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Hi there NHLGamers, We come bearing sad news to you, as EA Sports has today announced that the Challenge Club-function will not be present at launch in NHL 19. Don't panic just yet, though! The devs also made sure to let us know that this feature will be available again in the first patch early October. Why? The all new World of Chel required a rewrite of the old dressing room function EA had. World of Chel has a bunch of new features, such as the outdoor ones and rollover lobbies, which have certain requirements for the dressing room function. The previous Club Challenge dressing room was very restrictive tech-wise and didn't allow for much improvements. This restrictive structure didn't align with the vision EA has for EASHL, as they are now building a new dressing room function to allow maximum control for the player when setting up games with friends. What? In NHL 19, a new dressing room function will be implemented. When patched into the game, you will be able to select between a few game types in the dressing room. For what we know as Challenge Club, choose "Private Game". You will have to select a password for your game, after which a protected lobby will be created. All invited players will now be able to join the lobby using your password. This is how EA describes the process: When you are in the Dressing Room, go to Matchmaking Settings. Set “Game Type” to “Private Game.” Create an alphanumeric password between 4 and 10 characters. Make it unique enough so only you and your friends and opponents will know it. You will then be able to select your side. You can choose between Any, Home, and Away. Ready up. From here, you will match up directly with other players that entered same password that you used. This new dressing room will provide more control to the player in setting up games. We'll also see the highly requested option for club challenges in EASHL 3's and also the option to randomize teams. When the dressing room is patched in, there will also be a number of more features to it, these will be announced closer to the patch date. When? You can expect the patch to be out early October. Assuming that this goes as planned, this will have no impact on the start of the ECL 7 season.

Hey NHLGamers, On Friday I had the privilege to attend the NHL 19 press event in Helsinki and talk with lead producer Sean "Rammer" Ramjagsingh about the game. A couple weeks ago we asked you to send us your questions for the NHL developers and once again the community delivered! We had a bunch of messages on the forums, Twitter and Facebook and while I didn't get the chance to ask all of them, I'm positive that we got most of them covered. The event itself was very well organized and this time around EA had set up plenty of game units connected to the internet, so even the most serious gamers could play head to head without the disadvantage of playing down-screen. NHL Gaming World Championship 2018 winner Erik "@Eki" Tammenpää, who recently joined Sampi, was a very wanted guy for the press at this event and he was giving interviews left and right throughout the day. I also had the pleasure of playing my only game of NHL 19 against him and an exciting game it was! There were quite an amount of familiar faces at the event and you should be able to find at least @Dominointi, @Eki, @Hansulinho @MakezCR @Nieppii & @PleeMaker in this video. It was a pleasure to meet the guys, as always! « Huge thanks to all of the NHLGamer community out there for all your beta feedback! » -EA Sports NHL producer Sean Ramjagsingh extending a thanks to our community Rammer and the dev team was very pleased to see that our community had sent us loads of questions, we were even able to provide some ideas they haven't thought of previously. The producer and the whole team wanted to extend a thanks to all of you. « As the community knows, EASHL in my opinion is one of the greatest experiences we have in the game. By building out the World of Chel and the multiple different experiences, I feel like we can lower the barrier of entry into the EASHL ecosystem which is only going to make the competition better. » – Rammer on the development of World of Chel and EASHL We were very pleased to hear that the thought behind World of Chel wasn't just to bring out an enjoyable game-mode, but also to lower the barrier for new players to enter and experience the fun of EASHL. Hopefully we'll see a growth in the player base of EASHL and get even more skilled players into our community. « I think being able to practice is a big part of the learning curve in EASHL from a team-play perspective. This year we made a big decision to try and build out the experience around EASHL with the World of Chel. We think it’ll be an important tool for us to bring newbies and more people into the competitive EASHL scene. » – Rammer on Practice mode in EASHL Without further ado, check out the video below! What do you think? Did you like what you heard? Something we missed? Let us know in the comments.

