nostalgia – a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one’s life, to one’s home or homeland, or to one’s family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time.
It all started when I overheard a conversation. When two names were dropped – “Sega†and “NHL 95â€, I was out from behind my desk and moving towards my boss’s office.
“What are you guys talking about?â€
“An old video game we used to play.â€
“Did I hear ‘NHL 95’?â€
“Yeah, do you know it?â€
Know it? I lived it through my post-college years.
To put this in proper perspective, I was never very good at video games. Oh, I played them constantly. Countless hours were racked up in front of the tube with my Ataris, Nintendos, Segas and (now) PlayStations. But when it came to playing them competitively, I was nothing special. Sloth-like reflexes. Thumbing the wrong button. A complete disdain for using programmed game flaws to my advantage. These factors kept me from dominating any head-to-head video game.
Then came August 13, 1994.
When NHL 95 was released, there was little fanfare. New video games didn’t explode onto the market the way they do today. There were no lines patiently awaiting the clock to strike twelve for a midnight purchase of the newest hockey. The NHL series wasn’t (and still isn’t) Madden.
In August of ’94, I purchased what would become my favorite video game of all time. Nintendo Ice Hockey gathers dust. Blades of Steel? Forgotten. All of my non-hockey games became afterthoughts. When NHL 95 slid into my consol, it didn’t come out until the calendar flipped to the new year. This was partially because we didn’t have absolute faith in the built-in memory chip. (Four teams playing an 82-game season could be lost in a flash. Back then, you didn’t look cross-eyed at your game for fear of losing the saved information.) The major reason NHL was at home in my Sega was because the game was just that good.
For the first time, you could trade players between teams. This was huge. How would Bill Ranford look as a Red Wing (a trade I made four years before Kenny Holland and the real Red Wings followed suit)? What if the Great One never left Edmonton? Anything was possible.
Having the option to play multiple teams in a complete season (including playoffs) was the clincher. My friends and I were unable to resist. Infinite hours were wasted analyzing rosters and playing through the marathon season. The fact statistics were kept was the icing on the cake. Post-season awards allowed for further humiliation of vanquished opponents.
Needless to say, I spent an absurd amount of time playing this particular game. I was obsessed with it. When I spent a summer working at a video game store, NHL 95 was always in the Sega display. More than one store manager threw down the gauntlet only to have their All-Star team dismantled by the likes of the lowly expansion Ottawa Senators in my nimble hands.
What made me so good? Goaltending. I’m a goalie at heart and this was the first (and really, only) hockey game where a goalie could dominate. Sixty saves in a 10-minute game? Difficult but not impossible. I was the Raymond Babbitt of NHL 95 goaltending. The most potent of offensive juggernauts ground to a halt when facing yours truly, so much so I turned to putting on real goalie equipment a few years later. Let’s just say I’m more Denis Lemieux than Terry Sawchuk between the pipes in real life.
(A little aside: I intend to keep dropping obscure references throughout my postings. If you find a lot of this stuff – especially references to people – going over your head, open up another window for Google. Cut and paste the name and then search. Nine times out of ten, you’ll get the punch line to the joke right there. It’s humor, people; sometimes you have to work for it.)
So back to the present, my coworker Calvin and my boss were discussing their NHL 95 prowess. Was it possible that there are other pockets of humanity that loved this game with the same idiotic passion as me? Apparently there are.
My boss revealed he was a Super Nintendo player so he was quickly discarded as a threat. (The SNES looked pretty, but two 8-bit processors couldn’t match the smoother play on the single 16-bit Sega system. Sorry boss.) That left Calvin and I to hash out which was the better player.
We started with challenging each other’s game knowledge. Drop a name of an obscure goaltender here, mention an overrated player there, gauge the reaction. He brought up the Bruins. I countered with Boston’s backup goaltender Vincent Riendeau. Calvin went on to name three-quarters of the defensive corps. “The Bruins are my boys.â€
To put this into perspective, the NHL 95 version of the Boston Bruins might be the most perfectly constructed hockey team of all time; a top line of All-Star caliber players (Neely, Oates and Smolinski), a monumental defensive unit (led by the most intimidating video hockey creation of all time, Ray Bourque – a cross between Tecmo Bowl’s Bo Jackson and the M-1 tank) and a good enough goaltender to win (Jon Casey). In the right hands, this is an almost impossible machine to stop.
My penchant for antagonism drives me to play with lesser, more frustrating teams. Teams like the now-defunct Hartford Whalers. Their best player is Pat Verbeek. This is the pre-Brendan Shanahan Whalers. This is the Chris Pronger before-he-was-CHRIS PRONGER Whalers. Garbage scows were envious of this roster for its trash hauling potential.
