9 Washington Capitals WSH LW C RW LD RD Line 1 Bondra Ridley Miller Iafrate Cote Line 2 Carpenter Khristich Pivonka Johansson Hatcher Line 3 Elynuik Hunter MacDermid Cavallini Langway Really good balance in the top 2 lines here with hardly any flaws. I like to spread out Iafrate and Hatcher so you have a heavy D man on each of the top 2 lines. #10 Quebec Nordiques QUE LW C RW LD RD Line 1 Nolan Sundin Ricci Leschyshyn Duchesne Line 2 Kamensky Sakic Kovalenko Gusarov Tatatrinov Line 3 Twist Cavallini Young Huffman Foote Another well balanced top 2 lines and could be very even to Washington's team but I gave WSH the edge for their defense. There's probably slightly more skill and scoring touch on Quebec's top 6 F group. P.S. Tony Twist is terrible, don't use him. He was drafted once in SDL as a joke which is why he made it on this list. But he also scored 1 goal on 1 shot.. so maybe use him? #11 Boston Bruins BOS LW C RW LD RD Line 1 Oates Neely Juneau Sweeney Bourque Line 2 Kvartalnov Ruzicka Poulin Wesley Featherstone Line 3 Donato Heinze Pantaleyev Roberts Shaw Another surpise this team has dropped so far in my rankings but other than the top line, and 1 or 2 good spares, the depth is not there. Maybe you could split up Oates and Neely to spread it out a bit more but I still don't love the options with this team and that 3rd line is a severe liability. #12 New Jersey Devils NJD LW C RW LD RD Line 1 Semak Richer Zelepukin Fetisov Stevens Line 2 Stastny Lemieux Holik Niedermayer Driver Line 3 Nicholls MacLean Pellerin Albelin Daneyko I really like the depth at forward and the top 4 D on this group. I debated ranking them ahead of Boston. That 3rd line is not even that bad. Both top 2 lines have a great mix of skill and size to get the job done. #13 Winnipeg Jets WPG LW C RW LD RD Line 1 Steen Selanne Shannon Housley Olausson Line 2 Davydov Zhamnov Tkachuk Bautin Numminen Line 3 Borsato Eagles King Carlyle Ulanov The top 4 defense core is really solid without many flaws. The RW position is a bit lacking on both top 2 lines but there is enough balance that both lines can be effective and provide enough offense. #14 Chicago Blackhawks CHI LW C RW LD RD Line 1 Ruutuu Roenick Murphy Smith Chelios Line 2 Sutter Larmer Goulet Marchment Kucera Line 3 Murray Graham Noonan Muni Brown Again with a big drop off from one of the best teams in the game, but like mentioned above, aside from the top line the depth is not there. Goulet on the 2nd line? Gross. #15 Buffalo Sabres BUF LW C RW LD RD Line 1 Hawerchuk Mogilny Sweeney Svoboda Smehlik Line 2 Khmylev Lafontaine Errey Ledyard Bodger Line 3 Patterson Ray Audette Carney Moller Here's another team that's struggling with depth outside of the top line, that will be the story for the rest of the teams on this list so I'll stop mentioning it. I tried to spread things out with Lafontaine centering SC2 but he's got some garbage wingers to work with. The top 4 defense can hold their own though. #16 St. Louis Blues STL LW C RW LD RD Line 1 Janney Hull Sutter Brown Butcher Line 2 Emerson Shanahan Miller Giles Quintal Line 3 Bassen Wilson Korolev Norwood Zombo Not a bad top 2 line options, only the RW position being a bit on the weak end. Bob Bassen on the 3rd line can provide a scoring option as well if he gets out there. #17 Edmonton Oilers EDM LW C RW LD RD Line 1 Corson Klima Weight Manson Kravchuk Line 2 Ciger Simpson MacTavish Richardson Benning Line 3 Elik Todd Hudson Werenka Glynn Klima and Simpson provide great center options with those shots. EDM also can ice 6 pretty decent and reliable defensemen. The winger options do look a bit ugly outside of Corson though. #18 New York Islanders NYI LW C RW LD RD Line 1 Hogue Turgeon Ferraro Kasparaitis Malakhov Line 2 Thomas King Volek Norton Lachance Line 3 Mullen Flatley McInnis Kurvers Krupp I debated putting Hogue on line 2 here and it might be the better option to spread things out. Outside of Turgeon and Hogue all the wingers are pretty blah but the defense can hold its own, similar to EDM above. #19 Dallas Stars DAL LW C RW LD RD Line 1 Gagner Modano Broten Tinordi Sjodin Line 2 Dahlen Courtnall Gilchrist Hatcher Matvichuk Line 3 Craig McPhee Propp Ludwig Berry We're getting into the bottom few teams here and it's starting to show. Ony Tinordi and Sjodin have SDL draft experince on the D end so that is where this team is definitely lacking. The top 6 forwards are not that terrible. #20 Philadelphia Flyers PHI LW C RW LD RD Line 1 Eklund Lindros Dineen Yushkevich Galley Line 2 Brindamour Recchi Beranek Hawgood Nattress Line 3 Acton Fedyk Snuggerud Carkner McGill Haven't quite figured out what the optimal lineup would be here because it's really limited. There's only 5 forwards and 3 defensemen with SDL draft history on this team... it's bad. #21 Hartford Whalers HFD LW C RW LD RD Line 1 Sanderson Verbeek Janssens Zalapski Burt Line 2 Poulin Cassels Kron Weinrich Pederson Line 3 Leach Nylander Petrovicky Keczner Houda Similar to PHI, there's only 5 forwards and 3 defensemen with SDL draft history on this team and overall they're much worse than Philly.