Hey NHLGamers, Today, the final NHL 19 soundtrack was released! Like in recent history, it comes with a good mix between pop and rock songs from popular mainstream as well as lesser known artists. Below you can find the entire list. Finland, welcome your represents JVG! Arkells – “People’s Champ” Bishop Briggs – “White Flag” Don Diablo – “Head Up” feat. James Newman Grandson – “Blood//Water” Greta Van Fleet – “When The Curtain Falls” Imagine Dragons – “Natural” JVG – “Tarkenee” (only available in the Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish soundtrack!) King Tuff – “Psycho Star” Moon Taxi – “Good As Gold” Ohana Bam – “All Roads Lead Home” Panic! At The Disco – “High Hopes” Parade Of Lights – “I Want It All” Parquet Courts – “Almost Had To Start A Fight/In And Out Of Patience” Robert DeLong – “Favorite Color Is Blue” feat. K.Flay SUR – “Make It To Morning” The Blancos – “Know My Name” The Cool Quest – “Goodlife” The Struts – “Bulletproof Baby” Tom Morello feat. Gary Clark Jr. and Nico Stadi – “Where It’s At Ain’t What It Is” twenty one pilots – “Jumpsuit” Wallows – “Pulling Leaves Off Trees” Check out all the tracks on Spotify: What is your favourite song? Tell us in the comments! @gzell60

Hey NHLGamers, Earlier this week EA SPORTS hosted a NHL 19 pre-launch event in Stockholm where invited guests got the opportunity to play the game before the upcoming release. This time it was me being lucky to attend at the event during the NHL 19 Producers Tour. Other NHLGamers attending were @The_Alpha_Furyan, @Darkic01 and @PillenUpp. I got the chance to interview the lead producer of the NHL Franchise, Sean Ramjagsingh. First off, I took the time to tell him that me and many others enjoyed the NHL 19 Beta a lot. I gave them credit for the skating in the game and for making the bots less overpowered. "Yeah, I agree. The bot stuff is mostly based on feedback from our fans. We started to change the behaviour of the bots when people played super conservative letting the bots do all the work. So we knew we had to make them more balanced", Ramjagsingh responded to NHLGamer.com at the NHL 19 event in Stockholm. Continue reading for the entire interview! Esdor: "How are EA going to promote NHL as an esport in the future?" Ramjagsingh: "We are still relatively new in the world of competitive gaming. We are pushing forward with Madden and FIFA right now but we took our first step this year with the World Gaming Championship. The NHL was in charge of that. This first tournament was mainly about testing and learning for us about how to host a big event. We got great feedback from the players participating. We got a feeling for the appetite of competitive gaming within the NHL Community. We were able to launch it in multiple different territories in North America and Europe as well. We got loads of feedback from the fans about what they want to see, what modes we should be using. Versus, Hockey Ultimate Team or EA SPORTS Hockey League. Now we will put our heads together with the NHL to figure out what is next." Esdor: "Is there an option to have one tournament in Versus and one in EASHL for example?" Ramjagsingh: "It's a great question. Tbd (to be determined) is probably the answer right now. We are still trying to figure out what our plan is moving forward. I think we saw great success with the individual versus experience, but when you look at what our community wants right now we see a lot of our core players asking for 6v6. When there are no bots involved, it's truly skill versus skill in that mode. We take all that into consideration as we build up our plans for the future." Esdor: "Have you considered hosting a tournament at an event like Dreamhack?" Ramjagsingh: "Tournaments is something that we look at when we decide about our competitive gaming strategy. All kind of tournaments kind of fall under competitive gaming - not only the World Gaming Championship -, but also smaller community tournaments, and tournaments for casual players as well." Esdor: "Will there be a challenge team option for playing 3v3 games in EASHL?" Ramjagsingh: "We are working on that right now. It's not there when the game is released, but it's on our roadmap for the upcoming months." Esdor: "Will the division packs be better