SI secures NHL title for Eastside Hockey
Which should help the game make a bigger impact and guarantee its authenticity.
Sports Interactive has secured the license to use the National Hockey League (NHL) and National Hockey League Players' Association (NHLPA) names in its forthcoming hockey management title, now known as NHL Eastside Hockey Manager and due out from Sega Europe this July.
"While ice hockey is played and followed throughout the world, the NHL's teams and players are the game's elite," according to SI Managing Director Miles Jacobson. As Miles rightly points out, the agreement will also guarantee universal recognition and give the game that final authentic touch that it arguably needed to help it succeed amongst serious ice hockey fans around the world.
NHL Eastside Hockey Manager represents the London-based developer's first foray outside the realms of football management, for which it has long been a posterchild thanks to the success and universal acclaim meted out to its Championship Manager franchise (to be reborn this year as Football Manager 2005, following separation from previous publisher and name owner Eidos).
As such the attachment of the NHL name is a big step forward for the title, which was originally conceived and produced as a shareware title by a group of Finnish ice hockey fans led by Risto "Riz" Remes. If you're interested in seeing how it's shaping up, you can read a massive in-depth preview in a 19-page preview issue of "Football Manager Magazine", released for free on the developer's website. The full magazine (which focuses primarily on the footy title, but also delves into SI's other projects, presumably also including the newly signed Out of the Park Baseball) is due out later this month.