Well, It has been a minute. I've had some questions and request about my roms. I hope this post and these roms will address these. I've got some updates to some updated roms and some requested roms to post. These 3 roms have had major upgrades to them. They are all WB fixed and CB fixed. Better player ratings. Better uniforms. All new EASN branding. Actual playoff brackets. Proper Arena music. @Deckard @Darko99 @Matt55 NHL'67.bin NHL'80.bin NHL'93.bin

My write-on vote is for @Ellis for his exception work on haxball and the creation of an NHL94 hax league.

Hello (again). 3.0 is live now. Outdoor Rink is set up, with lots of details I enjoy. There have been a few outdoor rink templates (including my own), but this is in my opinion the truest look. The glass is "transparent" and the lighting is ever so slightly tinted yellow to give a sunshine/stadium lighting effect. The scoreboard is snowy, the splash screen is Soldier Field, and teams that I have seen wear alternate uniforms outside receive updates to wear those jerseys. A few football inspired uniforms too. Bugs have been tracked and fixed.

Hey all, I've created 3 new tools for NHL95 PC to extract in-game sprites, music & sounds. The sprite extractor leverages gfxpak to get the raw image data out of the PPV files before the sprites are converted to .raw (Photoshop RAW, not Camera RAW) and .bmp format. Note that the music & sound extractors are WIP and aren't perfect. Also note that these are all written in js so they should be very easy to modify & or reverse engineer for importing. Grab them here: https://github.com/abdulahmad/EA-NHL-Tools (each tool has it's own README with more info on it) Here's a sample of some of the extracted sprites: I've also created a few videos where I walk through how I figured out these file formats. It was originally intended for a fellow modder, but I feel like anyone who wants to know more about file format hacking can learn something. Here is a playlist of them: Just an FYI-- I used to be someone who modded the EA NHL PC games starting with NHL 95 and then NHL 98 all the way to NHL 06. If I recall correctly I was the first one who released modded rinks (under the pseudo name Chris and the group RTM but then later with my own name) and also figured out the Centre Ice file format. I have been sad to see threads from 2012-13 with people trying to figure out how mod NHL 95, so I figure I should publish as much as this info as possible. I am working on an Engine remake of NHL 94/95 in Unity so this is why I have been spending so much time hacking. I intend to make more tools soon-- the next one I'm looking to do is around palettes & extracting palettes from NHL 95 PC, and perhaps even 94 Genesis/SNES and have them in a format that can be applied to the extracted sprites and/or potentially even the ability to extract all the sprites with a specified palette. I also have started to create a document with information on all the file formats in NHL 95. I figure I will post that information in this thread as I spend more time on it, and also add it to EA NHL Tools github above.