this year in HUT?" Ramjagsingh: "We actually started fresh this year with a lot of our economy redesigned, and pack contents are a part of that. This year we are starting our players much much lower so there is more room to grow. We have reworked the content that is in all of our packs. So you can essentially get any of our best players from any pack available." Esdor: "Will you make it easier to apply many contracts at the same time in HUT?" Ramjagsingh: "We made some improvements there as well, to the contracts and the healing cards." Esdor: "Am I able to do giveaways as a streamer?" Ramjagsingh: "Giveaways are tbd. I don't have the latest information on that to let you know. I'm not sure where we stand at the moment when it comes to giveaways. The piece that we got to be careful is about the trades. Because people will exploit stuff if they can. It's not necessarily the streamers doing giveaways we want to find, it's more about the guys that abuse the system that we need to be careful with." Esdor: "Are wager matches possibly coming back again in the future?" Ramjagsingh: "No. We still stand by that - it's the gambling part of it that we want to stay away from." Esdor: "Have you thought about adding a logic that kicks idle players from HUT and Versus games?" Ramjagsingh: "We get that question a lot. Definitely something that we are looking at. We have been talking about players going idle in all different game modes, not just for Hockey Ultimate Team." Esdor: "Will you be able to see your opponents username before starting a match?" Ramjagsingh: "Yes you will. It's a challenge for us to make it work when people are dodging so much. People want to pick and choose their spots in some kind of try to maximize their time playing the game without taking losses. What we have done though is improving the matchmaking system. So hopefully you will get matched with someone that is at a similar skill level." Esdor: "What about cross-play between consoles when it comes to NHL?" Ramjagsingh: "That is up to Sony and Microsoft to decide. We are starting to see games like Fortnite making cross-platform possible, but that is a bigger conversation with our first party partners and not something that we can change on our own." Esdor: "Why is NHL not using the Frostbite engine like FIFA and Madden?" Ramjagsingh: "We will get there eventually. Moving over to Frostbite is almost like a console transition. It's a massive technology change. We are able to learn from FIFA and their transition to Frostbite, so we can have a smoother journey when we move over to Frostbite too. From a company perspective it's our one engine strategy, so it's just a matter of time. Now we are laying the ground work so we can hopefully get there in the near future." Esdor: "Why is there no feature that allows you to play a league together with your online friends?" Ramjagsingh: "It's something that we have heard from a lot of our fans actually, asking for tournaments or a feature where you can set up a league that track stats and things like that. This is something that we have on our to do list but there is no ETA (estimated time of arrival) yet. It is definitely something that we are looking into in the future." Esdor: "How come you can't take a timeout without going into the menus?" Ramjagsingh: "We are out of buttons, that is the main reason. There is not a faster way for us to do that. It's not ideal but we are just out of buttons." BarreBoza, @Darkic01, @esdor, Sean "Rammer" Ramjagsingh, Evan Dexter and @PillenUpp in Stockholm That's it from Stockholm, but stay tuned for our coverage from Helsinki, which should be dropping in the next few days! For NHLGamer.com @esdor

