14 hours ago, AdamCatalyst said:

This method *should* obliterate that code, so that it only cares that skaters fill skater positions.

Just noting for the record that this statement is *technically* true.
Although there is a bit of a possible issue where you could actually put a goalie on as a positional player as well. Interestingly, I tried making an entire goalie forward line, but the game was smart enough to know that the starting goalie can't be in two places at once so I was playing short handed.
Unfortunately this also meant that when I tried to load the saved line, the game froze at the point where it needed to load a goalie where it should not be. It did not crash when I wasn't doing something dumb though, so that is cool. [but you know I had to try it]

14 hours ago, AdamCatalyst said:

Whatever witchcraft was done to accomplish making everyone a Defensemen etc. would likely need to be undone

Ironically, the one byte that is cancelled out to make everyone a D and every D in every place, is actually overwritten by your fix anyway, so the only thing I'd need to change was to re-label the Forwards and Defence and separate those guys again if I want the player cards to reflect that.

One drawback to this however is that I have a couple ROMs where there are NPCs [Non-Playable Coaches] on the teams. This is accomplished by making the coach a Forward and since forwards are off limits with the other hack, it allows the coach to show up in the Main Menu roll call and Player Card screens, but not the Edit Lines, and that bit of interesting side info would go away.

Interesting pros and cons to both of these options. Nothing that really affects primary gameplay, so it's mainly going to come down to preference of these secondary outcomes me thinks.

Edited March 27Mar 27 by von Ozbourne

Would you be interested in a revised patch that introduces an NPC player type? I can't guarantee that I can do it, but I'm willing to try.

Edited March 27Mar 27 by AdamCatalyst

I will say that unless you have the time and are curious to see if you can do it, I wouldn't bother. 

The coach option is interesting and fun, if perhaps limited, and the only drawback it has is that it interferes with the line saving/loading option. Which personally I never use anyway so it's not actually a drawback for me. I understand some people like to use that function though, but you can't always please everyone, so sometimes you just have to please yourself. ...wait... never mind.

This fix is really interesting in that is erases any differentiation between positional players, but the fact that the goalie is available as well is giving me pause. I don't know if I like it or not yet.

I had no player taking the face off when I put my starting goalie at center. One would think there should be guard rails against this. But then, if you want to do something dumb that's your fault.

It does kind of open up an option if you are making a ROM with small rosters and want to have the ability to put a backup goalie on the ice in a pinch, but then again it's translating those goalie stats into skater stats and those three "Leave @ 0"s kind of get in the way. I suppose you could not leave them at 0, but there is still the fact that goalies don't get credit for scoring goals in the player stats. [maybe that one can be figured out somehow] Either way, it's kind of a case where if you don't want to have a goalie as a forward, it's just easier to remove the option all together.

I like the little Ovechkin pixel art player on the right!

Where's the updated  ROM of March 23?! I only see version 3.0... 

2 hours ago, repulsionregis said:

Where's the updated  ROM of March 23?! I only see version 3.0... 

Yeah sorry, that was perhaps a mistake. The date represents the fixing of a feature in the ROM itself and not the current-ness of the roster. So I just updated the ROM but didn't add a .1 before re-uploading.

That said, I'm just collecting photos for the new call-ups right now so version 4.0 is probably coming out this weekend barring any unforeseen issues.

19 hours ago, von Ozbourne said:

Yeah sorry, that was perhaps a mistake. The date represents the fixing of a feature in the ROM itself and not the current-ness of the roster. So I just updated the ROM but didn't add a .1 before re-uploading.

That said, I'm just collecting photos for the new call-ups right now so version 4.0 is probably coming out this weekend barring any unforeseen issues.

Thanks for the follow-up and your fantastic work in general!
(A quick thought: maybe consider revising the rating for the excellent Lane Hutson )

On 3/31/2026 at 9:37 PM, von Ozbourne said:

Yeah sorry, that was perhaps a mistake. The date represents the fixing of a feature in the ROM itself and not the current-ness of the roster. So I just updated the ROM but didn't add a .1 before re-uploading.

That said, I'm just collecting photos for the new call-ups right now so version 4.0 is probably coming out this weekend barring any unforeseen issues.

