Look – I’m not going to feed you some sob story about how terrible my life was or anything like that. It’s an insult to the kids who endure much more than I have or ever will. Even though my folks were immigrants and worked hard to provide for their family, my sister and I had it pretty good. We co-opted the good life and benefit from the things that create white privilege. But enough of that – the point I was trying to make about invisibility is that growing up, I didn’t really stand out or feel like I had any traits or identifiers that made me unique. (Looking back, I can see a LOT, but back then I didn’t see them – hindsight = 20/20) In order to combat that invisibility, I relied on immersion – and the easiest way to immerse yourself and create a ‘character’ for yourself is to assume the role of the player you control in a game.

I LOVE HOCKEY. But I never played at an organized level growing up. Our family couldn’t afford it (time and money) so I lived vicariously through my friends who were primarily jocks and came from hockey families.

It wasn’t until I received my first Commodore 64 that I found a world of amazing sports games. One of the first hockey games I played was Powerplay Hockey by Electronic Arts.

I had played Blades of Steel and other Hockey-like games, but this was the first game that actually felt like real hockey. Outside of collecting stats and standings, I had the most fun imagining it was Montreal vs Toronto and I was scoring goals.

Then in the early 90s, I scored a SEGA Genesis for Christmas. My best friend and I used to rent the systems from the local video rental place each weekend, with an armload of sports games, and now that I actually had my own, the costs decreased considerably.

I think of all the times we spent 20 bucks on the weekend to rent a system and 2 games, and we could have pooled our money and bought a system… but you know, young and dumb…

The first game I bought was NHL 94. Regarded as one of the best sports video games of all time, I played this game so much that I didn’t bother buying an updated version of the series until 1997. (I bought NHL96 on clearance for 15 bucks)

Despite not having a season mode or player creator/trade option, I would still track stats meticulously in an old notebook. I remember going to the store and buying a season preview guide put out by The Hockey News and make a list of all the regular season games for the team I was going to play, and then I’d choose a player that was going to be my avatar.

I even went as far as throwing all the names of all the teams into a hat and drawing a team, and they would be the ones who drafted me. (I ended up in Toronto… really!!?)

I think I took the place of Glenn Anderson and broke the rookie record for goals scored with 83.

So why am I waxing nostalgic about NHL Hockey games? Well, I just finished playing NHL 17 and realized that it doesn’t hold my attention like the sprite based, 16-bit versions of the game once did. Hell, I still play NHL 94 or any of the other iterations prior to the jump to 3D.

There’s something about using your imagination and creating your own personal career, using pixels as a means to write that history.

When the slogan is: It’s in the game – they’re referring to me. My dreams and imagined life. And it doesn’t get more escapist than that. Maybe that’s why I enjoy playing those old games so much. These new games leave little to the imagination now – and perhaps that’s why their shelf-life is so limited.

Whatever… if you need me, I’ll be in the basement playing NHL 94.