Hey NHLGamers, if you happen to be a trophy collector like me, you might be interested in the NHL 19 trophies & achievements that have been revealed today! We'll list all the trophies and their description/tier in the same order they are displayed on PlayStation Network. Here you go! Raise Your Banner '19 (Platinum) Acquire all of the Bronze, Silver and Gold trophies. Someone get that kid the puck! (Bronze) Play and score your 1st NHL goal in a regular season game. You're not Cut (Bronze) Make your NHL team out of the preseason in Be a Pro. Champion (Bronze) Win the Stanley Cup® in Be A Pro mode. Getting Drafted (Bronze) Get drafted to an NHL team in Be A Pro Mode. Practice Makes Perfect (Bronze) Complete all training camp drills. CHL Scout (Bronze) Assign a scout to one of the WHL, OHL or QMJHL regions in Franchise Mode. Cup Champs (Bronze) Win the Stanley Cup as the 32nd NHL team in Franchise Mode. Fully Scouted! (Bronze) Assign a scout to create a potential and comparison report on an amateur player. Pro Scout Master (Bronze) Assign a scout to create 5 Complete Reports on 5 NHL Players. 3 Star Performance (Bronze) Complete and win an NHL® Threes Circuit Game with 3 Stars. King of the west (Bronze) Defeat the final boss of the Western Circuit in NHL® Threes. Cooperative (Bronze) Complete and win an Online Co-op NHL® Threes Circuit Game. Star Collector (Silver) Collect all the stars in an NHL® Threes Circuit. Circuit King (Bronze) Win the final circuit trophy for NHL® Threes Mode. Mascot Winner (Bronze) Win a game as either Mascots West or Mascots East in a Threes Now game in NHL® Threes Mode. Dropping In (Bronze) Play a game of Drop-in Threes. Best of the Bunch (Bronze) Win a Ones game. Diamond Rink! (Bronze) Play in a final rink game in Ones. Enhance! (Bronze) Complete a game with 2 traits and a specialty applied to your player. Bag of Goodies (Bronze) Open your first Progression Rewards bag. Who's the Pro Now? (Bronze) Win a Pro-Am game. Conference Champions (Bronze) Be a member of an EASHL club that has recently won a Division Title and return to the Seasons HUB. Overtime Heroics (Bronze) In a World of CHEL game, score the game-winning overtime goal. You'll always remember your first (Bronze) Score your first goal as a skater or complete and win your first game as a goalie. How Prestigious (Silver) Level up your World of CHEL pro past Player Level 50. Flip Biscuit (Gold) Score a goal by flipping the puck back against the grain from the backhand toe drag in any mode. Extend the Twig (Bronze) Deflect a shot with the Defensive Skill Stick in any mode. Kids a Beauty (Silver) Score a goal with a between the legs shot in any mode. Not My Bottle! (Bronze) Knock off the opposing goalie's bottle from the net by scoring a goal. Manual Sauce (Bronze) Get an assist from a manual saucer pass in any mode. Tee it up (Silver) Score a goal with a manual one timer in any mode. Own the crease (Bronze) Have a shutout and win a game as a user-controlled goalie in any mode. Costume Party (Bronze) Score a goal as a Mascot in an NHL® Threes game. Tuck me in (Silver) Score a goal with a one hand tuck in any mode. Apple a Day (Silver) Get an assist with a between the legs pass in any mode. Contract Extension (Bronze) Use a contract item on any Gold grade player in Hockey Ultimate Team. Winner, Winner (Bronze) Win a game (online or offline) in Hockey Ultimate Team. You're all set (Bronze) Complete a set in Hockey Ultimate Team. Auctioneer (Bronze) Buy or Sell an item in the auction house in Hockey Ultimate Team. Take it online (Bronze) Complete an Online game in Hockey Ultimate Team. First Overall (Bronze) Complete an NHL® Draft Champions Draft. Specialized (Silver) Collect a special item in Hockey Ultimate Team. Legendary! (Silver) Collect a legend item in Hockey Ultimate Team. So HUT right now! (Silver) Recently win the title in a Hockey Ultimate Team Season and return to the Hockey Ultimate Team Hub. Seeing Stars (Silver) Earn a total 50 Stars in HUT Challenges. Committed (Silver) Collect 100 Free Packs in Hockey Ultimate Team. HUT Superstar! (Gold) Reach Division 1 in Online Seasons in Hockey Ultimate Team. Super Synergized (Silver) Have every player on your active Hockey Ultimate Team Lineup have an active Synergy. Overall, there are 49 trophies to obtain, including 1 Platinum, 2 Gold, 12 Silver and 34 Bronze. As usual there are some similarities to the predecessor, but we are also seeing a couple of new trophies for this iteration. Will you be going for the Platinum trophy in NHL 19? Which trophy do you believe will be hardest to get? @gzell60