You're awesome dude!  Thank you so much for your hard work :-)

It is a good Friday to play hockey.

4.0 updates in the original post.

On 4/3/2026 at 7:25 PM, von Ozbourne said:

It is a good Friday to play hockey.

4.0 updates in the original post.

Thanks ! Great work !!

On 8/3/2025 at 3:28 PM, von Ozbourne said:

Took a bit longer than we were hoping, but it's nice to have this one complete now.

NHL '26 - '94 Edition

In recognition of the tradition of adapting EA's well deserved cover athletes to the the 16-bit stage, we're honouring that tradition in the best way possible.

New this year, a @Drezz background that does recognise the team got their name on the cup.
And giving Dave Reid a break, Bruce is lending his charisma as pre-game analyst.
Points leader match up proves that the freeze bug fix is applied.

 

Keeping many of the previous graphics changes including the modernized fonts and watermarks. Did decide to update the Cup this year though.

 

Updated several center ice logos for a lot of coinciding anniversaries or just because teams felt like rebranding, including the new Utah Mammoth. 

V.1 in narrow view. V.2 in wide view.

 

 

Colour photos for every player.

Obligatory under the hood and minor graphical stuff and acknowledgements:

• New original custom player attribute stats.
• All 832 players have colour photos. Thanks @slapshot67
• Original JKline player sprite mod based on helmet patch for more accurate and varied uniforms.
• Pucks that also feature original customized sprites.
• Puck sprites that change with team colours. Thanks @AdamCatalyst
• The nets that those pucks can go in have also had their sprites redrawn.
• New Weight bug fix is applied. Thanks @chaos
• New Checking formula thanks to that new weight bug fix.
• New Hot/Cold calculations.
• SmozROM Ratings consistency fix - player ratings will match hot/cold overall. Thanks @smozoma
• 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.
• Expanded goalie roaming area. Go out to the edge of the trapezoid or out to the face off dots to cut down the angle. Thanks @smozoma
• 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]
• Yes we know that the goalie can technically go to the red line, but that would mean having to figure out how to assess delay of game penalties and that's not likely to happen.
• Goalie Y-button control hack applied. Thanks @clockwise
• CPU will pull goalie if down by 1 or 2 goals with 1 minute remaining. Thanks @McMarkis
• Edit Lines hack for any player to play at any position applied. Allows for 4-1 Power play lines. Thanks @TheTome
• Note that Edit Lines hack does interfere with Saving and Loading Team Lines.
• Also note that this edit line hack was omitted from the V.2 Edition.
• Benches have been edited with a new animated coach.
• EA Sports watermarks have been updated to modern logo. Thanks @Drezz

• Main menu background hack in use for full custom background image. Also thanks @Drezz
• New Utah Mammoth name and logo

August is a bit early to be thinking about hockey ain't it? Well, yeah, but we're testing some new stats and stuff so why wait.
So in a loose reference to the recently completed World Junior Summer Showcase, we figured we'll call this one:

Just to keep the old versions in here rather than making a new post or revising history.

The NHL '26 - Summer Showcase Edition

Obviously this is way too early for the upcoming season so we're still in beta-like mode. Some of the new players have been given new numbers on a "historical precedence or best guess" criteria when conflicts arose. Beyond that, we're trying a few things and wouldn't mind getting some feedback.

  

Some notes, due to how early this is and that there are some depth chart guys that haven't really secured a permanent spot yet, and in the interest of saving some effort later, there are some placeholder players in the game. Please just ignore them as they will be filled in as the actual season gets closer.

New for version 4.0.33

• Just roster updates.
• And new photos for new players.

New for version 3.0.26

• Uniform updates.

• Updated center ice logos.
• Still didn't include the hack to play any play at any position in this one.
• Still only in wide screen game play.
• Now with 100% more fighting.

New for version 2.0.20

• Roster Updates with trades up to winter holiday roster freeze.
• New updated player ratings.
• Updated more center ice logos.
• Didn't include the hack to play any play at any position in this one.
• Wide screen game play.

