No Club Challenge at Launch of NHL19 - Here's Why

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:

1. When you are in the Dressing Room, go to Matchmaking Settings. Set “Game Type” to “Private Game.”
2. Create an alphanumeric password between 4 and 10 characters. Make it unique enough so only you and your friends and opponents will know it.
3. You will then be able to select your side. You can choose between Any, Home, and Away.
4. Ready up.
5. 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.