This is good enough to post again

New Members wanted...

Members...haha (inside joke, sorry)

1. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to lace em up with the rest of the guys on The PensBlog PS3 EASHL franchise? Well now is your chance. Post your PSN ID, Name, Position, player type (sniper, playmaker, etc) in the comments for this post. Entering the the chat above isn't the best since only so many messages are saved.
   
   
2. As some of you might have might have noticed I put together a quick new banner for our blog. It's not terrible but I think we can do better. I'd like to include as many of us as possible in it so start trying to grab your favorite screenshot and either I or someone that actually knows what they are doing with photoshop can put them into a kickass banner. Once again use the comments below to link to your photo.
   
   
3. The 3rd order of business is to officially announce the opening of our brand new forum. A link is now available in the top left of the page. Big thanks to Zack for putting this together. Please take the time to register yourself and post away.
   
   
4. These may have been posted somewhere on here already but I thought it'd be a nice refresher. The guys over at the EASHL Forum have a few good articles.
   

• Playmaking Center Strategy
• Playing Sound Defense
  
• Player Starting Attributes
• Equipment - Sticks & Skates
• Defenseman Tips

NHL 09 Third Jersey Code Released

Bing's excited about it. As ZJedi posted in the chat box it is xe6377uyrwm48frf.

Why can't we do this?

Was browsing the EASportsWorld website and thought I'd post a few of the better videos I watched. Feel free comment with some of your own videos if you want them to go on our big bad blog.

EA SPORTS World: Thats just ridiculous

EA SPORTS World: Funny save in practice

EA SPORTS World: Poooopin the Puck In

Team Stats

Here are our team stats. The first time numbers are the stats with out Division 1 rank from awhile back. 2nd are our current standings.

As promised I added some color. Green=Good/Red=Bad.

As a bonus you get some commentary.

Points - 58th (2,726) - 45th (3,172) [Good, but I'd like to see us crack top 20 for EASHL Playoffs]
Wins - 3rd (861) - 4th (1,101) [Being #1 in GP should make us shoot for #1 in W's]
Losses - 1st (650) - 1st (745) [Kinda hard to avoid with all our games...but each one hurts for sure]
OT Losses - 1st (107) - 1st (139) [Ditto with losses]
Games Played - 1st (1,618) - 1st (1,985) [Gotta love our activity level]
Goals For - 7th (2,947) - 5th (3,841) [Wins are more important but good to see we can score if we need to]
Goals Against - 1st (2,879) - 1st (3,459) [Cheap goals happen but we are getting better with defense]
Avg. Goals For - 96th (1.82) - 90th (1.94) [Like the improvement but closer to 3 would be great]
Avg. Goals Against - 99th (1.70) - 99th (1.74) [Not showing in the stats yet but we're getting better]
Avg. Time on Attack - 75th (5:41) - 79th (5:50) [time has gone up while ranking has gone down]
Avg. Win Margin - 99th (1.66) - 93rd (1.79) [We may play down to our opponents at times]
Avg. Loss Margin - 82nd (2.10) - 79th (2.14) [stat has gotten worse but we are ranked higher]
Hits - 1st (48,374) - 1st (59,709) [We're tough, but hopefully getting smarter]
Avg. Hits - 11th (29) - 13th (30) [we hit more but our rank has gone down]
Avg Shots For - 51st (17) - 40th (17) [number hasn't changed but our rank has gone up]
Shooting % - 90th (10.3%) - 87th (10.9%) [The real Pens are good with this...I'd like to see this improve]
Penalty Minutes - 1st (9,128) - 1st (11,531) [Our PK % isn't great...staying away from the sin bin may help]
Avg. PIM - 7th (5) - 14th (5) [number hasn't changed but our rank has gone down]
Power Play Goals - 4th (491) - 4th (644) [Solid number but we can do better]
PP Opportunities - 2nd (2,802) - 1st (3,478) [We like to piss teams off I guess]
PP % - 97th (17.5%) - 93rd (18.5%) [We're on the right track tons of room for improvement]
Shorthanded Goals - 7th (228) - 6th (308) [For as many times as we are on the PK...scoring helps]
SHG Against - 1st (179) - 1st (222) [The other team scores on 8% of out PP...gotta get better]
PPG Against - 1st (573) - 1st (691) [An improved PK and less penalties will fix this quickly]
Times Shorthanded - NA - 1st (4,016) [I missed this stat before but wow...big number]
Penalty Kill % - 79th (82.3%) - 82nd (82.8%) [has improved if even ranking doesn't show...lets keep it up]
Faceoffs Won - 1st (20,546) - 1st (25,139) [Lots of games = lots of faceoffs, if you aren't winning at least 45% of your faceoffs you probably shouldn't be C]
Breakaway Goals - 4th (92) - 3rd (143) [Cheese has helped but a patch would hurt this]
Breakaway % - 59th (11.7%) - 59th (13%) [Ditto]
One-Timer Goals - 23rd (201) - 22nd (341) [this is what good teams do...I like cheese free goals]
One-Timer % - 76th (6.3%) - 81st (7.2%) [higher % but lower ranking]
Avg. Passes - 80th (115) - 80th (116) [better barely...would love to see this improve]
Pass % - 54th (77.1%) - 50th (77.2%) [only thing better than more passes is smarter passing]
Blocks - 1st (9015) - 1st (10,824) [I like the number and the further away from the net we can make these blocks the better]
Shutouts - 3rd (344) - 2nd (444) [Solid...if they can't score we can't lose]