Hi there NHLGamers, As you might have heard by now, our very own @Eki and @Artuzio have signed new contracts with an esports organisation called Sampi. I had the chance to have a discussion with both guys regarding their new contracts and how all of this went down. Most of you might have noted that Eki was already signed to Helsinki Reds, so this is a transfer for him. Artuzio, however is now signing his first ever pro contract. NHLGamer congratulates both! Team Sampi is most likely a very unfamiliar name to all of you, not simply because of the fact that is isn't a big organisation, but it wasn't officially founded until September 1st 2018. The founder of the franchise is professional football player Jakub Jankto, who currently represents Sampdoria in the Italian Serie A. "Jakub contacted me a few weeks ago and told me about his plans of launching an esports franchise. He mentioned that he used to compete in EA Sports FIFA some years ago, but financial restrictions came in the way. I think he even won a Czech championship in 2012. Jakub also got the chance to pursue a professional football career. He has a desire to help young gamers achieve their goals without restrictions.", says Eki about how the contract talks with Team Sampi begun. Artuzio says that in addition to NHL, the organisation has players competing in FIFA and Rocket league. competitive NHL will be one of the main focuses of the organisation. « Team Sampi made me an offer I couldn't refuse » -Artuzio on signing with Team Sampi I asked Artuzio about how he feels about his new organisation: "After the European Qualifiers of the NHLGWC I started receiving offers quite consistently, but I didn't want to rush it. Team Sampi made me an offer I couldn't refuse, so I'm very excited to represent them and start making a name for my new team!" What will your roles be representing the new organisation? "The organisation is so new right now, so I'm not completely sure what my role will be, but the main objective of Team Sampi is to support us players and provide the possibilities for us to compete at the very top.", said Eki. Both Eki and Artuzio will be focusing most on attending various tournaments and competitive play, they will be streaming occasionally but it isn't a requirement of the organisation. As this is now a transfer situation for Eki, I wanted to go a bit into the reasons behind the transfer and what he had to say about his former organisation Helsinki Reds. "Team Sampi offered me a contract I couldn't refuse. I have nothing bad to say about Reds, it was a good time. I learned a lot about the esports business and got to participate in all kinds of events thanks to them. It was a completely new thing for me. As Helsinki Reds was so close by, they were very involved in my gaming, creating stream graphics and hosting events. Team Sampi will be different in the sense that they merely aim to support their players and stay in the background. As of now there are no plans on hosting events or such. We will simply focus on winning and gaming." A piece of advice from the champion - Eki, as you now have some experience in the scene and have signed your second contract, what kind of tips would you give to gamers out there waiting to get their shot and sign a deal? "Once you have some success, you might get be getting several offers. I'd suggest staying patient and not just signing any deal. I've heard of players with really bad deals, so be careful and don't just sign a deal for the sake of representing an organisation." "Vegas didn't go as planned and I feel I am better than that, so I'll be looking to attend as many tournaments as possible and gain a lot of success in NHL 19. Versus is my main focus due to my contract, but I'll be looking to compete in some 6v6 action too!", states Artuzio after being asked about his ambitions for the new iteration of NHL. Eki's Car situation - I recall you saying you'll be buying a car if you win the NHLGWC, what kind of car stands in your driveway? I asked Eki. "I didn't get a car, says Eki with a laugh. I received the money a few weeks ago and decided to save it. It was the smart thing to do." Not only an unbelievably skilled gamer and new found the poster boy for the EA Sports NHL series but a responsible young adult too, who would've known? Huge thanks to both Eki and Artuzio for taking the time to have a chat with me. On behalf of the community, I wish both luck in their upcoming competitions. We're excited to see what the future brings!