New for version 1.0.13

• Roster Updates as of the first week of the season.
• Changed the menu screen to celebrate the NHL's new goal scoring record holder.

New for version 0.9.13

• Roster Updates. Still a few spots left open, but most are ready for camp.
• Changed the menu screen to get ready for the new season.

• Still hyping that cover athlete reveal. No leaks as of yet. 

New for version 0.9.10

• Updated center ice logos for all of the anniversaries happening this year and a couple new [mostly old] looks.
• A few minor roster updates as summer signings start to wind up.
• Cover athlete still to be revealed. Much hype to ensue.

 

Newest Version [as of 2026-04-03]

Wide Screen version

NHL 2026 - 94 Edition v4.1W.bin 3 MB · 239 downloads

 

Original resolution 

NHL 2026 - 94 Edition v4.0S.bin 3 MB · 182 downloads

 

Older versions

NHL 2026 - 94 Edition v3.0W.bin 3 MB · 180 downloads

NHL 2026 - 94 Edition v3.0S.bin 3 MB · 652 downloads

NHL 2026 - 94 Edition v2.22.bin 2 MB · 204 downloads

NHL 2026 - 94 Edition v1.13.bin 2 MB · 353 downloads

 

Beta Testing Summer Showcase Versions

NHL 2026 - Summer Showcase 0.913.bin 2 MB · 634 downloads

NHL 2026 - Summer Showcase 0.91.bin 2 MB · 327 downloads

NHL 2026 - Summer Showcase 0.9.bin 2 MB · 219 downloads

Does anyone know where I can get a cartridge of this version for the Genesis?

 

Such great work. Thank you so much

Thank you all so much, as always.  As this seems to be the main hack for this season -- I know in the past, some creators have made a "Playoffs update" version.  This is not at all meant to be any sort of request, I know y'all are busy, just asking if there were any plans in the work to do one this year or if this is the final update for this season.  Either way, gonna pick this up to keep me sane between Canes playoff gamedays.

Thanks again!

Von Oz, question for you. Considering chaos's fight edition rom and assuming (hoping) you are going to stick with annual updates, might you slip his fighting code into your work?

On 4/18/2026 at 8:35 PM, Dano said:

Does anyone know where I can get a cartridge of this version for the Genesis?

 

Such great work. Thank you so much

I recommend getting a Mega Everdrive and loading the roms on that. Roms are constantly updated so it’s good to upload the most recent roms on that rather than being stuck with a cart with a singular version.

 

i have a ME v3. Super bare bones but it does the job well. I recommend going with that, so you can play other NHL roms as well.

On 4/4/2026 at 2:25 AM, von Ozbourne said:

It is a good Friday to play hockey.

4.0 updates in the original post.

Thanks man! Great job!

Wanna ask about fighting issue - when the fight is over, each player get 1 min penalty (in addition the instigator get 1 additional minute) and its ok. But, when penalty is over the other team (opposite from instigator's team) gets permanent penalty like 62 minutes or smth, so that team will play shorthanded till the end of game. Can it be fixed?
2nd question - Player who lost the fight get injured for the whole game. Can it be fixed?
3rd question - even if you choose Fights OFF they still happen. Can it be fixed?

Appreciate your work and hope that bugs can be fixed. 

GO DUCKS!

Edited April 21Apr 21 by Davitel

Really minor thing but noticed if you get in a fight and one person gets injured, I’m pretty sure it says “out foreperiod” instead of “for period”. I couldn’t get a screengrab before it went away lol. Playing the widescreen version. 

On 4/20/2026 at 9:02 AM, blondearrow said:

Von Oz, question for you. Considering chaos's fight edition rom and assuming (hoping) you are going to stick with annual updates, might you slip his fighting code into your work?

Thanks for the interest. Curious, what version are you playing? I've actually been including chaos's fight patch in the ROM since version 3.

6 hours ago, Davitel said:

Wanna ask about fighting issue - when the fight is over, each player get 1 min penalty (in addition the instigator get 1 additional minute) and its ok. But, when penalty is over the other team (opposite from instigator's team) gets permanent penalty like 62 minutes or smth, so that team will play shorthanded till the end of game. Can it be fixed?
2nd question - Player who lost the fight get injured for the whole game. Can it be fixed?
3rd question - even if you choose Fights OFF they still happen. Can it be fixed?