1nfamous and UHL Elite Win Trading!

Check out this ridiculousness Paul Explosion found on the EA forums

and as a bonus...here's Chris "Too Much" Menn doing what he does...especially in OT.

EA SPORTS World: unstoppable

Stats as of 2:30 on 11/16

Online ID	GP	G	A	P	+/-	PIM	Hits	G / G	A / G	+/- G	PIM / G	Hits / G
wildthing202	667	435	296	731	+63	973	7068	0.652	0.444	0.094	1.459	10.597
Sergein	612	429	368	797	+236	905	7178	0.701	0.601	0.386	1.479	11.729
PolishSteel77	449	245	380	625	+71	555	4167	0.546	0.846	0.158	1.236	9.281
kevbo67	358	274	261	535	+97	528	3108	0.765	0.729	0.271	1.475	8.682
blackatom	333	339	192	531	+166	320	1857	1.018	0.577	0.498	0.961	5.577
Rush14_iceman	274	67	187	254	+88	765	3771	0.245	0.682	0.321	2.792	13.763
devilwoacause22	211	68	85	153	-12	510	1760	0.322	0.403	-0.057	2.417	8.341
myyrdin	193	74	107	181	+11	258	1915	0.383	0.554	0.057	1.337	9.922
lundqvistseb	187	70	112	182	+69	517	1918	0.374	0.599	0.369	2.765	10.257
mole11	186	317	253	570	+240	581	2859	1.704	1.360	1.290	3.124	15.371
armham1212	184	27	105	132	-5	237	1652	0.147	0.571	-0.027	1.288	8.978
pittsmo	181	123	88	211	+35	264	1912	0.680	0.486	0.193	1.459	10.564
PensCupChamps	175	74	98	172	+4	228	1596	0.423	0.560	0.023	1.303	9.120
bigtourist	168	86	94	180	+52	166	1104	0.512	0.560	0.310	0.988	6.571
CorpThug	157	60	94	154	-24	258	2188	0.382	0.599	-0.153	1.643	13.936
Samsara	146	9	55	64	-38	881	2602	0.062	0.377	-0.260	6.034	17.822
Jaos	146	8	66	74	-44	406	2558	0.055	0.452	-0.301	2.781	17.521
heavensent	146	47	87	134	-49	169	1174	0.322	0.596	-0.336	1.158	8.041
kaynaan	145	180	117	297	+26	398	2049	1.241	0.807	0.179	2.745	14.131
avad	137	83	83	166	-21	152	1085	0.606	0.606	-0.153	1.109	7.920
ZJedi945	131	11	82	93	+25	152	1172	0.084	0.626	0.191	1.160	8.947
eze3484	128	73	64	137	-9	108	699	0.570	0.500	-0.070	0.844	5.461
TJenk6687	123	8	46	54	-54	274	2072	0.065	0.374	-0.439	2.228	16.846
Guardian48	73	80	50	130	+38	89	557	1.096	0.685	0.521	1.219	7.630
HankScorpio77	41	14	10	24	-30	94	515	0.341	0.244	-0.732	2.293	12.561
tmkst13	34	25	16	41	4	37	248	0.735	0.471	0.118	1.088	7.294
PorscheKid	25	8	7	15	-11	40	244	0.320	0.280	-0.440	1.600	9.760
thejoker710	10	2	5	7	8	6	31	0.200	0.500	0.800	0.600	3.100
booradley172	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

