NHL ‘94 SNES Draft 2019 (New Tournament)

[McMikey]

Hi Guys, 

I would like to introduce a new way to play NHL ‘94 live that @halifax and I have been working on. Here is the pitch...

                                             

We are taking NHL ‘94 tournaments to the next level. 

Imagine playing a whole NHL ‘94 tournament with a team that you built on a real cartridge. 

This spring we will be hosting a live Draft online. Using your laptop or mobile phone you can draft players and go head to head against other coaches in a race to get the best players. 

Draft picks (order) will be determined by real world money. We are selling 28 spots all at different price points. This will be the first flexible priced entry fee tourney. Here is where strategy comes in to play. Do you spend the big bucks and get a higher draft pick or do you spend only $10 and take your chances. The prize money doesn’t care what draft pick you got, your skill does. 

Once we have the teams made, we will be ordering custom NHL ‘94 Saskatoon Draft Carts form a supplier overseas. The winner of the tournament will receive a special gold cartridge just like they had in Nintendo World Series. The runners up will also get to keep their tournament cartridges as a souvenir (who knows they might be worth something some day lol). 

So please join us in Saskatoon this spring for a tournament like no other!  

 

Quick Facts

When: May 2019 (date to be determined)

Where: Saskatoon Saskatchewan 

Venue: (most likely the Canadian Brewhouse but subject to change)

Players: We are capping it at 28 (full NHL league)

Prize Money: 1st $500, 2nd $200, 3rd $100 (Based on a sell out)

Games: Guaranteed 10 games!!!!!

Screens: Mix between CRT’s and HDTV

Consoles: 10 SNES setups  

Draft Spots: Will be sold on Eventbright at a predetermined time and will be first come first serve. If not all draft spots are sold the draft order will be from highest paid to the lowest  

ONE Draft Spot per coach. (Basically acts as your registration fee) 

Draft Spot Prices: 
1. $66    
2. $64    
3. $62    
4. $60    
5. $58    
6. $56    
7. $54    
8. $52    
9. $50    
10. $48    
11. $46    
12. $44    
13. $42    
14. $40    
15. $38    
16. $36    
17. $34    
18. $32    
19. $30    
20. $28    
21. $26    
22. $24    
23. $22
24. $20    
25. $18    
26. $16    
27. $14    
28. $10    

 

The Draft will be hosted online similar to how fantasy football is done. It will be a stand alone draft where each player takes thier turn in order. Auto Draft features will be available. More info on the system will follow. The whole Original NHL ‘94 roster will be available.

Teams will be made of 10 players and two goalies.

We will be using mostly King of 94 Rules and the tournament structure will be finalized before tickets go on sale. 

When the Teams are finalized. Brand New Cartridges will be ordered with custom ROM’s for the event. The top ten players get to keep thier carts and the winner will receive a GOLD Cart.  

More info to follow. (And above info is subject to change). 

I hope to see you in Toon in May! 

Cheers,

Mikey

   

Edited November 19, 2018 by McMikey

[CoachMac]

[McMikey]

We are working on finalizing the date and rules now. The tricky part will be having enough time to sell the tickets (Draft spots), doing the draft and ordering the custom carts and having it all ready before May. But I'm excited about this new process as it is something new. 

I would like to have the tickets go on sale sooner than later. I think our break-even point will be around 20 players (depending on Draft spots sold). I'll cover the difference as a guarantee. 

I'm working with the overseas supplier now testing ROMS. 

If this works out and people enjoy their time, we can do the same for Genesis next year. 

[kirkmullerisgod]

Count me in. It's Daf from the King of 94 #3. 

[halifax]

Daf,jammer,federline,annatar,bobk, stheds2000, and the 90jacket have all expressed interest. 

 

Thats like an all-star snes squad in its own. 

[annatar]

Definitely will try to make this happen. Super fun sounding format, hope the logistics work out.

[McMikey]

Good news, the test SNES NHL '94 ROM I sent the Cartridge Manufacture passed. They quoted me $9.65 (USD) per cart and that comes with the classic grey SNES Shell and Custom Label. WIth shipping and exchange to Canadain its going to come out to around $14.95 each. This comes in under budget and the Draft Spots (entry fees) will cover the 10 carts that the top ten players will get to keep plus leave room for a $500 top prize. 

