Trivia / NHL Hockey

• Cash-Cow Franchise: The NHL series is one of the more popular games in EA's roster, behind the Madden NFL games. It's particularly popular with Canadians, with hockey being their national winter sport and all.
• Dueling Games: With the NHL 2K series of games, though 2K Sports haven't made a console hockey game since NHL 2K11, and that was a Wii-exclusive title, even.
• Milestone Celebration: NHL '14 features an anniversary mode to commemorate twenty years since the release of the legendary NHL '94.
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends: Its original cover-athlete, Joe Thornton was replaced by Dany Heatley after Thornton had been accused of assault. However, Heatley himself was pulled from the cover after he had gotten into an accident that killed fellow Atlanta Thrashers teammate Dan Snyder, leaving Colorado Avalanche captain Joe Sakic to be ultimately the cover athlete for NHL 2004. Which makes sense, considering that was the year of the NHL Lockout.
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor: Three cases, concerning cover stars
  • Joe Thornton, then of the Boston Bruins, was replaced as the planned cover athlete for NHL '04 due to an assault charge against him
  • Atlanta Thrashers' star Dany Heatley, the replacement for Thornton as NHL '04 's cover star, ended up getting pulled from the cover as well, after Heatley's reckless driving incident, which caused the death of his teammate Dan Snyder. Joe Sakic of the Colorado Avalanche ended up replacing him
  • Patrick Kane was pulled from the cover of NHL '16, which he was to share with Chicago Blackhawks teammate Jonathan Toews, after being accused of sexual assault.