#1 Ranked Team Bites the Dust

Mole, Serge, Rush, and myself were somehow able to beat the NHL Regulators who are the #1 ranked squad in the game. The final score was 2-1 and both of our goals where off of rebounds of my shots from the point.

After playing and losing to them pretty handily a few days ago mole remembered their bread and butter play was the deep in the zone one-timers. Luke Schenn and myself back on D were reminded of this at least three times everytime they brought it into the zone.

Either way it was a good victory and it raised out ranking to #48.

Here are some stats I pulled from the Club Rankings page. I list where we fall within D1 and what out actual stat is. We get good ranked based mostly on the fact that we've play a lot more games then most of the teams but there are some that you'll see we can improve on.

Points - 58th (2,726)
Wins - 3rd (861)
Losses - 1st (650)
OT Losses - 1st (107)
Games Played - 1st (1,618)
Goals For - 7th (2,947)
Goals Against - 1st (2,879)
Avg. Goals For - 96th (1.82)
Avg. Goals Against - 99th (1.70)
Avg. Time on Attack - 75th (5:41)
Avg. Win Margin - 99th (1.66)
Avg. Loss Margin - 82nd (2.10)
Hits - 1st (48,374)
Avg. Hits - 11th (29th)
Avg Shots For - 51st (17)
Shooting % - 90th (10.3%)
Penalty Minutes - 1st (9,128)
Avg. PIM - 7th (5)
Power Play Goals - 4th (491)
PP Opportunities - 2nd (2,802)
PP % - 97th (17.5%)
Shorthanded Goals - 7th (228)
SHG Against - 1st (179)
PPG Against - 1st (573)
Penalty Kill % - 79th (82.3%)
Faceoffs Won - 1st (20,546)
Breakaway Goals - 4th (92)
Breakaway % - 59th (11.7%)
One-Timer Goals - 23rd (201) - Regulators have like 1,400 of these
One-Timer % - 76th (6.3%)
Avg. Passes - 80th (115)
Pass % - 54th (77.1%)
Blocks - 1st (9015)
Shutouts - 3rd (344)

If EA could somehow give us a data dump I could do a little better analysis but some of this stuff it pretty cool to see. (To me at least)

Good Stuff from Operation Sports re: EASHL

NHL 09: How to Become a Better EASHL Teammate

Submitted on: 11/03/2008 by Jayson Young

People Person -- As the lead NHL® 09 Profile complete an OTP game with 10 players (Acquired 9/28/2008)

It took me over two weeks to get that achievement; and it didn't take me that long due to a lack of effort. Rather, it was because of the generation of "my way or the highway" players who populate the EASHL community lobbies.

In other words, people who:

A) Bail out of lobbies because they are so impatient that they can’t wait 30 seconds for a 4 vs. 4 game to fill up and become a 6 vs. 6 game

B) Back out of games if they don’t get to play "their position"

C) Exit out of games the moment their team falls behind by two or more goals

D) All of the Above

Should you meet one (or more) of the above criterion, I’d like to remind you that you are not the only player seeking enjoyment from these community games, and honestly, your selfishness is a large part of what’s destroying the fun for the teammates whom you’re leaving to drown in your wake.

Should you wish to make the EASHL community experience more fun for everyone, here are some hints for how you can improve your performance at "your position."

Who knows, you may even discover some exciting new tricks about the positions that you've turned your nose up against in the past.

