Life is Filled With Regrets...

Life is often filled with regrets. Maybe I should've asked a different girl to my junior prom. Maybe I shouldn't have intentionally beaned a girl in co-ed slow-pitch softball. Maybe I should've had decaf coffee before bed last night and I wouldn't have stayed up playing NHL 09 on XBox 360 until 4:15 in the morning. Maybe I shouldn't have written a college paper on a Jane Austen book and compared it to making marinara and alfredo sauces.

Last night, while not scoring any goals in my video game, I had a great idea to make a bet online about tonight's Ranger-Oiler affair at MSG. See, since the economy went down and I stopped making a lot of money at work, I have been (trying to) supplement my income with online betting. Overall, I'm up about $200 from the $100 I bought in for. Not huge money, but it's nice to know it's there if I don't blow it.

So the bet I wanted to make was called a "prop bet." A prop bet is when you bet on stuff, like "Who Will Have More Points, Chris Drury or Shawn Horcoff?" "Will Either Team Score in the First 10 Minutes?" The one I wanted to do was "Will the Game Go Into Overtime?" For a $10 bet, you would profit around $38. I was probably going to bet $5. I don't like losing a lot, so if I bet $5 I'm fine if I lose it.

My basis was the last 2 games. One was Messier Night in 2006 when the Rangers came back from a 3-1 deficit to force overtime, and Jaromir Jagr scored in the extra frame on a great shot to win. Last year, Chris Drury scored with seconds left to force overtime, and the Rangers became one of the many teams to lose in a shootout to the Oilers last year.

It seemed natural that this game would then go into overtime.

Yet, I forgot to bet it. I did make other bets. I bet that the Rangers would win tonight while the Penguins, Islanders, and Maple Leafs would all win tomorrow. That bet became null and void when Markus Naslund was entered into the shootout.

Anyway, I haven't seen the whole game yet, since I was at work. And to be honest, I won't write a review. NHL.com does that better than me. I'm not delusional. I know why you really come here: to hear about my budding small-money gambling addiction.

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While on the topic of the Oilers, I had XM Home Ice 204 on in my car and heard part of Glenn Anderson's "acceptance" speech. Very good speaker and an emotional speech. Good to see him finally get into the Hall of Fame, he deserves it and he was very grateful for it.

NHL 09 Initial Thoughts

Zach and I don't agree on much here, but here's one thing we've both gone on record saying - NHL 08 is the greatest hockey game ever. Truly a superlative effort, one that I really didn't know how EA could possibly top. Well, seeing as how it's a new year, they have to try. Okay, they really don't; they could just release the same game each year like they do with Madden.

NHL 09 is one of those games where you worry that they might change too much. Last year's game was so perfect that any change could take away the subtleties that made the game great. At the same time, nobody wants to play the same game for two years straight.

What to do?

That's what we're here for. While NHL 09 isn't hitting stores until Tuesday, we have obtained a copy of the game's interactive demo. And by "obtained", I mean I downloaded it off X-Box Live, which anybody can do. Hooray for inside access!

(Note: Speaking of inside access, EA can shove it. Seriously. I can't really get into it here, but let's just say they majorly screwed over myself and my buddies over at GameFAN.)

The online demo only has two teams, the Red Wings and the Penguins. It doesn't matter. The demo does what it needs to do - show us what's different and leave us wanting more. The second one was a lot easier to accomplish than the first.

Real quick, the Play Now mode is almost identical to last year's, at least on the surface. But there's a lot more here. You can still do pretty much everything you loved doing last year, but things are a bit more refined now. The biggest change to the gameplay is the improved poke-checking and something called the "Defensive Skill Stick". This lets you lift the stick of opponents so that they can't control the puck. Aside from that, everything just works better. It's harder to gain the neutral zone because opponents don't simply back off like they used to. Slapshots from the point with no traffic in front, just like in real life, are essentially useless. Shots have a better chance of missing the net, but shots that are on target have a greater probability of being deflected. There's also supposed to be a new and improved fighting module, but it's hard to test; the demo starts your game in the third period, when it's all but impossible to start a fight.

These changes are all well and good, but the big addition this year is the Be A Pro Mode. Not unlike the Superstar Modes we've seen the past few years in Madden and FIFA, Be A Pro lets you take control of one player and one player only. So, in the demo, you can either control Sidney Crosby or Henrik Zetterberg. You can't switch guys, you don't change lines; you don't do anything but move that one player around the entire game. This is where your hockey acumen really gets tested. Anyone can pull off the same old cheap moves to score goals, but it takes a smart player to get a player into position when he doesn't have the puck. It's a whole new world of gameplay, one that looks like it's going to be a lot of fun, but we hope it doesn't render a traditional game obsolete as has happened in the Madden series. In the real game, you'll have the option to either play as an established NHL player or create your own guy and have him start out as a third-liner in the AHL. Either way, the mode is a lot of fun, but be careful - all the crazy camerawork will have you nauseous before long.

All in all, a quality demo. You might be underwhelmed at first, particularly if you've played NHL 08 religiously and don't see that many differences off the bat. But the demo shows you enough where you'd give the full version of NHL 09 a try, and that's all you can really ask for.