NHL 13 News Post

Women's Olympic Ice Hockey Stars and New NHL Legends Join Roster for EA Sports NHL 13

10:40 AM - August 29, 2012 by Steve_OS

Four-time Olympic Medalists Angela Ruggiero and Hayley Wickenheiser become First Ever Female Athletes Added as Playable Characters in EA SPORTS NHL Franchise

NHL Hall of Famers Doug Gilmour and Jari Kurri Added, Along with NHL Legend Dominik Hasek

Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA) announced today that for the first time ever in a professional league simulation sports video game, EA SPORTS NHL 13 has added female athletes as playable characters. Former Team USA superstar Angela Ruggiero will join former Team Canada great Hayley Wickenheiser, both four-time Olympic Ice Hockey medalists, as playable legends in NHL 13. NHL Hall of Famers Doug Gilmour, Jari Kurri, and NHL legend Dominik Hasek will also be added to the roster of legends which includes the likes of Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux. The NHL 13 demo is available for download now via Xbox Live and PlayStation Network. Promising the biggest year on year innovation to the franchise on this console generation, NHL 13 will be available on September 11, 2012 in North America and September 14, 2012 in Europe.

The addition of women�s hockey legends as playable characters within the EA SPORTS NHL franchise is the continuation of a commitment that the development team made to create greater representation for women�s hockey beginning with NHL 12.

�With the release of NHL 12 we added generic female characters in our Be a Pro mode based on a request from a 14-yr old female fan who emailed our staff because she felt underrepresented as a hockey videogame fan,� said Dean Richards, General Manager, NHL, EA SPORTS. �This year we are very excited to continue our effort of creating a more representative experience for female hockey fans by adding two of the greatest female athletes to ever play the game in Wickenheiser and Ruggiero to NHL 13.�

�The EA SPORTS NHL franchise took a big step last year by including female characters to create a more inclusive experience for female hockey fans,� said Hayley Wickenheiser. �I�m excited to be a part of NHL 13 and hope that the addition of women�s hockey legends will encourage greater participation in hockey from young women everywhere.�

Legends Integration in NHL 13

Legends in NHL 13 will be integrated across several modes:

Be A Legend � gamers will experience the glory of playing their entire Be A Pro career as a legend as they attempt to shatter the most impressive records in hockey, achieve legendary milestones and complete legends tasks.
Legends teams � Play as the legends team, Team Ruggiero or Team Wickenheiser, which are comprised of legends and current NHL greats in head-to-head play � within Play Now, Online and Battle for the Cup modes. Players on Team Ruggiero and Team Wickenheiser were selected by each athlete, respectively.
Hockey Ultimate Team & Be a GM � Gamers will have the ability to add legends to any team roster in Be a GM mode, or collect ultra-rare legends cards and use them within their Hockey Ultimate Team experience.

Headlined by all-new True Performance Skating, and supported by an innovative new A.I. system dubbed EA SPORTS Hockey I.Q., NHL 13 will deliver a revamped gameplay experience that accurately captures the speed, creativity and strategy of NHL hockey. In addition, NHL 13 will also deliver new experiences that connect hockey fans to their friends and the real world of hockey with the all-new GM Connected and NHL Moments Live modes.

Game: NHL 13Reader Score: 8/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PS3 / Xbox 360Votes for game: 23 - View All

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Member Comments

# 1 Pezell04x @ 08/29/12 11:03 AM

Meh, I never play legends modes. Does anyone actually play them?

# 2 ComaFaction @ 08/29/12 11:06 AM

I'd be interested if they really blew out the mode, with classic teams, or at least a much larger roster of legends. NBA2k got it right with legends, imo.

# 3 liberaluser @ 08/29/12 12:04 PM

EA creates real female athletes for NHL 13 yet doesn't even bother to make appropiate character models for them. They just recycled the same ridiculous wide model they use on the male skaters. Pretty insulting.

