Hockey Blast by Plaay.com

I put that title up because I have been searching the internet for anything to read about this hockey game while I waited for it's arrival and found very little.  Either there are really boring YouTube videos of people playing the game which was informative for 10 minutes but monotonous when you could care less who wins.

This is one of the better ones that review the game



So - here are some words and I'll have more in a few days for anybody else in my shoes.  FIRST - don't use dice.  Get a dice app for your phone, I have Dice by Unity which is totally adjustable.

Hockey Blast comes from some dudes that played APBA and SOM for years and had an idea for a different kind of game.  More highlight then the tiny details of other sports games.

This is so different from typical sports games where you roll dice and cross reference the numbers and roll again.  This is more of a minutes by minute highlight story where the outcomes are very realistic and statistics (I have read) are very close to real,  thus it is called a "simulation" as opposed to a "game". 

The few things I have read are from people who have played many many matches and forgot what it was like to be a newbie.  SO - I will describe what you have to do to play the game.

You have tiny cards (sad but true)  such as LaPointe and the first thing you have to do is make lines.   You need 4 lines of 3 offense and 3 lines of 2 on defense players for both teams and you put them on a board.  If you have seen any of the youtube videos you know what I'm talking about.

The REAL game is all in the Game Action Book a thick durable paper book with 18 pages of  charts and dialog.

Basically you shake dice for a faceoff and then look at the Normal Minutes side of the manual.  There is a power play side a 3 on 3 side Empty Net side and follow the instructions

SO - the BEST way to learn the game is just dive in and play a period.  Once you have played 3 or 4 games it takes less then an hour.  My first period tool about 1.5 hours as EVERYTHING was new.

HECK - in minute #4 I had a fight action but neither player threw down his gloves.  In Minutes #9 I had a Unusual Penalty "defense trips o2 with clear shot at goal" and a few other things that I had to read the rules 3 or 4 times and hope I was right.

I totally missed the middle of the player card with the square boxes and solid circles.  But now that I knew what I didn't know I stepped back and while I watched the baseball games on TV I reread the instructions and understand MUCH more now. 

The game has everything you can think of as seen below on one page.

Momentum is a BIG part of this game as in real hockey, it comes it goes.  Big hits gets the team going for a couple minutes, there are injuries, equipment problems, behavior issues, odd goals  rare results. 

The game goes minute by minute with lulls turnovers breakaways  yada yada yada. 

NOW when I watch the NHL every player is basically the same generic player but I'm hoping that this will give me more of an idea of what makes hockey player DIFFERENT.   Who is good at penalty killing, the difference in a power skater to a speed skater and why it matters, who is better in face offs and what really happens when you have a guy in a penalty box.

Line changes happen every minute (is it really that often?) and everything that happens actually has an impact on the game being played, even breaking a stick has implications.

The wonderful thing is learning the game tweaked my brain into being used. Learning something new wards off brain freeze. Ya gotta keep the brain learning new things (and not new computer languages that you will never ever use - thank you State of Wisconsin).

Nuff said on that subject.  I'll have more at some point once I get REAL NHL cards and not the generic players that come with the game.

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MEANWHILE

Gus the Weather Dog now has 383 followers on Facebook.  More then me!  I wish I had a cute brown nose (shut up Clark! :-) .

SUCKY weekend coming  - Friday we could see the temps drop 20 degrees in 2 hours with wind chills in the mid 20s Saturday morning.   F ME!!  It will be a problem hitting 50 all next week and it will be sunny.

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Nuff for today