Centers

Recommended player style:

1) Playmaker (great passer, dominates face-offs, can shoot well with stat boosts)

2) Dangler (good passer, most athletic player-type in the game, can play center effectively if all defensive points go into the face-off stat, poor shooter even with stat boosts)

As a service to everyone else on your team, please do not play center if you cannot win at least 50 percent of your face-offs. Reason being, it is no coincidence that teams who lose the face-off battle often lose the game, too. As for how to win face-offs, remember that it is just as much a battle of player ratings as it is a battle of player skill.

When thinking about the ratings, realize that playmakers are at a serious advantage in the face-off circle, because they start with a default face-off rating of 80, not 75, like all the other forwards.

Regardless of how good your initial face-off rating is, you will still want to spend the majority of your attribute points in the face-off category, because winning the battle in the face-off circle is the most important aspect of playing the center position well.

As for how to win the face-off with your skills, it is really something that must be "felt out," due to the varying latency of each game. But in general, you want to start your poke -- which defaults to "down" on the right joystick for both consoles -- a half-second before the referee sticks his arm out to drop the puck.

In other words, anticipate the ref’s drop, and try to start your poke just before he begins his drop animation.

Also keep an eye on your opponent’s stick before the drop, and remember that you can "play it safe" by waiting and reacting to the ref’s drop, (instead of trying to anticipate the drop) if you see that your opponent is way out in front and left out of position after his initial swipe.

Yes, the center -- or centre, if you’re one of those funny-talking people who always seems to play as Montreal -- is where you should be spending most of your time on the ice.

On offense, when attempting to break into the offensive zone, centers should be looking for open space in the middle of the ice where they can sit, receive a pass, advance the puck up the ice as far as possible, and -- once their Spider Sense starts tingling -- make a quick dish out to a winger filling the outside lane.

Upon entering the zone, centers should continue looking for open space in the middle of the defense where they can collect a centering pass for a quick wrist shot out of the slot.

To make themselves even more effective when patrolling the interior of the ice, centers will want to hold down the "vision control" button whenever they are moving without the puck –- this defaults to the left trigger, for Xbox 360 users.

What "vision control" does, is keep your player’s shoulders square to the puck at all times. The effect this has, is that it keeps your player in good position to pass or shoot the second the puck touches his stick by eliminating the time-consuming twists and turnarounds that your player often has to go through to get a pass/shot off when he’s not locked on to the puck.

Wingers

Recommended player style:

1) Sniper/Dangler (just ask yourself: are you Russ Tyler or Kenny Wu?)

2) Power Forward (good if you want some defense to go with your offense and enjoy scoring off deflections, like Tomas Holmstrom)

The number one thing that people seem to stumble over when playing this position is the fact that, even though it may say right wing under your name, it doesn’t mean you aren’t supposed to be crossing over to the left side of the ice.

You see, good wingers will go wherever the open lanes are, regardless of where those lanes appear on the ice. And that’s really all you’re trying to do as a winger: fill the outside lanes.

What you want to do is let the center work the interior of the ice, and stay spread out on the wings, so the center has somewhere to pass the puck when your team is trying to break into the offensive zone.

When you finally get into the enemy zone, you want to continue to stay on the wing, looking for one of the following opportunities:

Taking a high-percentage shot from the top of the circle if you have teammates ready to follow the shot for a rebound
Drifting to the middle of the ice and taking a high-percentage shot from between the circles if your teammates are lagging behind you
Continuing to skate along the boards and float behind the net, looking to make a wrap-around shot or a centering pass if your teammates are lagging behind you and the defense is cutting off the middle of the ice

It’s clear after playing only a couple of EASHL games that the side boards are the most underused part of the ice in NHL 09.

Wingers in particular will want to become well-acquainted with the boards, using them as a way of delaying plays and causing chaos/breakdowns in the defense by luring defenders out of position, sneaking passes to the other side of the ice, and going in for the occasional wrap-around shot.

The boards are also a great place for wingers to position themselves when a scrum for the puck is going on and their teammate needs a quick outlet.

Defensemen

Recommended player style:

1) Defensive Defenseman (if you want to be able to rip slap shots from the point)

2) Grinder (if you just want to be an enforcer)

It’s strange that most people avoid the defensive positions at all costs (often to the detriment of their own team), because playing defenseman is actually the easiest way to earn high grades from the Be a Pro grading system.