And where did Angela's god given breasts disappear to? EA thinks it's great to give video game girls ridiculous proportions yet won't even accurately represent a real woman's womaness. SMH.

# 4 gopher_guy @ 08/29/12 12:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pezell04x


	Meh, I never play legends modes. Does anyone actually play them?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but these Legends are not a 'Mode', correct?

Everyone always calls it the Legends Mode, but it's just a playable team in the game, right? Or is there an actual game mode that I have missed? lol

# 5 gopher_guy @ 08/29/12 12:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve_OS


	�With the release of NHL 12 we added generic female characters in our Be a Pro mode based on a request from a 14-yr old female fan who emailed our staff because she felt underrepresented as a hockey videogame fan,�

This kinda made me chuckle. Dozens and dozens of people clamor for fixes to things that are broken, without more than a peep from devs.

Devs: "14 year old girl wants something? GET IT DONE, DAMMIT!"

# 6 FBeaule04 @ 08/29/12 01:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gopher_guy


	This kinda made me chuckle. Dozens and dozens of people clamor for fixes to things that are broken, without more than a peep from devs. Devs: "14 year old girl wants something? GET IT DONE, DAMMIT!"

Maybe we should ask our girlfriends or wifes to send a message to EA asking for changes. Maybe my wife should say to the Devs. that hearing me cursing every two words is bad for young kids development.

I think we might have something there!

# 7 Pezell04x @ 08/29/12 02:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gopher_guy


	Correct me if I'm wrong, but these Legends are not a 'Mode', correct? Everyone always calls it the Legends Mode, but it's just a playable team in the game, right? Or is there an actual game mode that I have missed? lol

In 12 there was an actual mode. You had to unlock legends through earning a specific achievement (I think, I never cared enough to do it) and then it was essentially Be A Pro with a legend and you could pick any team to play on.

# 8 cyborgdholliday @ 08/29/12 02:57 PM

Or you could do what I did, and put them on their teams in Be-A-GM.

Yzerman/Howe/Chelios/Hasek on Detroit
Gretzky/Kurri on Edm/LA
Mario on Pitt
Roy on Mtl/Col
Salming/Gilmour on Toronto
Roenick on PHX/PHI/Chi
Chelios on Chi/Det/MTL
Bourque on Bos/Col

# 9 Vikes1 @ 08/29/12 04:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cyborgdholliday


	Or you could do what I did, and put them on their teams in Be-A-GM. Yzerman/Howe/Chelios/Hasek on Detroit Gretzky/Kurri on Edm/LA Mario on Pitt Roy on Mtl/Col Salming/Gilmour on Toronto Roenick on PHX/PHI/Chi Chelios on Chi/Det/MTL Bourque on Bos/Col

I've been tempted to put Gretzky back with the Oil in my GM modes. I've always been interested to see how well an AI controlled Gretzky would do.

But anyway...I think it's pretty cool the women of this great sport are getting at least some of their due.

# 10 B5KoshYou @ 08/29/12 04:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve_OS


	�With the release of NHL 12 we added generic female characters in our Be a Pro mode based on a request from a 14-yr old female fan who emailed our staff because she felt underrepresented as a hockey videogame fan,� said Dean Richards, General Manager, NHL, EA SPORTS. �This year we are very excited to continue our effort of creating a more representative experience for female hockey fans by adding two of the greatest female athletes to ever play the game in Wickenheiser and Ruggiero to NHL 13.�

Someone needs to kick Dean Richards and the EA marketing department right in the nads. This press release makes it sound like EA Sports is so out of touch that it took a 14 year old to wake them up to the fact that there are female hockey players and videogame fans. People were suggesting/complaining about this before women's hockey became an Olympic sport!

Sticking women's players on men's teams isn't good enough. Put women's teams in the game. Club-college-International. They don't have to be licensed players, just put in Creation Centre like FIFA's and let people make their own.

If you are going to do it, do it right. Do female motion capture, real female teams and tournaments. Current and classic.

