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NHL ’11 news: EA Sports introduces its ‘Ultimate Hockey League’ to revamp online dynasty mode

More news popped up about NHL ’11 last night, so I thought I’d share some of the details via Operation Sports.

This is a slight oversimplification, but there are basically two ways to play EA’s NHL games. You can either direct an NHL team in competition, switching control of goalies, defensemen and forwards while juggling lines. That’s the “traditional” way of playing hockey video games, although modern games complicate things with online play and general manager type roles like free agent signings, trades and scouting. On the other hand, you could choose the role of being a single player in Be a Pro Mode or play with friends on a team in the Club Mode.

The Be a Pro/Club feature - newly added in NHL ’09 - received most of the “bells and whistles” from EA the last couple years. NHL ’11 might bring some welcomed attention for people who just prefer to run a whole team or enjoy a more traditional game, though, as the company unveiled a revamped online mode called “EA Sports Ultimate Hockey League.” They made some fairly bold claims about what they call a “global online dynasty.” Here is more from the designers from that Operation Sports article.

We looked at the success that Madden has had with their online dynasty and also looked at how successful our approach to taking Online Team Play to the masses has been with the creation of the EASHL. We also knew that we had somewhat neglected players that only play Versus or Be A GM offline.

With that in mind, we decided to create the EAUHL (EA SPORTS Ultimate Hockey League) where every user can be a GM in a single league competing against the rest of the world in monthly seasons. The key being that you can play a game in your dynasty whenever you want with full leaderboards, trophies and monthly championships.

There are plenty more details I’d like to know about, though. Will you be able to make trades? Do you draft your entire team in a “fantasy draft”? (Because that would take forever.) Is there a set “schedule” for games or would you need to wait for users in your league to be online to play each game? It could be interesting to see how EA works through some of the inherent challenges that come with an online league, but as someone who gets frustrated from time to time with the cheap play in Club matches, this could be a very interesting way to play NHL ’11.

As usual, we’ll keep you up to date as news of added features and gameplay changes slip through as the September release date of NHL ’11 rapidly approaches.