And as we all know, if there’s anything the "Me First And The Gimmie Gimmies" who frequent the community lobbies enjoy, it’s padding their stats.

That’s why I’m surprised these people haven’t figured out that you have to play horribly to not get at least two "A" grades every time you suit up as a defenseman. In fact, you can pull off an "A" grade across the board if you just follow some simple guidelines.

There’s a time and place for a hard body check. It just isn’t:

A) On odd-man rushes (which often lead to breakaways, even if the initial check is successful)

B) Anytime you’re checking a guy without the puck who isn’t hanging around your slot/crease (which often leads to penalties)

So if you want to make opposing skaters "do the twist," you’re going to have to use a little discipline and pick your spots instead of running around knocking out anyone who gets in your way.

A good poke/deflection is better than a check for several reasons:

It moves the puck out of danger (checks often send the puck squirting out slowly for nearby enemies to pickup)
It keeps you in the play, even after the puck comes loose
If you miss a poke, you’re still in position to make a play (missed checks leave you completely out of position)

If you're looking to stock up on deflection/interception stats, note that you can often break up passes simply by standing in the way of the puck's path.

Also try to use the "vision control" while skating to keep your skater's shoulders squared to the puck, which makes deflections/interceptions even easier to come by.

When it comes to deflecting shots, however, you’ll want to lay down on the ice (defaults to left bumper + right bumper on the Xbox 360) instead of standing straight up, which will keep you from screening your goalie during the shot.

This simple rule should override all other moves you make as a defenseman:

Keep the other team’s furthest skater in front of you at all times.

As a defenseman, the easiest way to lose the game for your team is to give up breakaway opportunities; keep them from happening, however, and you dramatically increase your team’s odds of pulling out a victory.

Also, defensemen are mostly passers who clear the puck safely out of the zone and help to set breakouts in motion.

This means that defensemen on the attack should never skate with the puck for any extended period of time -- instead, they should be looking to pass the puck up to a forward, allowing him to bring the puck into the offensive zone.

However, once the other team has been pressured into its own zone by your forwards, feel free to push up to the blue line and settle in at the point.

From the point, defensemen can:

Provide outlet passes to forwards in trouble spots
Chase down loose pucks and keep them in the zone
Cycle the puck around
Fire off one-timers and slap shots
Again, never hold the puck for too long at the point, and above all else, do not turn the puck over!

Turnovers that come from defensemen mishandling the puck at the point almost always end up in the net off a breakaway at the other end of the ice.

Goalies

Recommended player style:

1) Stand-up (the tendency of most players you meet online is to shoot high; this will give you the stats you need to defend against that tactic when you’re first starting out)

2) Butterfly (offers better rebound-control, which is a vital stat against all the snipers and power forwards you’ll meet online)

As with defensemen, there is a serious lack of quality goaltenders in the EASHL. I assume this is because goalie has the most difficult learning curve of any position in the game.

If you’re one of those people who tried it once and swore it off for life, you should know that most of the problems I see with beginner EASHL goalies are easily correctable.

For starters, for some reason I see a lot of first-time goalies playing as far back in the crease as possible. What these goalies don’t realize is that playing with your rear-end sunken into the net is a sure-fire way to get scored on, because the further away you are from the shooter, the wider his scoring angles become.

Conversely, the closer you are to the skater, the narrower his scoring angles become. So start coming out of that crease, and only sink back into it when you’re worried about other skaters swooping in for a quick rebound shot.

Even then, you never want to be totally backed into the net. I mean, even Goldberg knows not to play that deep.

Contrary to what you might see in the SportsCenter top 10, great goalie play isn’t so much about having split-second reflexes as it is about knowing where the puck is going before the shot is taken.

With that in mind, EASHL goalies should always be anticipating:

High shots
Shots against the grain
One-timers
The first two problems are self-explanatory, but to counter the third tactic, you’ll have to train yourself to look for the guy who’s about to receive the puck, instead of focusing on the guy who has the puck at a more difficult shooting angle (the number one reason why people pass for one-timers).

That means giving up a little extra daylight to the guy who’s probably going to pass, and making sure not to overreact to the guy who you know is lining up for the one-timer.