Hi everyone!It's that time again... As with past years, I am posting my NHL94 2023 edition ROM (various updates, to come, throughout the season). I'll start with this “Way Too Early” Edition and post additional versions as the pre-season/season progresses.About the ROM:*32 teams. *The ROM is based off of the Slapshot67 32-team template. *60 Min. OT.*The ROM has the "weight bug fix". *The ROM has Clockwise's sprite patch.*The rom has the WAS/WPG freeze bug. When corrected, it causes an issue for the playoff mode. If you use Kega Fusion, it will not freeze the player cards for those teams.*Uniforms have been updated for Edmonton (both home and away), Columbus (Away) and Carolina (Home), Vegas (Home) and San Jose (Home and Away). *Lines/d pairs are confirmed in some cases and best guesses/speculation in others. They are subject to change. *Some injured players are in the active rosters if they are rumored to be returning (1st half of) this season. Those out for a while longer may be in the game but not active. Those confirmed as "out for the year" have been removed. If you notice any mistakes, please let me know... enjoy! "Way Too Early" Edition ROM (Re-posted 8/23/22) NHL94 2023 Way Too Early Edition.bin "Preseason" Edition ROM (Posted 9/10/22) NHL94 2023 Preseason Edition.bin V1 of Regular Season ROM (Posted 10/12/22) NHL94 2023 v1.bin

I've always preferred working in the 30-team ROM since it meant that every player got to have a photo, but there are obviously other reasons one would prefer the 32-team ROM. Unfortunately the main 32-Team version floating around seemed to be missing the photos for all but the starting lineup. Why was this? ...was the question. Turns out they were just erased. Yeah, all those 0's is bad. For those interested in what the columns mean. In the case of the first row: 0012 & 0284 - The pointer for the player photo. 0000 - The hex number coinciding with each player's position in the roster. There are some 0's and stuff after the 26th player, so the columns get offset a bit with each new team. Want the player photos back? Follow these steps. Step 1. Starting on a new game? Excellent! Just download Slapshot67's original ROM below and you are done. No need to proceed to Step 2. Although, check out Bonus Step 5 if you like. Step 2. Still here? Okay, I guess that you are looking to reattach the photos in a ROM that you have already put some time into. Well, luckily the quick fix is to open your hex editor and select the code between offsets 040E & 6154. Step 3. Replace it with this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Step 4. Aaaand technically you're done. Now go make your game! The photos for all 26 possible players on all 32 teams were already there in the ROM. Just that now you can actually use them again! Bonus Step 5. The other thing to note is that this particular text block will arrange the players in the order that they appear in NOSE from the starting goalie [0000] to the last D-man [0019] If you want to have the starting lineup appear first followed by the other peons, you will need to figure out where the players appear in the order in NOSE and set the first six players to: 0000 [the Starting goalie always goes first, and appears last in the player scrolling] Follow up with the five skaters in your starting lineup, counting where they are in the order and using the corresponding hex number to their roster spot. [1st is 0000, 15th is 000E, 20th is 0013, etc] Be sure that your player photos are imported in the same order that you are placing them in the hex code. Finish the team up with the remaining players until everyone from 0000 to 0019 has made it into the roster somewhere. Pair this up with the hack to set how many players you display on the main menu and the Ron Barr pre-game screen, as well as the Winnipeg freeze bug fix, shake well and enjoy.

So I messed around with this a bit further and figured out a few things. I managed to edit together 2 midi tracks to make a custom HNIC theme from the 90s. I used MixPad and altered notes etc to sound similar to the track, then I went to work changing the notes to a single instrument. From there, I exported a midi track and ran it using smoz' python script. Because there were multiple notes playing at the same time throughout the track (like chords), THAT is how you can cheat and have multiple instruments at once. The thing is, trying to separate them according to tone is super difficult. The EASY way to do it is to simply assign an instrument to a pitch range. It's not 100% foolproof but it's pretty good. As you can see in the image above, any note played in the '40' range from column D was assigned channel 0 (90/80). Every pitch with values in the 50s got channel 1 (91/81) and so on and so forth. I ended up with 6 channels and used 3 instruments. Channel 0 = 0B Channel 1 = 08 Channel 2 = 04 Channel 3 = 0B Channel 6 = 08 Channel 7 = 0B I wanted more of a brassy sound because of the horns in the actual track and the 0B chorus synth worked fairly well, with 08 having some decent single sound reverb. HNIC-2.mp4 If you notice, I figured out how to get the song to loop. At the end of the original NHL94 theme is a 10 byte footer(?) that I pasted at the end of the midi information I put in from smoz' script. It looks like this: If you copy the highlighted part and slap it at the end of your track, it should loop, regardless of what comes after it. We're getting there... the sound barrier has been breached LOL

Here's the data for the "loop point." At offset 46D82, there's 10 bytes that you have to add to the end of your song. Then it will loop infintely.

