Still got more than two weeks to go till the game drops but I want to tell you guys a few new things about the game and how this year's team will be operated. As you know there's an A team and a B team and how both will be operated, this will be discussed in full after the break along with a few other things that popped up over the week.

This will be different from what I posted in the chatroll since a new interview with NHL 10's gameplay director shows off a few new things that has been brought to my attention.

1.

"There were a number of incidents where teams were hijacked because any GM could kick other GMs off the team, to prevent this we've changed it so that the owner of the team cannot be kicked off of it."

What this means is that I will be making the teams rather than letting someone else do it just to keep things organized. I pre-ordered from GameStop so I'll be getting the game that first day. If ownership could be transferred then disregard it but I doubt it.

On this note I've decided on GM's for both clubs. Of course they don't have to take the position but I like to have active GM's who can get the occasional recruit.

To explain my picks, Kevbo & Polish were guys who play a bunch of OTP and end up getting a recruit or two to join the team. Of course this year they'll be sent down to Team B before being allowed to join Team A to properly evaluate their skills. Devil volunteered to GM the B team so that's why he's there, he's on Team A also since I can't be on all the time to promote players same reason why Kevbo is also a Team B GM since I'm not the one who's recruiting in OTP. ZJedi is there just to be a scapegoat. I'm there since I'm running the show here

Testing people's skill on Team B brings up the question about practice mode being in 10:

2.

"This didn't make it in to NHL 10 but I think it is a good candidate for inclusion in a future version. For the portion of the EASHL community that plays the game as competitive sport, the ability to practice either against a CPU team or on an empty sheet of ice would allow teams to work out their strategies. As always there are a lot of different features and improvements vying for development time and it didn't make the cut this year. I'm hoping it is in for NHL 11 — I would use it myself."

What this means is without a practice mode no one new will be on Team A until they go through Team B even those of you with experience in 09 since 10's gameplay is vastly different. Of course this also means we can't practice anything without it being in game. We might start the season doing some OTP games just to get used to playing together so we don't start out 0-10.

Last part that deals with the EASHL:

3.

"For each type of equipment (gloves, stick, skates and helmet) there are a variety of models that give you from zero to three boost slots. The slots can be filled in with boosts of +1, +3 or +5 to a specific attribute that is associated with that piece of equipment. Both the gear and the boosts are unlocked separately. There is also a boost pack for each player type that gives you upgraded stats using up the gloves, stick and skates (you can still use a helmet and its boost slots).

Without the boost pack you can still use the experience card points to upgrade attributes, similar to NHL 09, but with the boost pack you cannot.

Overall, a boost pack raises a skater from the low 70s to the low 80s overall. You can get to the same ballpark with individual pieces of gear combined with the experience points, the advantage of that route being that you have more fine control over how your attributes are distributed.

As for the concern that you will need to use inauthentic gear to be top rated, this was a controversial topic on the team too. The way it is set up you cannot choose any gear you like to get the most boost, but there are choices for the best (three slot) gear and some of it looks authentic.

As far as gameplay goes, with all of the equipment and experience boosts a player will be able to go from their initial rating in the low 70s to the low to mid 80s overall. This is comparable to the difference between a player with no cards and one with a Legend card in NHL 09, so there's not a great different in that regard. The effects of the attributes have been improved."

What this means is that you can either use the different gear to tune your guy or you can use the card system from last year. So you can either get to a superstar level by looking like a douche or upgrading your card.

Moving on to other things, the has been some discussions about getting a team jersey shirt from a custom shirt company. If people are interested and the price is decent we could definitely get them, even for the Xbox team if they're interested. Here's a sample design of the shirt made by Zack T.:

From Operation Sports: There is no new Pens alternates in 10 based on the beta copy that they have received. They might be added in later but most likely they won't be in the game. Also, the international teams uniforms are generic once again.

Last thing, download the demo if you haven't yet and get playing. If anyone has any questions just post them and I'll get to them as soon as I can.