That covers the "right stick" saves and well as the "desperation saves" (the left and right bumpers, by default on the Xbox 360).

Instead of getting fancy on every single save attempt, if you simply keep your goalie in front of the puck, the game will play the puck for you, and while using the right stick might make the save, too, it will also scoot your goalie way out of position after the save, which increases your opponent’s chance for a successful rebound shot.

The best thing you can do as a goalie in a one-on-one situation is come out of the crease and attack the puck.

What you want to do is stay between the skater and the goal to minimize his scoring angles; then, right when you think the skater is getting ready to begin his series of dekes, charge the puck and jar it loose with a collision, or poke it loose -- if your goalie has a good poke check.

So with all that being said, I hope the next time you hit the ice for a community pick-up game, you've got a few new tricks up your sleeve and a little more knowledge of how to play all the positions on the ice. Because, if there's one thing the EASHL needs right now, it's a greater number of flexible, versatile teammates.

Offensive Juggernaut

EA SPORTS World: Comeback Winner

Quote from Chris "wildthing202" Menn.

"Me, TJenk, & the new guy just completed one of the best comebacks in Pensblog history. Came back from 4-1 in 3:23 to tie it with 6.3 secs left and won it in overtime.

My 4th goal of the game aka the OT winner."

Stats as of 11:00pm ish on 11/3/2008

PS3 Name	GP	G	A	P	+/-	PIM	Hits	G/game	A/game	P/game	+/- game	PIM/game
wildthing202	559	361	220	581	12	829	6086	0.646	0.394	1.039	0.021	1.483
Sergein	462	308	279	587	147	698	5955	0.667	0.604	1.271	0.318	1.511
PolishSteel77	388	213	332	545	41	507	3777	0.549	0.856	1.405	0.106	1.307
ajn24	321	117	127	244	-124	766	3938	0.364	0.396	0.760	-0.386	2.386
kevbo67	312	253	226	479	75	480	2839	0.811	0.724	1.535	0.240	1.538
blackatom	296	315	158	473	159	280	1709	1.064	0.534	1.598	0.537	0.946
Rush14_iceman	217	62	151	213	71	562	3211	0.286	0.696	0.982	0.327	2.590
kaynaan	204	153	102	255	19	318	1819	0.750	0.500	1.250	0.093	1.559
mole11	204	248	179	427	191	446	2077	1.216	0.877	2.093	0.936	2.186
myyrdin	186	71	103	174	5	247	1835	0.382	0.554	0.935	0.027	1.328
pittsmo	181	123	88	211	35	263	1912	0.680	0.486	1.166	0.193	1.453
Inept13astard	160	40	66	106	-76	335	1819	0.250	0.413	0.663	-0.475	2.094
PensCupChamps	159	68	87	155	0	197	1441	0.428	0.547	0.975	0.000	1.239
devilwoacause22	150	49	66	115	-19	385	1262	0.327	0.440	0.767	-0.127	2.567
heavensent	146	47	87	134	-49	169	1174	0.322	0.596	0.918	-0.336	1.158
Jaos	146	8	52	60	-50	398	2466	0.055	0.356	0.411	-0.342	2.726
arkham1212	144	22	76	98	-16	190	1321	0.153	0.528	0.681	-0.111	1.319
bigtourist	143	79	78	157	50	140	962	0.552	0.545	1.098	0.350	0.979
Samsara	140	9	53	62	-32	827	2502	0.064	0.379	0.443	-0.229	5.907
eze3484	128	73	64	137	-9	108	699	0.570	0.500	1.070	-0.070	0.844
avad	127	72	76	148	-30	142	1029	0.567	0.598	1.165	-0.236	1.118
TJenk6687	117	8	44	52	-47	258	1990	0.068	0.376	0.444	-0.402	2.205
ZJedi845	115	11	75	86	20	130	1080	0.096	0.652	0.748	0.174	1.130
HankScorpio77	41	14	10	24	-30	94	515	0.341	0.244	0.585	-0.732	2.293
tmkst13	28	24	14	38	1	33	217	0.857	0.500	1.357	0.036	1.179
PorscheKid	25	8	7	15	-11	40	244	0.320	0.280	0.600	-0.440	1.600
thejoker710	2	1	0	1	1	2	6	0.500	0.000	0.500	0.500	1.000

The biggest stat of all though is our team ranking. As recently as the late last week I think we were approaching D5. At the time of this writing we are ranked #86 in Division 1.