I'm personally making the gold cart myself. 

Now we just need to nail down a date and the Draft Spots will go on sale! 

Edited November 22, 2018 by McMikey

[annatar]

This has the potential to be legendary!

Love what you're doing Mikey.

[chaos]

$15 I need to see what this cart looks like lol. That's a crazy price 

[McMikey]

1 hour ago, chaos said:

$15 I need to see what this cart looks like lol. That's a crazy price 

It all started two years ago when I ordered a bootleg NHL ‘94 cartridge from AliExpress for the hell of it. I got the cart and box for $15. As expected the box (and box art) was really crappy. The cartridge shell was sub-par and the label was just a scan of the box art. But there was more. I knew they didn’t just have NHL ‘94 ready to sell cause they offered the whole line up of NHL titles from the 1st all the way to NHL ‘98. I figured they must make them as people order them.

So if they can make NHL ‘94’s to order they could make any ROM to order. 

When it finally came in... to my surprise the game worked great! You can’t tell it’s a knock off from playing it on a real system. 

 But opening the cart up to see the board was the breakthrough. I have never seen anything like it at that point. There were no ROM chips just a black blob that looked like Silcone on an empty board. After talking to some retro experts on Twitter they explained to me that those are “cheap” knock off “Glob Top” boards used to make cheap games and most people use them to scam people into thinking that they are buying real games. 

Of course I didn’t really care about the scamming part as the game worked perfectly. 

So in my head I thought, what did this cost the seller to get it to a $15 selling point. I know from experience that this stuff always needs around 100% or more markup to be worth it for individual sale. So... 

Cheap Sega Gens Box $.50

Printing labels $.50

Cheap Sega Shell $1.50

Custom ROM Board $2

labour $1(to burn ROM, print materials, assemble and package to ship) 

______________

$5.50 cost of goods sold and $15 sale price is looking pretty good deal for the seller.

So what are the strengths? THE $2 ROM BOARD! The box and shell are garbage. 

So what did I do. I did the research and found a company that is making high quality knock off SNES games in Asia. I dont care about the insides as I know the Glob tops work for what we need them. The trick was to find a good Shell and Label for a good price.  

We don’t need to trick people, we just want the game to work and play like the original. So we put a Glob top in a decent Shell and a nice label and we are done! 

So we go from a $40 custom game (or $100 everdrive) to a $10 game and it plays the way we want it to.

With a $10 game we can now afford to buy custom games for a custom Draft tournament!

After the tournament the game carts now act like a time capsule for the tournament and and awesome keepsake. 

Only thing we need now is people to play the games. 

[CoachMac]

[Bob Kudelski]

Amazing

[chaos]

Yeah the blob is how they hide what kind of chip they are using. I'm impressed. Doesn't have to look good, just needs to work.

[kgman]

pretty cool idea! 

[kgman]

I'd like to draft a team and sell them 

[McMikey]

1 hour ago, kgman said:

I'd like to draft a team and sell them 

I might just do the same thing lol 

[McMikey]

Here are the pics of the NHL '94 cart that started the idea.

The new board is so small they had to use thick plastic for it to even line up with the holes.

So if this works... Sega Genesis is next!  

 

[kingraph]

Great way to package and sell modern roster versions.  EA may come knocking after that though

[halifax]

The sega draft tournament will take place in my garage.  It’s a real nice place. @chaossaw my driveway and he approves. 

[chaos]

9 hours ago, halifax said:

The sega draft tournament will take place in my garage.  It’s a real nice place. @chaossaw my driveway and he approves. 

 

"I had the best driveway guys build me the best driveway. It really is, it really is. Let me tell you, they know how the best way to lay concrete" - Darrell J. Trump 

[McMikey]

 The Championship Cart! 

[segathon]

2 hours ago, McMikey said:

 The Championship Cart! 

That is glorious.  

[Edge of '94 Midwest]

So did this event actually happen somewhere?

[Bob Kudelski]

This event takes place in my dreams each and every night.