1 minute? I have to ask, what ROM/version are you using? Because none of the penalties should be 1 minute, never mind a fighting major. I do remember something in other ROMs I was testing just after the patch was released however, [non-NHL, so there shouldn't even be a chance of accidental WIP versions getting posted] where short or imbalanced penalties did result in some weird cases where timings meant perpetual power plays or injuries showed up as long penalties instead of injuries. Even though a Blades of Steel-style "only the loser goes to the box" fighting penalty sounded like an interesting idea, it severely broke the game.

The injury thing is related to the fighting code and the difference in the fighting rating of the winner/loser. It shouldn't happen all the time, but this might be better directed @chaos since it is his patch and I haven't done anything beyond using the default code. but...

If fights are set to Off, that also shouldn't happen. I wonder if there is just some menu text issues or if something else is at play here. Did fights happen on all three menu settings? I will say that In the version I tested, it was almost too hard to start a fight, even on "Arcade" mode. Although that may be by virtue that the player ratings reflect current sensibilities towards fighting and most players just don't feel compelled to drop the gloves anymore.

 

1 hour ago, SNOHBAWL said:

Really minor thing but noticed if you get in a fight and one person gets injured, I’m pretty sure it says “out foreperiod” instead of “for period”. I couldn’t get a screengrab before it went away lol. Playing the widescreen version. 

Ah, yeah that is a bit of a weird thing with the layering of text in that window. Actually I tried editing the text before to mixed results [clearly] but this was before a recent fix was posted. So recent that I have not yet had time to implement it into an update. Interestingly, if you were playing the Standard resolution version, you still would have noticed a glitch, just a different one. I will likely post some kind of update soonish where I fix up some of these last few things.

 

Edited April 21Apr 21 by von Ozbourne

18 hours ago, von Ozbourne said:

1 minute? I have to ask, what ROM/version are you using? Because none of the penalties should be 1 minute, never mind a fighting major.

Yep. we changed standart minor 2 minutes penalty to 1 minute by ourselves. We always do that in mama Russia 🙂 So could that fact be a trigger to the bug? We will try to test.
Also want to ask: is it possible to "cut" all the Fight related thigs from the ROM? We love wide screen, actual roster etc... but we struggling from the fight bug. Thanks!

On 4/22/2026 at 11:16 AM, Davitel said:

Yep. we changed standart minor 2 minutes penalty to 1 minute by ourselves. We always do that in mama Russia 🙂 So could that fact be a trigger to the bug? We will try to test.
Also want to ask: is it possible to "cut" all the Fight related thigs from the ROM? We love wide screen, actual roster etc... but we struggling from the fight bug. Thanks!

Ah. Can't confirm, but I do know that there are some bugs with the short penalties and fighting.
Unfortunately the fighting/non-Off bug is known, but undoing it is going to be easier said than done at this point.

In lieu of getting that fixed for this newest update, it might be possible to lower every player's fighting rating to a 0 or 1 for a minimum left or right handed designation. A 0% fighting rating just means that players will never fight. So that would effectively take fighting out of the game, it would just take some time to do. Could export the player ratings and find/replace in the spreadsheet and re-import I guess...

Final version for the season [probably, likely, unless there is something I missed that breaks the game]

In the original post.

2 hours ago, von Ozbourne said:

Final version for the season [probably, likely, unless there is something I missed that breaks the game]

In the original post.

Any updates besides lineups?

5 hours ago, Snowboo said:

Any updates besides lineups?

Well, when you put it that way...

Actually I think other than correcting the colouring on a couple of the fighting sprites and that injury pop up text, this one is really just reflecting the lineup changes since the trade deadline.

On 4/30/2026 at 8:06 AM, von Ozbourne said:

Ah. Can't confirm, but I do know that there are some bugs with the short penalties and fighting.
Unfortunately the fighting/non-Off bug is known, but undoing it is going to be easier said than done at this point.