Hello all! Just wanted to share an update (one I am very excited about) on this project. drumroll... I have figured out how to really take advantage of Smozoma's midi2nhl94 converter and have begun work sweeping through my mental rolodex of stadium songs and pep band classics to create a more modern (yet still classy 16-bit) music experience. Take a listen to my rendition of You Should Be Dancing by The Beegees (better known as the "Gino Time" song here in Boston though!), along with the Bill Walsh College Football Theme, The Hockey Song by Stompin' Tom Connors, and Sirius by The Alan Parsons Project snuck in elsewhere. You can also grab a preview of the new audience, ice layout, and menu designs in action there. There is no ETA for this because I am not stupid enough to put one again knowing I'll miss it!

"Mr. von Ozbourme, we have Gary Bettman on the line for you..."

Some new resources for any fellow travellers who happen upon this thread. PDF (1.5 megs) - This contains a map of every tile used in the NHL 94 rink. There are five pages, two of which are blank, so that you can extract them, or add your own rink watermark to them. The last page shows the exact settings that were used in Adobe Acrobat to import the rink image to be aligned with the grid. PSD (40 megs) - This Photoshop file uses the previously aforementioned PDF, to create a template where you can easily insert your own rink image. You will need to scale your rink image up 1000% (use Nearest Neighbour) and then simply paste it into a layer (centred). No rink images have been included to reduce the file size. EDIT: I have replaced the previously attached resources with more, better, and smaller files that you can download from this post:

Try re-downloading, i updated the roms with version 1.1, from the readme: Changes in version 1.1: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - Fixed NPC sprites disappearing at the very edge of the screen.

Hey all, Just wanted to share an update on the scope of this project (mostly for my own gain/to track progress). First, I have decided to revamp the branding to get away from the ESPN+ imagery. There was some serious East Coast bias in that decision given only 2 conferences are on the service. Second, I am changing the pre-game experience to be a bit more true to college hockey and cohesive with the NCAA branding. Colby Cohen takes over as the color commentator given he's the only Frozen Four broadcaster who played D-I, and team rankings appear. Drezz's background hacks appear on both pre-game screens. This is a screenshot of the rough draft of this stage of the game, and I am very excited with how the final looks. Third, the rink and arena tile layout has been updated to feature a more realistic atmosphere. Ice logos are as authentic as possible, and fan colors are now "dynamic" based on the home team's color palette. The signs are also going to be on the bottom of the glass as to match actual NCAA rinks. I hope to publish the podded update where you can see all of the changes in action within the next few weeks, these large scale changes take a lot of time but they are necessary to create a ROM worthy of the amazing league that is D1 NCAA Hockey.

Congrats to @Tickenest for winning Bud of the year! We all appreciate the charts, graphs and analytics you provide to the community!

Can we make a last second Bud of the Year ballot addition?

Of course! I'm actually working on a tile map to make it easier for visualizing the layout. I still have to finish up the "How To" for the first part of the background art. It's coming!

Okay! PROGRESSSSSSS.... I figured out the background issue! I'm hoping it doesn't cause any "other" problems, but so far it looks pretty good. The artifacts are gone, and everything seems to work as it should. I'm going to test it out a bit further before I give a tutorial on how I did it. It's actually WAY easier than you'd think.

