Growing up, I was always one of the shortest kids in my class. This tended to mean that I wasn't one of the more athletic kids. Which isn't to say that I didn’t enjoy sports. Because I did. But lacked a certain level of confidence. Being small meant I was an easy target. And when you're a small kid, it's easier just to avoid conflict and embarrassment.
I stayed far away from football because the bigger kids intimidated me. I tried out for little league, made the team, and quit before our first game because during a practice some other kid hit me in the face with the ball during a drill. I ended up with a huge fat lip and the other kid laughed. So I felt like I just wasn't cut out for baseball. I did play two years of CYO basketball, and really enjoyed it. But here's the thing – I'd play fine during practice. I was actually pretty good at three-pointers for my size. But as soon as game day came I clammed up. Strange kids from other schools made me nervous, as did their strange parents, so I just did my best to stay clear of the ball. I'm fairly sure that in two seasons I only managed a single free-throw in an actual game. Pitiful, but I am who I am. There was the one time in elementary school where I won a gigantic dodgeball tournament between both sixth grade classes – a shock to me, and every other kid. But that's probably a story for another day. But outside of organized sports, I did regularly play street hockey with all the kids in my neighborhood. I wasn't the best, but I wasn't the worst. And I was pretty good on rollerblades at the time, so I guess I felt like that evened things out. Maybe I wasn't big, and maybe I wasn't aggressive. But I could skate and I understood the game, and there was no strangers or spectators, so I was less nervous. So while hockey wasn't a sport that connected with me as much on a fandom level as basketball at the time – I felt like I actively played it as a kid. So it sort of held a weird place for me on a familiar level. And so when this kid Justin wanted to trade me a copy of NHLPA 93, I gladly took it and then got pretty into. Not long after, I graduated to NHL 94 which became one of my favorite games of 1993. I loved it so much that when I got my Sega CD, I had to get the CD-ROM "upgrade." And that's the version that I held so dear. I should probably take a moment here to talk about Sega CD and how much I loved it, and how much I will still to this day defend it. While gamers still to this day mention it with disgust and shrug it off as just a bad FMV machine, I will go on record as saying that it actually had a really solid library in its short lifespan. There were numerous 16-bit console games that I preferred on Sega CD. Things like Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam and, yes, NHL 94. Looking back, NHL 94 feels like a simple game. But there's a reason that its reputation has stuck around for so long. There are many sports gamers who still feel that it's in the upper echelon of sports sim games, and to be honest, it is pretty hard to argue the point. The physics are spot on, the controls are tight, and the hits feel hard. I'm playing NHL 94 today on my Xbox Series X. Which is a bit of a testament to its lasting appeal. While sports games on the whole are released annually and treated as disposable commodities, NHL 94 was re-released on Xbox in 2020. That's amazing, honestly. And I wish more publishers went out of their way to keep their important archival releases accessible. Of course this new "Rewind" edition updates the roster, but in a way that's cool as it reminds me of the fan mods that have continued on for years in games like Tecmo Bowl. Booting NHL 94 up today, it's incredible to me what kind of muscle memory exists. I've played it so much in the past (wow), nearly thirty years. In my first attempt at a game, I blew out Arizona 11-1. I don't follow hockey anymore, so maybe the Bruins are just that good, but I don't know. But man, it all came crashing back. My favorite play was to skate as fast as possible up the right lane, stop sharply and fall back, swooping in front of the goalie in an attempt to put it past him quickly up ahead. I was amazing how easily this offense came back to me, and how often it worked. My only complaint about NHL 94 in modern times is that it didn't have an actually season mode. But this was 1993. What can you do? It was beyond impressive for its time, and it's still impressive overall today. You can play through a seven game playoff series, so there's that. But as a kid, my fondest memories were the many games I played against friends. So I guess lacking a season mode at the time didn't bother me. Now, the single player mode feels much more limited. But the game itself is still incredibly sound.
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