by ERIK LEIJON

If the plotline of Bon Cop, Bad Cop or the pandemonium concerning brand-new Hab Guillaume Latendresse weren’t obvious indicators, this city likes to obsess over hockey. Sadly, the last time anyone from the land of the Rocket and Gros Bill released a hockey video game was Strategy First’s not-so-memorable Solid Ice a decade ago.

But this year’s NHL ’07, currently out for the Xbox, Playstation 2, PC and Sony PSP (the Xbox 360 version was made in Vancouver), for the first time puts the famed series in the hands of hockey-mad EA Montreal.

“It’s a dream come true,” says Éric Chartrand, lead designer of NHL ’07 at EA Montreal. Born and raised in Montreal and a current Verdun resident, Chartrand believes Montrealers and their long-standing love of the game is precisely the shot in the arm the series needed.

“The ice, the pleasure of skating, the feeling of the puck—we know all about that,” he says at EA’s downtown studio. “Most of us grew up in the big era of les Canadien: the ’70s, ’80s and even the early ’90s. We also watched the rivalry between les Canadiens and les Nordiques.”

Post-lockout changes

At the beginning of last hockey season, when the team found out they would be developing the current-gen 2007 versions of EA’s hockey franchise, the general consensus was the goalies had to be changed. Chartrand and his team felt using one-timers were unrealistically effective, and goalies would predictably position themselves low to the ice, making them all too susceptible to a quick deke and a high shot. Chartrand, who has been working at EA since June 2004, made sure the one or two tricks that made scoring too easy were gone by working on the goalie AI.

Chartrand also wanted NHL ’07 to be more realistic. In the past, EA’s NHL games tended to feature final scores in the double-digits, massive, comical bodychecks and skaters who could zip from one end of the ice to the other in only a few seconds. In NHL ’07, even though the players are not as quick as they were in previous versions, the pace of the matches is more hectic because gamers will be forced to pass the puck far more often.

Speed was a recurring concern for the development team. NHL ’07 was the first game in the series to reflect the new NHL, so Chartrand wanted to cut down on the physical play, make it harder to cross the blueline, facilitate dumping and emphasize passing the puck.

A Montreal Canadiens fan who played atom and midget hockey as a kid, Chartrand actually looked at division rival Buffalo Sabres as the model for what the new NHL symbolizes.

“The Buffalo Sabres were the team that learned very quickly how the new rules would change the way you play,” he says. “They were always making quick passes to each other, never more than two seconds with puck.” Another aspect they needed to change was the powerplay. In the past, powerplays in hockey video games felt no different from even-strength. Now, the defensive players collapse around the net as in real life, while the team with the man advantage can circulate the puck along the perimetres of the zone, waiting for that brief crack to open in the penalty-killers’ armour. To make moving the puck between players more fluid, passing is now controlled with the right analog stick.

Upstairs and online

Given the short development cycle (10–12 months, as opposed to multiple years for other kinds of games), Chartrand and EA Montreal couldn’t include everything they wanted, but given the opportunity to possibly develop another NHL game in the future, Chartrand would like to explore the online component of the game.

“I would like to see people be able to organize leagues and tournaments, and to play six-against-six even,” he says. “So that means having truly great control of the goalie.”

Chartrand would also like to see the dynasty mode, where players play multiple seasons with their favourite team, enter the online world. NHL ’07 does offer the chance to play games and quick tournaments online (and rival game NHL 2K7 by 2K Sports has an online season mode), but in the future, management aspects like drafting and trading could be done between human owners around the world, to the point where the NHL-universe could be as engrossing as any made-for-online game like World of Warcraft.