Reason you haven't seen me on lately

After an injury plagued season, Team Pensblog have placed Aron Vad on the injured reserve, he should be ready by preseason NHL '10.

EDIT:

Avad, miraculously healed....is BACK!

Important: NHL 09 Game Update Coming

NHL 09 Blog: David Littman
Posted 10.29.2008
Hi there, David Littman here. We are in the process of putting the patches up for both the X360 andthe PS3. PS3 Europe has already gone up, and PS3 North America and both X360patches should be up within the next week or two. First and foremost we have fixed the "dirty disc" message issue thatsome people are seeing on the X360. For the PS3, we have fixed the issue where there are sometimes whiteflashes or flickers during gameplay. So, if you have seen one of the above, you will be happy to know theyare fixed with the patch.For most people though...the important fixes are in gameplay. We have listened to all of you, and we have played the game ourselvesevery day. While we couldn't make every fix that you asked for becauseof time constraints, we did fix most of the big issues, and alsoimproved gameplay to be more authentic.

* The jersey on the EASHL side select screen is more visible thanthe team logo. This will make it easier for people to see when jerseycolors clash

* Deking controls normal when shooting downscreen with "Always Up"controls

* Checking has been tuned so you will see less big hits from guysthat aren't traditionally known for hitting

* Less CPU AI one-timers

* Increased the height of dump ins, for a better dump and chasegame.

* No more goals from flip dumps

* Better CPU AI logic near offensive blueline so they don't gooff-sides as much

* CPU goalie will not drag the puck back toward himself in ashootout

* We have fixed the goals from outside shots that people are scoring. We have reduced shot accuracy when on the rush and when turning quickly, and from far out. You will now have to be more conservativewhen shooting on the rush. If you aim all the way to the left or right, your shot will go wide a lot more. Try aiming more towards the middle tohit the net from outside. This fixes the cross goal where you shoot backthe other way, and the goal that goes in with the "curve" animation, anda few others. There's a reason NHL players don't shoot from outside onthe rush very often. Dumping or trying to set up is a better play unlessyou have an odd- man situation.

* We reduced the time it took to get control of the goalie by 1/3.

* When line changes are set to auto, and a user changeslines/defense manually between whistles, the line/defensive pair youasked for will come out (or stay out).

* If you have line changes off in Be a Pro, line change playerchatter will be turned off.

* When using a defenseman in BAP, BAP player won't get stuck onthe bench and will be able to call for change

* The EASHL will now go to continuous 5v5 overtime until one teamscores. This way nobody has to sit out, and you get to decide who wins(this is now just like the NHL Play-offs)

* The proper own-goal cut scene will be shown where the player whoscored on himself is upset.

* All cut scenes should now show players sitting in theirrespective team's bench.

* Increase AI team aggressiveness and the likelihood of themgetting called for a penalty on an infraction.

* If Vision Control is pressed, you do not throw a hit when infront of the attacking net. This helps with rebound shots.

* Increase the likelihood of a penalty if the stick hits the bodyduring a stick lift.* Reduce the accuracy of shots for penalty shots and shootouts. Aiming for just inside the post is a lot tougher nowAlong with these changes we are still working on the server side ofthings to make sure that the EASHL and online play is always improving.Keep checking our website for more information on the EASHL play- offs.

Thanks-David Littman

bold-mine

Video

Nate with an OT winner to complete his hat-trick

EA SPORTS World: OT game winner hat trick

This post was going to be reserved for stats...but

WE SUCK!

Friday Motivator

Videos

Great games last night guys...here's a few videos that just don't capture the "bigness" of these moments but whatev...if you've got others feel free to pass them on to me.

EA SPORTS World: Killing the Giant

Too much Menn with a huge gamewinning goal against a huge human goalie.

EA SPORTS World: back breaker

Me with a late goal to break the 0-0 deadlock with 4.5 seconds left.

EA SPORTS World: heads up

This is a video of TJenk doing what a TJenk does.