But I’m a Verbeek fan. “Little Ball of Hate†was one of my favorite players (who later would become a Red Wing to cement his place in my hockey heart) and if he was a Whaler man, so was I.
The battle lines were drawn; Juggernaut Boston against unheralded Hartford. Calvin’s big offense versus uber-conservative defensive play. We settled on a date. We would wheel a television into my office and blow a lunch hour playing a thirteen year old video game. (Yes, we’re grown men with families depending on us, but sometimes something as meaningless as a video game challenge has to take precedence.)
The days leading up to the match were riddled with everything from backhanded comments to outright insults. Rules were discussed. (Line changes were in – advantage me – and offsides was ‘off’ – advantage Calvin.) A seven-game series with a coin flip deciding home ice for Game Seven. All that was left was to practice.
And practice I did.
My brother is quite the NHL aficionado. We play the more modern versions but 95 still holds a special place in our hearts. When I told him of the impending challenge, he made plans to detour on his way home from work after his afternoon shift. We practiced until two in the morning. There was a lot of rust to knock off, but with four games under my belt (including a shutout with Hartford) I felt one with the game again. Calvin’s Bruins were in for an embarrassment. My confidence was running high despite warnings from my brother that Hartford would be overmatched if Calvin were as good a player as me. I ignored the negative thoughts and spent time imagining my opponent’s eventual demise.
When the day finally arrived, I broke out a vintage authentic Whalers jersey my brother had purchased back in the day. It elicited quite the chuckle from my opponent as he came to realize I was probably taking this a little too seriously. The television was placed so we each had a straight-on view. I killed the fluorescent lights to eliminate glare. Calvin chose a controller out of a selection I provided. (A sticky button would not be an excuse for losing.) I even granted him home ice for the first game. We set our lineups and hit start.
One running joke between us was whether Calvin would score his first of many goals within the first minute of the game. I ruined that theory by opening the scoring just 52 seconds into the match. Breakaway and in the net; 1-0 good guys.
It didn’t take long for me to realize I should have heeded my brother’s advice. Calvin proved to be quite the adversary even before the Bruins’ superiority over the Whalers came into play. My offensive skills are anemic at best and Calvin was doing his best to eliminate what little offense I could muster. Outside of my surprise opening goal, I managed only thirteen more shots and another pair of goals the rest of the game. Unfortunately, he managed two legitimate goals, a lucky mistake goal when my defenseman stuffed the puck into my own net, and a penalty shot on a crummy call. In the end, Calvin took Game One 4-3.
He barely had time to celebrate before I had the next game cued-up and ready to roll. (We only had an hour for lunch so two games was going to be all we were going to get in. If I didn’t get at least one victory, the office would be my private hell.) Hartford enjoyed home ice advantage for Game Two.
It took only 28 seconds for Hartford to score first (again). The game was tight and 1-0 heading into the third period. Despite a surprisingly relentless Whaler attack (fueled purely on my absolute desperation to avoid a second loss), a hot Jon Casey kept the Bruins in the game. It was 2-0 when a mistake in the Whaler zone led to the only goal for Calvin and his Boston team. With much relief, Game Two went my way and knotted the series at a game each.
A draw on Day One was probably the best Calvin and I could hope for. We tested the waters. We probed to find each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Games Three and Four (yet to be played) will likely involve more of the same way-too-intense-to-be-healthy stress, though Calvin can expect to face an upgraded opponent. Hartford lacked the speed necessary for an effective transition game leaving me with a pop gun for an offense. Frankly, I was lucky to win one game considering how outmatched the Whalers are compared to the Bruins. (Shame on me for being loyal.)
On the brightside, my boss borrowed my Sega so he could brush up on his NHL 95 skills so he can battle the winner of our little series. Apparently I’m not the only one enjoying the trip down memory lane. When I was playing, I wasn’t a working class stiff with a wife and kid. I was fresh out of college without a care in the world other than scoring that next goal. It was nice to go back and get in-touch with that time in my life. The nostalgia of it all felt good and I’m looking forward to doing it again.
Â
I’ve been infrequent with the posts lately and I’ll put the blame squarely on the NHL battle and preparations for my fantasy baseball draft. Fortunately, they’ll lead to a few posts of their own so you can take the good after the bad.
If you’ve got any questions or comments, shoot them my way and maybe I’ll include them in an upcoming Canon Fodder post. Reach me here: jeff@canon-fodder.com.
Otherwise, keeping stopping by, enjoying the articles and passing Canon Fodder to friends and family.
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