Eastside Hockey Manager - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Eastside Hockey Manager, commonly known as EHM or EHM2g is a freeware

Freeware

Freeware is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee, but usually with one or more restricted usage rights. Freeware is in contrast to commercial software, which is typically sold for profit, but might be distributed for a business or commercial purpose in the...

video game about managing an ice hockey

Ice hockey

Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...

team. Complete with computer controlled AI teams and the possibility to set up online leagues to play against friends, it was created by a small independent team led by Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

programmer Risto Remes and was coded in the Visual Basic

Visual Basic

Visual Basic is the third-generation event-driven programming language and integrated development environment from Microsoft for its COM programming model...

programming language

Programming language

A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....

.

The game simulated the full NHL

National Hockey League

The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...

season and had a database of around 3,000 players and staff and featured virtually unlimited number of seasons to play. After the game picked up a large following in the internet, it was 'spotted' by a leading member of British game developers Sports Interactive

Sports Interactive

Sports Interactive Limited is a computer games development company currently based in Old Street, Central London and owned by the Japanese software and video game company Sega. It is the developer of the popular games Football Manager, NHL Eastside Hockey Manager and Championship Manager Quiz, and...

. Remes then signed with Sports Interactive to work on a commercial version of the game, using the expertise and codebase of the company famous for creating hit football

Football (soccer)

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

management games. The new version of the game went by the working title of Eastside Hockey Manager: Franchise Edition before being released by Sega

Sega

, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...

under the name of NHL Eastside Hockey Manager
NHL Eastside Hockey Manager
NHL Eastside Hockey Manager is an ice hockey management simulation game developed by Sports Interactive and published by Sega. It was the first commercial release in the Eastside Hockey Manager series started by the freeware game Eastside Hockey Manager.The first version of the game was released...

. A follow-up for the 2005 season came in July 2005, and the game was expected to grow in the same way as Sports Interactive

Sports Interactive

's market-leading Football Manager
Football Manager
Football Manager is a series of football management simulation games developed by Sports Interactive and published by Sega. The game began its life in 1992 as Championship Manager; however, following the break-up of their partnership with original publishers Eidos Interactive, Sports Interactive...

series. However, on January 30th, 2007 it was decided that the 2007 edition would be the final edition. The series cancellation was credited to a loss of sales due to software piracy, and glossed over the impact that the lock-out had upon sales in a year when no previous hockey season existed.

See also