Always a bad idea, but we’ll see when it comes in.
Here’s a hint:
Not even sure there’s a tabletop game that would even have any of their seasons available to play.
Stay tuned!
Tag Archives: Hockey
AHA! Moment 2?
After playing one period of APBA Hockey, I felt oddly… calm, almost at peace with the universe.
One pass through the rule book and I seemed to have gotten most of it down, in addition to a few suggested hints on play along the way.
The result was a period of tabletop hockey that reminded me of and felt like actually being at a hockey game.
After I finish this game up (tonight, I hope) I’ll tackle Strat-O-Matic Hockey, and if I’m really adventurous, I may pull out In the Crease Hockey.
Stay tuned!
NHL: 1945-46
Arriving Soon
I decided to start from semi-scratch and get a couple of replacement/updated core sets for hockey, so I should be getting these in the next few days:
APBA is arriving with the 1991-92 NHL season, Strat-O-Matic is arriving with the 1945-46 NHL season.
It’s been a few years since I got a full game from APBA (2014 Soccer) or Strat-O-Matic (2012 Baseball).
GameNerdz.com is where I got a “ding ‘n dent” (damaged) copy of the Start-O-Matic 2020 Baseball Hall of Fame set.
I remember the late 70s when my brother Robert got his first APBA games, there was no way of tracking deliveries back then, the oversized boxes just arrived one day.
Nowadays you can order these games from Amazon. But aside from the core sets, they don’t have as much variety of seasons available, if any, than the companies themselves offer on their respective sites.
In all recent cases, you can track the orders as they were shipped.
I hope to start these replays sooner rather than later, along continuing all the other ones currently in progress.
Stay tuned!
Seasons: NHL
Replay plans for the various hockey games:
- Inside the Crease: 1966-67 NHL, from my not-yet-abandoned goal to complete replays in all the major sports for the year I was born. Team: Toronto Maple Leafs
- APBA Hockey: 1991-92 NHL, the season I became a hockey fans thanks to the newly formed San Jose Sharks. Team: San Jose Sharks
- Hockey Blast: 2013-14 IHL (homebrew league), using the fictional season from PLAAY that year. Team: entire league
- Stone Cold Hockey: 2022-23 Central Cities League, another fictional season. Team: TBD
- Shootout Hockey: 1993-94 NHL), the greatest turnaround season ever for the Sharks. Team: San Jose Sharks
- Strat-O-Matic Hockey: 1945-46 NHL, the season I believe is chronicled in the animated short, “The Sweater”. Team: Montreal Canadiens, perhaps the entire league
Stay tuned!
Resurgence
Renaissance?
In addition to pulling the APBA games off the shelves, I also pulled the Strat-O-Matic games as well.
I was surprised to find that I have the 1994-95 NHL season set for Strat Hockey.
Arguably my favorite Sharks team, at least in the early years of the franchise.
I mean…
I may replay that Sharks season, in addition to the 1991-92 Sharks season (ordered earlier this week from APBA).
I ordered a new set of parts for Strat Hockey, in addition to the 1945-46 NHL season, in honor of
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I’m not sure why I’ve been going back to the roots of tabletop sports gaming, first with APBA Golf and Soccer, now with the hockey games. I just seem to be wanting something more in my game play, as much as I enjoy playing similar, newer games of the same sports.
Oddly enough I have no desire to go back to APBA or Strat-O-Matic Baseball.
—
I also don’t feel like going through the 1995-96 hockey teams and reversing trades to get accurate rosters, so if I end up playing that season, it will be with existing rosters.
I noticed the inaccurate opening rosters when I was about to play Blackhawks vs Sharks, and Sandis Ozoliņš was not on the Sharks roster, having ended the season with Colorado.
He scored the first goal for the Sharks that year. I only remember that because he also scored the first goal for the San Francisco Spiders that season.
Anyways, I felt a little miffed that the rosters were wrong, so I went looking for a list of transactions for that season, and then decided that to heck with it, and will just play with the existing rosters.
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Another pair of games that I pulled off the shelf and put right back: APBA and Strat-O-Matic Football.
Never learned to play either. Maybe when the football season rolls around I’ll pull one of them out, but Second Season and Inside Blitz are good enough for me for now, to scratch the football itch. Which doesn’t come up too often, TBH.
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So is this a tabletop renaissance? Maybe.
We’ll see how it goes. I think I’ve played more tabletop sports games this year already than I had in the last 3 years.
Future Plans
I plan on continuing the following ongoing replays:
Baseball
1921 NY Giants (Payoff Pitch Baseball)
1971 SF Giants (Ball Park Baseball)
Soccer
2015-16 Tottenham Hotspur (APBA Soccer)
2020-21 AFC Richmond (Dice United)
Racing
1984 Winston Cup (Red White & Blue Racin’)
2012 SCRAM (Red White & Blue Racin’)
Football
1960 Denver Broncos (Fast Drive Football)
1967 Denver Broncos (Second Season/Second Season Express/Inside Blitz/Grid Iron Wars)
At some point I plan on adding hockey and basketball into the mix, as time permits. I just have to decide which replays to include:
Hockey
1966-67 NHL (Hockey Blast)
1969-70 Oakland Seals (Hockey Blast)
1991-92 San Jose Sharks (APBA)
2013-14 IHL (Hockey Blast, fictional)
2022-23 Central Cities League (Stone Cold Hockey, fictional)
Basketball
1960-61 Syracuse Nationals (Bank Shot Basketball)
1966-67 San Francisco Warriors (Inside the Paint)
2022-23 Basketball League of America (Highlight Maker Hoops, fictional)
And of course I’ll be tracking all the games right here.
Stay tuned!
For my next trick
I’m going to revisit APBA Hockey, since I seem to be enjoying the APBA Soccer Game so much.
I think I have the 1995-96 season, for some reason.
Jeff Friesen’s first full year with the Sharks?
Anyways, if I can get through a game of that without complaints, I may get an updated copy of that game.
Stay tuned!
APBA Soccer
“Captain’s log, Star date 1312.4. The impossible has happened.”
I’ve found a game that, to me, replicates what I see on TV in a soccer match as much as most tabletop baseball games do for me.
I do still like playing Dice United and Soccer Blast, it’s just that to me APBA Soccer simulates the build up that usually results in a goal more accurately than the other two do.
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The other games do one thing better, and that’s give you the amount of stoppage time to add at the end of a half.
With APBA, they have maybe a couple of instances listed on the ‘special play’ chart for injury, but that may not even come into play.
Checking the APBA Delphi Forums, there’s no definite answer either, though there are some suggestions that I may consider adapting.
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The fact that I can play a game of this level in a little under 2 hours, even with distractions, is surprising to me.
It takes almost twice as long with or without distractions to play a non-quick play game of American football or basketball or hockey, though like most PLAAY games I can get a game of Hockey Blast finished in maybe an hour.
Golf is it’s own thing and can take as long as it needs to on any given course.
Same with racing, depending on the type of track I’m running on.
Perhaps I should revisit some of the APBA and Strat-O-Matic football and hockey games to see if the time to play has changed for me.
1-2 hours for a sports game seems to be the sweet spot for me nowadays. It allows me to set up in the morning or when I get home from work, and play before I go to bed, with time to compile a post game report that I can post here.