One of the latest offerings from PLAAY Games is their new XHL hockey league for Hockey Blast.

Described as “an alternate, summertime big-time professional hockey league”, the set comes with 20 teams, and as I have enough trouble trying to find time to play most sports games, I’ve decided to try this set with only 6 teams, representing the NHL’s Original Six.

The 6 teams are from Chicago, Cleveland, Hartford, New York, Quebec, and Toronto.

There were no teams from Boston or Detroit, so I picked the closest teams city-wise (Cleveland and Hartford)

The have a list of suggested team names, with a classic/heritage name and an alternate name.  My initial thoughts for names for this XHL 6 league (from the suggestions):

• Chicago Bruisers
• Cleveland Barons
• Hartford Whalers (think I’d pick this city and not use their classic team name?)
• New York Gladiators
• Quebec Nordiques (same here)
• Toronto Shamrocks

There are some alternate rules that can be added (2 point goals, option to pull the penalized team goalie during a major penalty) that I’ll probably end up trying.

They also included 32 actual NHL players to add to the teams as free agents, which I may or may not do.

I’ll try to get a game or two in soon, as soon as I work out a schedule for the league.

Stay tuned!