[Editor’s Note: I’d like to give a big thanks to Bauer as they were instrumental in making this event/trip a blast. Bauer provided all attendees with Bauer Vapor x:60 hockey gloves and Patrick Kane Bauer Vapor x:40 composite sticks. I can’t say enough good things about Bauer after a contribution like that!]

This past week I had the opportunity to fly to Vancouver, Canada – home of the 2010 Winter Olympics – to check out EA Canada’s latest build for NHL 11. Now, I understand a lot of you feel as though these yearly sports releases are nothing more than a minor facelift mixed with a roster update, but if you’ve never taken part in an event like this then you really don’t know how far off the mark you really are.

Hopefully this event recap will give you guys a better idea and understanding of everything that goes on behind the scenes in order to improve a yearly title from year to year.

Wednesday, May 19th:

We all flew in on Wednesday night and met up at a cool “Pub/Restaurant” called Kingstone’s in order to have a “Meet ‘n Great” with everyone attending. This is where we met up with EA Community Manager Alain Quinto and he introduced us to everyone else attending the event.

Attendees included:

Steve Boraske: EA Sports Game Changer and Forum Moderator

Matthew Elliott: Podcast member of “The Target Demographic”

Graeme Huysmans: IGN.com Forum Member

Ayaz Karim: Owner of The Breakaway (great NHL mod community)

Edward O’Malley: Member of HFBoards.com

Mandy Paez: Contributor to Gamertag Radio

Jordan Patricio: Contributor at Operation Sports

Jake Reardon: Xbox Live Canada Community Manager (he’s cool, don’t worry)

Steven Shaulis: Moderator at Operation Sports

Kimberly Walker: Contributor at Gaming Angels

Luc Wolfe: Owner of Crash The Net

Nicholas Wilson: Forum Member on the EA Sports Forums

Overall, the group selected to go was probably the best event group I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know. Everyone seemed to love the game at a different level and felt certain aspects of the game were more important than others which lead to great feedback and perspective for the event as a whole. Not to mention, this group was ridiculously insane and comical for the entire trip — this resulted in a ton of laughter and just a general all around good time and I can’t wait until the next one.

Thursday, May 20th:

Thursday was the first “real” day of the event. Everyone was up before 8 AM to hit breakfast down the street and then it was on to EA Canada for our morning presentation of the game and to finally check out what we all came for — NHL 11. Thanks to some pretty strict NDA signage, I can’t really delve into the morning presentation, but I can say that a lot of people are going to enjoy and anticipate a lot of the announcements coming out of EA Canada in the coming months. This includes an incredibly cool surprise announcement that most of you won’t see coming but will be hard-pressed not to get excited about.

During the presentation, David Littman and the development team talked to us about some of the challenges and goals that the team laid out for itself early on in development. One of these challenges was the ability to make every NHL 11 moment a “wow” moment. Did they manage to deliver on that slogan? That’s something you’ll have to wait and see for yourself as the release draws closer, but from my own perspective of playing the game — I’d have to give the team in Canada a definite thumbs up.

Once the presentation was over and we grabbed a quick lunch, it was time to head over to the Game Ops room in order to finally get our hands on NHL 11. Normally, this is where I’d go into a few paragraphs about my thoughts on the game but once again, you’ll have to thank EAC and the NDA I signed. Thus, I can’t really dive into it, but I can say that I was definitely happy with the general direction the game was going in.

During our play-test of the game on Thursday, we had two opportunities to sit down with the designers of the title to give them our feedback and concerns about NHL 11. This was one of the coolest aspects of the trip because the designers were not only going to hear our feedback, but they were also going to work their asses off until 12 AM that night in order to implement some of the changes we asked for. Why was this cool? Because that meant when we came in on Friday to check more of the game out, it was going to be an entirely new build for us to play with the improvements we suggested. This is a detrimental part to the development process and it’s how EA is changing the game on an overall level to make titles like NHL 11 more community-focused and accepted.

Everything finally toned down around 9 PM and we headed back to our hotel for some much needed rest (or drinking depending on who you were, not me this time!).

Friday, May 21st:

Unfortunately, Friday required a much earlier wake up time as EA had reserved some ice time for the attendees and developers to get some coaching from former Calgary Flames and current Abbotsford Heat coach, Jim Playfair. Yours truly, skipped breakfast in order to get an extra 45 minutes of sleep prior to starting the day.

At the rink, we were greeted by developers and had the opportunity to utilize the Vancouver Canucks’ personal locker room at the arena where they sometimes practice. This was a phenomenal experience for any hockey fan and was definitely something I won’t soon forget. Waiting for us at the arena was also NHL 11 hockey jerseys, gloves and sticks provided courtesy of Bauer Hockey. This, of course, took the event to the next level and set the upbeat mood for the day.

On the ice, Jim Playfair awaited the group in order to run everyone through some crossover skating and puck handling drills. After a quick work out, he then continued the regiment with some 2-on-1 shooting drills. Once mostly everyone was tired, it was time to play a pick-up game with the developers. This resulted in some surprisingly sweet goals and falls, but was generally a great experience.

The morning’s activities concluded with Jim Playfair breaking a stick against the boards — why? Just because it was the right thing to do.

After hockey, we had a quick lunch once more and sat down for a Q&A session with Coach Playfair. This was probably my favorite part of the event as Jim was a cool, down-to-earth guy who you can tell loves the sports and cares about the players he’s coaching. During his answers, he’d often side-track himself into telling us cool tidbits and stories about guys like Mario Lemieux and Miiku Kiprusoff. Of course, my favorite part was him detailing the rookie prank that Wayne Gretzky and the Edmonton Oilers pulled on him after he was drafted. It wasn’t just cool because he’s been able to tell his story from both on the bench and behind it, but that he had the opportunity to step on the ice with guys like Gretzky, Messier, Coffey, etc.

Once the Q&A was over, it was time to hit the sticks again and check out what was fixed from our previous play test of NHL 11. Off the bat, I can tell you that the difference of gameplay from the first day to the next was almost night and day. That doesn’t mean expect an amazingly drastic difference, but from a technical standpoint all of the subtle and minor changes made for a much tighter game feel and overall better representation of hockey. To be honest, it was incredible to see how much the game could change in the way it plays and feels in just one night of tweaking. When you think that there is still two months left of development, it gets you really excited about the end product.

After all of the play testing was through, EA presented us with a cool framed screenshot picture signed by some of the team for us to take home. It was definitely awesome of them to do that for us and it’s something I’ll treasure for a really long time. I’ve included an image below of the sweet swag we brought home.

Saturday, May 22nd:

We flew home. End of Event.