Hey NHLGamers, with NHL 19 approaching rapidly (EA Access trials on Xbox One will be opened up in just 5 days!), we have now received more insight into how all of the open beta feedback - including ours, thank you for submitting your opinions! - from the past few weeks was received. The following changes have been made for the full release of NHL 19: +++ NHL 19 Release Version (1.0.0) Gameplay Physics Fixes to physics tensions and joint limits Hip check improvements Improvements to stumble fall animations Various animation blend fixes during physics reactions Skating Improvements to stop animations and transitions from stop to stand Improvements to pivot direction consistency Various animation improvements Goalie Fixed a user goalie blend after passing the puck out Various fixes to saves where the pads were not flush to the ice Fixed a case where goalies would get stuck in free skate in Ones Fixed some known cases for users getting stuck in butterfly Poke Check Improvements to collision volumes to more accurately detect incidental stick on stick or stick on body contact Fixed some cases where the defensive player could contact the puck after their stick went through the puck carrier’s geometry Fixes to conditions where the blend out of a poke check was still causing trips Puck Pickups Fixed an issue to allow the player to pick up their own pass if it was blocked/deflected Improvements to interception balance based on player ratings Improvements to staying onside during pickups Various improvements to puck pickup animations Specializations Various fixes to specializations and traits General Improve player support to get to loose pucks Fixed various desyncs Protect puck stumble animations added Improvements to CPU behaviour on breakaways and shootouts Improve logic to prevent accidental manual RS Switching Various fixes to fighting and scrum alignment Fixes to faceoff alignment in World of CHEL Seen once the AI skater will remain idle behind the net Fixes to control hints in training camp Presentation Various fixes to overlays not clearing properly Improvements to multiplayer hugs Various camera fixes Fixes to cameras clipping with crowd and arena geometry Lighting and Material improvements/fixes. Player skin will now appear more accurate New cameras added for each of the venues within NHL Ones World of CHEL Fixed various desyncs when going into gameplay in 3v3 and 6v6 drop in Fixed various crashes in the Dressing Room while opening hockey bags Fixed various crashes while customizing in the dressing room while match making Fixed a soft lock in the post match up dressing room, when one user would open the loadout selection screen as the timer ran out +++ Furthermore, we have received a list of changes that did not make it in time for the disc release, but will be available as a day one update when you first start up NHL 19. +++ NHL 19 Day One Update (1.1.0) Gameplay General Disabled various player interactions (fights, scrums, instigations) during Ones To compliment the fix to the bug that allowed you to win a forehand draw while using the backhand grip we made some faceoff balance changes Backhand stick lift now beats the tieup Forehand stick lift now beats the Backhand stick lift Removed broken sticks from online modes Fixed cases where CPU players were still taking penalties in non player locked online games Goalies Improvements to AI goalies from sharp angles Poke Checking Fixed cases where poke checks were tripping a player after getting puck first Fixes to accuracy of poke checks on stationary/slow moving loose pucks Fixed a case where players were not being tripped after consecutive pokes Various additional poke check targeting fixes Uniforms NHL Anaheim Ducks 3rd Uniform EBEL EHC LIWEST Black Wings Linz Red Bull Salzburg Home and Away Vienna Capitals Home and Away Stadium Updates Updated scoreboard in the Prudential Center World of CHEL The game now defaults to preset home and away tops in 6v6 instead of user assigned casual tops. This resolves visual confusion during gameplay. Various changes to customization items for better in-game readability Fixed an issue where gameplay assets were being rendered in the main menu Fixed a case where the game would frequently hang when going into a 6v6 game of drop in Fixed rare crashes when rolling over to the dressing room after a match Fixed a rare crash in the post game screen due to Voip conflicts. Fixed a rare desync at the puck drop in Ones Fixed various issues where the game would crash when moving from one mode to another +++ What stands out most in our opinion are the changes applied to faceoffs as well as pokechecks. Even though a lot of players have been asking for the backhand-to-forehand switch to return, it is not coming back, and instead we are seeing adjustments to the 'rock papers scissors' mechanic as backhand sticklifts now beat the tie-up, and backhand sticklifts can be countered with forehand sticklifts. Furthermore, we are seeing another increase in punishing bad pokechecks by fixing rare occasions where a stick going through a skater's body did not result in a trip, while at the same time pokecheck targeting seems to have been improved. We expect these changes to reward good defensive positioning even further, now that the RNG aspect has been toned down. What do you think of the changelogs above? Did EA SPORTS meet your expectations? @gzell60