# 11 geisterhome @ 08/29/12 04:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pezell04x


	Meh, I never play legends modes. Does anyone actually play them?

me niether

# 12 thedudedominick @ 08/29/12 04:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by B5KoshYou


	Someone needs to kick Dean Richards and the EA marketing department right in the nads. This press release makes it sound like EA Sports is so out of touch that it took a 14 year old to wake them up to the fact that there are female hockey players and videogame fans. People were suggesting/complaining about this before women's hockey became an Olympic sport! Sticking women's players on men's teams isn't good enough. Put women's teams in the game. Club-college-International. They don't have to be licensed players, just put in Creation Centre like FIFA's and let people make their own. If you are going to do it, do it right. Do female motion capture, real female teams and tournaments. Current and classic.

The problem with this idea is NHL has limited resources and time. To impliment all of this they would have to cut back on gameplay changes to what we currently have. I think the only way to get this in would be wait until next gen.

# 13 liberaluser @ 08/29/12 05:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by B5KoshYou


	If you are going to do it, do it right. Do female motion capture, real female teams and tournaments. Current and classic.

Or do it the EA way and just stick female heads on male bodies like that screenshot shows.

# 14 keator @ 08/29/12 06:13 PM

first thing im doing when this game drops on Season Pass is playing a game with the chicks hockey team

# 15 ericromain @ 08/29/12 07:57 PM

The one thing I worry about this is that EA NHL will get a bad taste in their mouths from the negative underwhelmed responses for doing anything with retro players. The reality is if they actually pumped some money in putting retro teams with retro equipment (even if the unlicensed players were generic faces done NCAA football style with only numbers (no names). I think it'd be a really cool feature if you could replay past seasons where all the results (that you weren't playing) were true to the past. Then you could just add all the real names using a roster share mode.

# 16 Gagnon39 @ 08/29/12 08:33 PM

I think EA's taken some liberties with the term, "legend."

# 17 meep3162 @ 08/29/12 10:21 PM

I'm not going to play this "legends mode" or whatever, but Legends are important for HUT and I really wanted Neely and/or Orr. Pretty disappointed in Gilmour, Kurri, and Hasek. Lame.

I skipped on NHL 12 though, so I didn't get a chance to play with any of those guys. Hoping to snag a Bourque or Yzerman.

# 18 tabulaRasa @ 08/30/12 04:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by meep3162


	I'm not going to play this "legends mode" or whatever, but Legends are important for HUT and I really wanted Neely and/or Orr. Pretty disappointed in Gilmour, Kurri, and Hasek. Lame. I skipped on NHL 12 though, so I didn't get a chance to play with any of those guys. Hoping to snag a Bourque or Yzerman.

Legends are used in HUT. It�s sad to see EA **** up this year while NBA2K add friggin entire teams and even Pippen and Jordan. EA adds 5 legends and only 3 of them even played in the NHL? BS! Oh, WIcken is rated 81, so according to EA she is better than ELitserien players. What a joke, she played in the finnish 3rd league.

WHere are Hull, trottier,red,rocket,bossy, messier,neely etc etc? BS EA...

# 19 woofinator @ 08/30/12 01:59 PM

I'm gonna stick the females on the Islanders and post a video compilation of me hitting the absolute **** out of them with Chris Pronger over and over again

# 20 CarryTheWeight @ 08/31/12 01:15 AM

Hasek's been in the game for years under Pardubice's lineup in the Czech league. This reveal doesn't sound like anything special, though I love that he's in a (current) Sabres jersey in the teaser image.

Strangely enough, Dom met with Sabres management earlier this year for a possible return to the NHL as a backup goaltender to Ryan Miller. I don't think the Sabres will sign a contract with him unless it's a one-day deal to announce his official retirement from the sport of hockey.

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Women's Olympic Ice Hockey Stars and New NHL Legends Join Roster for EA Sports NHL 13