Game 1 and my inability to watch it

Folks, game 1 of the cup final tonight. My prediction? Well, it can go ether way. I love LA and they're talent, but I've been a huge Martin Brodeur fan since I was a wee-little boy. As much as I want New Jersey taking their 4th cup in 17 years, I think the Kings have been patient... And by patient I mea 45 years patient.

I might not be able to catch it because I am currently in the waiting room of the doctors office. For the past few days my throat/mouth has been in a peril of pain and swolleness. I thought it was time to give in and check in with the professionals. I think my home remedies of Halls cough drops and ginger ale serves its purpose, but not in this case.

Stanley Cup Finals and I'm an adult

A little while has passed, and quite a bit has happened in the hockey world, and my personal world.

New York defeated Washington in quite the hard-fought series. As much as I wanted the Capitals to win (because NY took out Ottawa, and it would be quite the underdog story for Braden Holtby), it would be cool to see a Lundqvist/Kings final. But, I want New Jersey to take it to the Cup final. Give Brodeur one more. That would be a sweet way to retire; do the ol' Scotty Bowman "sign your papers during the ceremony" sherrah. Although he does have a couple Stanley Cups, some hardware, including two Olympic medals, one more can't hurt?

And, today, I officially became an adult. I'm still trying to comprehend it actually. I can now legally vote, own a credit card, buy lottery tickets, all that jazz.

18 years ago my mother gave birth to possibly the greatest thing since the telephone (who are we kidding). All jokes aside, I'm blessed I've been able to spend 18 wonderful, amazing years with an amazing group of supportive and wonderful people. Many thanks to those who have made my life a blast to live!

Canucks throwbacks

Going back to my graphic work for NHL 04, doing a new set of jerseys that I will have available for download. Its the Vancouver Canucks alternate jersey worn in 1996/97. Don't get confused with the ones worn a year before when some teams expanded with third jerseys; the ones in 1995/96 had straight black socks, clashing with the pants. The year later added stripes to the socks, and made the foreground colour a dark-red to match the uniform.

The gradients were a bit difficult to work with. Not so much on the chest and back, mainly the arms. Duplicating the layer with the gradient style added caused it to not show. Had to re-add it. Nonetheless here it is. I like the outcome, managed to get the C in the logo to fit inside the yellow bar without too much trouble.

Capitals-Rangers off to a game 7

Washington managed to hold off the Rangers to a 2-1 win. Tons of things caught my eye this game;
- Braden Holtby needs to get control of his rebounds. If they're low shots, there isn't much he can do rather than try to get control of them. If they're up at his chest, no excuse. Cover it with your glove, and if it ends up coming down, tackle that son-of-a-gun.
- Rangers need to get to those rebounds. They're taking shots, and leaning back and waiting what happens. Crash the net, get in Holtby's face, and clean up the garbage.
- The Rangers goal with 0:30 seconds remaining shouldn't have counted. There was a Ranger forward right in his space (when I said crash the net, I didn't mean literally), granted he was pushed. The shot went wide, but Holtby couldn't get his blocker out to try to get a piece. It ends up going off a player, and in. Classic goalie interference.
- Washington is way to cocky. On the scoreboard, they were showing previews to purchase tickets for next round. That's a huge slap in the face to the Rangers, and I'm sure they took it as motivation cause they scored following the faceoff. If there are hockey gods (hopefully not on the Rangers side), New York will win at home and play New Jersey (who thought of that?).

But speaking of the conference finals, Los Angeles vs. Phoenix, and New Jersey vs. WAS/NYR. I definitely didn't have this in my pool.

"Our worst day, is their everyday."

Just settled to watch the Capitals-Rangers game on CBC, and Ron MacLean made a good point.

These two teams, their cities rather, were victims of the terrible 9/11 attacks back in 2001. It never dawned on me, that almost 11 years ago, this act shook the whole world. Ron went on the credit all emergency personnel, volunteers, virtually anyone who helped aid those who needed it that day.

Then he said something that got to me;
"Our worst day, is their everyday."

Coming from a family where my grandfather, and two uncles served and fought for our country, makes me think that we don't give enough credit where credit is due. The ones who put their life on the line, so we can keep living ours, is something some of us, myself included, seem to forget about.

Just a quick thought I had before puck drop.

NJ tops Philadelphia

So once again, I missed a pivotal game in the semi-finals. I was at my church recording some music during the NJ-PHI game, but a quick look at NHL.com let my eyes to see that the Devils had defeated one of the Cup favourites. So tomorrow night, I can finally sit down to (hopefully) watch Washington force a game 7 at the Verizon Center.

I did get the chance to watch some IIHF action. Having two spares in a semester really pays off around this time. I caught the 2nd and 3rd periods of the Slovakia-Switzerland match, and the third period of the Russia-Germany game. A few things caught my eye while watching these games;
- International play is much more intense. This might be due to the fact its an international tournament and not a league game (I've never watched a DEL/KHL/Sm-liiga/Elitserien match), the larger ice surface, or the fans, which are alot like soccer fans (which I've been to my fair share of games)
- A lot more scrums and pushing & shoving after the whistle

The last time I watched an international game was the 2010 Olympic gold medal game (didn't pay attention to much IIHF play last year). But that could be because its the Olympics, with the majority being NHL'ers.

I'm gonna miss hockey once the playoffs are done. Kinda regret starting this blog so late in the hockey season, but better now than never, I'll be prepared for next season!

About myself

Where to start...