After a long hiatus, it's finally time to revisit the World Championships. ...with a twist. The story behind this entry is that as the new millennium approaches, it is now the time of the PlayStation and EA games have fully embraced the era of low-poly 3D models, janky animation and really learning what the word "clipping" means. As for the IIHF series, it is also reaching a milestone in releasing its tenth game. I do not have this game. However, as a bonus Tenth Birthday surprise, the Anniversary Edition of this game has an Easter egg in the menu where you can load up an retro version of the game based on the NHL'94 ROM. So, presenting the retro review of: First thing one will notice is that the game art is more of a reference to NHL'94 rather than IIHF'94. This is mostly due to the game being built on the architecture of the PlayStation version of the game and some limitations imposed with that. There are a few differences that will show up between this version and the original, starting with how Team 1920 got the call to adapt it to the IIHF, but the rest of the old credit scroll was disabled. When the main menu comes up, the Play Mode is the second difference, [third counting the missing second splash screen] You start with a "Play Now" option and the User Records were disabled. Likely due to not having a way to save them on the PlayStation. Another big change is that there is no Ron Barr introducing the game [for obvious licensing reasons] and while, unlike the retro NHL'94 version with fake random player names, this game does have the real player names, but the connection to the photos had been severed and only these staticy silhouettes remained. [which meant that the researcher didn't have to spend any time trying to find photos of all of the players, so hey, that's fine] An interesting difference for the playoffs, the updated IIHF World Championship trophy makes an appearance [in it's final form before being retired in favour of a new trophy unveiled at next year's tournament] Player cards get some nice updated logos, but of course no photos. Another interesting difference with the PlayStation version is that the code for the player stats is wholly dependant on a "blank defenceman" being listed in the code for the players or else the stat screen completely breaks. No idea why this is, just that it takes up bytes. Also in the "no idea" file, the "Press A to Switch teams" text on the bottom of this screen was removed. Trying to put it back just breaks things, but the text not being there doesn't mean that you can't still press A to view your opponent's player stats anyway. One on-ice improvement over the original IIHF'94 is that the full licensing agreement by this time means that ice logos are based on team uniform logos as opposed to each country's flag or coat of arms. It's tiny, and not quite the right colour, but the World Champs trophy makes an on-ice appearance once you win the playoffs as well. A final note. Since the game is not being emulated within a PlayStation game, this End Game menu item doesn't actually do anything. Apparently an interview with a Team 1920 spokesperson at the time revealed that while this game was "an interesting challenge to work with, it is unlikely that we will be revisiting it for any future releases." So there you have it. IIHF 2000 [10AE].bin

Hey folks, Version 6.0, the final major version of my ROM has been posted, in the first post as usual. Before I get to the details, I just want to thank everyone who has put time in Beta testing and writing me feedback. This more refined gameplay never have been possible without you. Thank-you again! ---------------------------------------------------------------- 2022 06 12 - Version 6.0 “The [Gameplay’s] the thing.” This final major version is overwhelmingly focused on rebuilding the gameplay to a more realistic & contemporary feel & balance. This version also introduces two patches, a Rookie Mode to make scoring goals easier, and an Arcade Mode for faster action. And you can finally control the goalie immediately with a 6-button controller. Of course there are other improvements, but the biggest changes are invisible to the eye… Main Menu - Settings: Default teams set for the 2022 Stanley Cup finals. - Graphics: Over one third (>64) of all Player Photos were re-scaled and re-cropped for better visual balance. - Graphics: A couple of player photos were replaced. Arena - Sprites: Zamboni driver wave hand colours adjusted. - Graphics: Arena glass in corners have seams removed. - Graphics: Coaches (implied) arms shortened. In-Play - Graphics: EDM & OTT Home uniforms and on-ice logos revised. - Graphics: CHI & MIN Away uniforms revised. - Sprites: Bench players animation uniforms, shading, & shadows improved. - Sprites: Face-off pop-over graphics further refined, cosmetic glitches from original removed. Rosters & Lines, & Ratings - Rosters & Lines: Minor changes to some teams. - Ratings: Major changes to everyone. All ratings completely re-done (a third time) to conform to provide a new gameplay balance & feel. Gameplay & Ratings: - Speed: Attributes for skating, shooting, passing have been balanced to have a much more realistic ratio between the relative speed of these motions in real-life. - Skaters: All players, especially the low-end players are now more responsive in their skating & shooting. - Penalties: Aggression & Checking distributions have been conformed to (slightly) reduce penalties. - Defencemen: On average, defencemen are now rated a little higher for contemporary gameplay balance. - Goaltenders: All attributes re-rated with a new attribute distribution, in order to provide better goaltending throughout. Gameplay - Players: Energy Depletion rate slightly decreased, for better gameplay balance. - Players: Stopping & Crossover rate quickened, for more realistically responsive skating. - Controls: Goalie control can now be accessed immediately by pressing the (Y) button with a six-button controller. Miscellaneous - Penalties: “Kneeing” penalty for injuring a player restored to its original name, “Roughing.” - Graphics: Referee pop-over refined. ---------------------------------------------------------------- I hope you enjoy! cheers, -Adam