In lieu of getting that fixed for this newest update, it might be possible to lower every player's fighting rating to a 0 or 1 for a minimum left or right handed designation. A 0% fighting rating just means that players will never fight. So that would effectively take fighting out of the game, it would just take some time to do. Could export the player ratings and find/replace in the spreadsheet and re-import I guess...

Btw we had exactly th same idea a couple days ago. We set 0 fighting rating for all the players and....in helped!!! no more fights!)

Thanks for the last version! GO DUCKS!!!

On the Standard Resolution 5.0S Rom i noticed in the Edit Lines for the Vegas Golden Knights team that #71 William Karlsson is only selectable as a Defenseman. In real life he is a Center or Forward? Might be simply a accidental mistake while making and editing the Rom?

Edited May 2May 2 by RT1977

On 4/30/2026 at 1:17 AM, von Ozbourne said:

Final version for the season [probably, likely, unless there is something I missed that breaks the game]

In the original post.

On the Standard Resolution version 5.0S Rom I noticed with the Vegas Golden Knights Team in Edit Lines that player #71 William Karlsson is only selectable as a Defenseman. In Real Life I think he was always a Forward and a Center? Likely just a simple mistake made while editing and making the Rom?

20 hours ago, RT1977 said:

On the Standard Resolution 5.0S Rom i noticed in the Edit Lines for the Vegas Golden Knights team that #71 William Karlsson is only selectable as a Defenseman. In real life he is a Center or Forward? Might be simply an accidental mistake while making and editing the Rom?

I also noticed on the standard version that Leo Carlsson of the Ducks is not the top line C, but he is in the widescreen version. So there’s some funkiness with the lineups in the standard version.

Sorry guys, the line discrepancies are on me. @Jkline3 had done the update on the Standard version but I clearly didn't save a couple edits properly in transferring them over. The corrected Wide Screen version is in the main post now.

On 5/2/2026 at 11:49 AM, RT1977 said:

On the Standard Resolution version 5.0S Rom I noticed with the Vegas Golden Knights Team in Edit Lines that player #71 William Karlsson is only selectable as a Defenseman. In Real Life I think he was always a Forward and a Center? Likely just a simple mistake made while editing and making the Rom?

Not really a mistake unfortunately, just a limitation of the game engine. The Wide Screen version is kind of the definitive version and is fine because I've included the "Any Player, Any Position" mod, but I kept the Standard Edition more to the original in regards to a few features including handling rosters. The pro to that is it addresses the complaint of the Save/Load function breaking with the roster mod applied, but the downside is if a team has more than 16 forwards or less than 9 defencemen on their regular rotation, the compromise becomes placing a forward on the back end, or cutting an obvious forward in exchange for a minor league defence.

I suppose an alternate compromise of sticking a benchwarmer at the end might be preferable given that Karlsson may not have featured in many games this year, but that was due to injury and he is an alternate captain and all, but that messes with the alphabetized sorting.

22 minutes ago, von Ozbourne said:

Sorry guys, the line discrepancies are on me. @Jkline3 had done the update on the Standard version but I clearly didn't save a couple edits properly in transferring them over. The corrected Wide Screen version is in the main post now.

Not really a mistake unfortunately, just a limitation of the game engine. The Wide Screen version is kind of the definitive version and is fine because I've included the "Any Player, Any Position" mod, but I kept the Standard Edition more to the original in regards to a few features including handling rosters. The pro to that is it addresses the complaint of the Save/Load function breaking with the roster mod applied, but the downside is if a team has more than 16 forwards or less than 9 defencemen on their regular rotation, the compromise becomes placing a forward on the back end, or cutting an obvious forward in exchange for a minor league defence.

I suppose an alternate compromise of sticking a benchwarmer at the end might be preferable given that Karlsson may not have featured in many games this year, but that was due to injury and he is an alternate captain and all, but that messes with the alphabetized sorting.

Ok. I will just play the Wide Screen version more often for now. 🙂

I noticed a graphical glitch/issue with Carolina (haven’t checked all the teams but they seemed to be the only one I found) in the latest 5.1W. Also happened in 4.1W. The background of the bench is partly white and it’s white behind the coaches head/flickers to the section above him when the coach turns his head

Edited May 5May 5 by SNOHBAWL