The first hockey game I watched was in 1999; Wayne Gretzky's last NHL game that he played in Canada. I was watching it with my grandfather, who was babysitting me as my mom and grandmother had gone to do some chores. All game I had been asking tons of questions;
"Why do their chests look so big?"
"Whats that picture on the tummy?" (Referring to the Senators "centurion" logo)
"Who is that waving to the crowd?"

That's when I learned who Wayne Gretzky was. The last regular season game he played in Canada, and this is when I learn about who he is. Granted I was born in 1994, and this being my first hockey game ever watched. Regardless, I was so intrigued and into the whole game, that's when I fell in love.

Did I play organized hockey myself? No. Growing up with only my sister, my mom, and seeing my dad once a month, money had always been tight, and had to pass on organized sports. That changed going into high school, where I joined hockey (bought the equipment myself) and soccer. I still don't play organized hockey, only pickup. Usually with some friends from church on Friday nights after our youth group.

I grew up and currently live in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. I am a die hard Senators fan, and have a soft spot for the Montreal Canadiens (my grandfather being from Quebec and cheering for them since he was a kid).

My grandfather was always someone I looked up to, but sadly, he passed in March of 2005. I believe it was because of the NHL lockout, that no games were played. That's my theory, which I plan to stick with.

I'm currently finishing my last year of high school, and hoping to go to school for radio and television broadcasting to become a hockey analyst/sportscaster. Since I couldn't play when I was younger, and my chance to make the big leagues is slim pickings, I want to get as close to the action as I can.

Journalism is a possibility, this would be a great start I find. Why not see where life takes me?

Thanks for stopping by. Come by soon, I plan to update this as often as I can.

-Nick

Phoenix vs. Los Angeles? Say What??

The day before the Stanley Cup playoffs begin, I would've loved to meet the guy who said the Coyotes and Kings would battle in the Conference final. I bet he was laughed at more than a school boy with a note from his mom in his lunch.

But it happened, last night Phoenix knocked off the higher seeded Predators. Personally I didn't watch the game because of work, but followed the IceTracker with the GameCenter app on my iPhone. Jeez... an NHL club who is currently owned and operated by the NHL sure knows how to put up a fight. Plus, on the day of a potential new owner.

I myself, expected a St. Louis Blues-Philadelphia Flyers final, but that may change. Much better than the supposed Vancouver-Pittsburgh final. But, this playoff season has definitely been full of surprises. Being an Ottawa fan, people asked me why I didn't have faith in my hometown team to make the final. I gave them a list of reasons;
- We're obviously in our first year of rebuilding. But MacLean deserves the Jack Adams award simply because we managed to make the playoffs in our first official year of rebuilding. As opposed to Toronto, who hasn't seen post-season glory since before the lockout.
- Sure, we pushed the best team in the league to 7 games. But there are tougher teams than us. We would've played Washington, and some nights Braden Holtby would literally be a brick wall
- Our defence would've collapsed in no time. Watching the Rangers throw themselves at every shot we took, and how quickly they could crash our net, defence is still something we can work on

I give best of luck to the rest of the teams left standing... except the Rangers of course. I'd love to see Washington come back and take them out.

Graphic Work for NHL 2004

So, as I said in the first post, I create addon's for the video game NHL 2004. There are tons of reasons why I use an 8-year-old game;
- The game's interface is written completely in HTML, thus easily modifiable
- The game's AI (artificial intelligence) is, to date, one of the best in any game produced by EA Sports
- The presentation is magnificent; full 3D crowd, realistic cut-scenes, fans leaving their seats and returning during intermissions, etc.

I could go on and on, but let me show you what I do;

This is what's called a "texture", made with Photoshop CS5. Once I import this into the game, the game sort of wraps it around the player model, and whabam, you have your jersey. As for the pants and socks, its some sort of EA "black magic". When it comes to these textures, there are tons of templates, with different kinds of mesh styles, lighting styles (you can see the outline of a players shoulder pads), and branding you can apply to jerseys. I make these, along with the letters and numbers;

I import them one at a time, but this is to show what they look like. And thanks to EA's "black magic", they're added to a certain area of the jersey. This has its limitations though; letters, numbers, and captain/assistant patches can't be moved. For example, the Detroit Red Wings have their captain and assistant letters on the left side, as apposed to the traditional right side. This is almost impossible to achieve in-game ("almost" meaning if you were to HEX-edit the position of them, which no one would have the time nor patience to do). As well, with many European teams having the names of the players below the numbers instead of above, this can't be done either. But some blame EA's lack of authenticity and laziness.

Here are what the letters look like side-by-side (these are for a Los Angeles Kings concept);

Regardless, I enjoy making these types of addon's because it gives more variety into the game. More jerseys to select for the user to play with, wearing throwback uniforms like some teams did for select games. As well, people download them and give me nice comments, which is always nice.

Over time, I'll post some updates as to what I do next.
If you have NHL 2004 for PC, and want to learn more, you can visit the NHL04Rebuilt forum, and visit my jersey/addon thread here. My screen name is nick_thecheese.

Inaugural Post

Seeings how I over-crowd forums with posts on my views of the game, its players, its rules (don't get me started), and almost everything else, someone suggested I begin writing a blog, where I can let my mind go free and wander off.

That's not what I'm going to do...

This is mainly my views on what happens in the NHL. As well, I am using this to show off my graphic work that I do for the video game NHL 2004 (More information can be found here). Leave comments if you agree, disagree, or want to take me for dinner sometime.

Thanks, and enjoy!

-Nick