In 1988, "Blades of Steel" was released on the NES, a groundbreaking video game that thrilled hockey fans new and old. In this exclusive story from THN's Archive, Sal Barry listed seven fascinating facts about the game in celebration of its 35th anniversary.

It’s been 35 years since the iconic Blades of Steel video game was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System. And last year, THN broke down the fascinating facts of the game in a story from our Dec. 1, 2022 edition (Vol. 76, Issue 8), when it became 35 years since its launch in the arcades. THN writer Sal Barry wrote the piece in the "Puck Culture" series, which looks at some of the little-known details of the game.

(And here’s your daily reminder – for access to THN’s 76-year archive, you can subscribe to the magazine.)

Blades of Steel was originally an arcade game but shifted over to the home gaming market in Japan in July 1988. The teams had their own distinct, non-NHL nicknames, but the main image on the box of the game was based on icon Wayne Gretzky. And there’s a rare version of the game in the story below. Video game junkies who loved hockey got a real treat with Blades of Steel, and its legacy still stands out three-and-a-half decades later. - Adam Proteau

7 FUN FACTS ABOUT BLADES OF STEEL

Vol. 76, No. 8, Dec. 1, 2022

By Sal Barry

Blades of Steel celebrates its 35th anniversary this year. Impress your friends with these rare facts about the classic hockey video game

1. IT WAS ORIGINALLY AN ARCADE GAME

Best known for its home version on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Blades of Steel was originally a coin-operated arcade game released in 1987 – and it wasn’t cheap to play. One quarter bought you a minute of playing time, but you would earn 30 seconds of additional play time for scoring a goal – and lose 10 seconds for letting a goal in. Arcade owners could modify the period lengths from four minutes up to 20 minutes, meaning that it might cost as much as $15 to finish a game. The arcade version of Blades used a trackball to control your skater and had a large red “Fight” button used to pick fights and throw punches.

2. THE HOME VERSION FIRST CAME OUT IN JAPAN…AND IT WASN’T VERY GOOD

Blades of Steel came out for the NES in North America in December 1988, but it was out in Japan five months earlier. There, the game was entitled Konamikku Aisu Hokke (Konami Ice Hockey) when it was released for the Japanese NES, known as the Nintendo Famicom. Unfortunately, the Japanese version lacks some of the game’s best features. There is no digitized voice calling play-by-play, no extracurriculars during second intermission, and worst of all, no fighting! And if you beat Konami Ice Hockey in tournament mode, your team doesn’t get a trophy like it does in the North American version.

3. THE TEAMS HAVE NICKNAMES

The teams – at least in North America and Europe – do not have nicknames. Thus, the Toronto team was just “Toronto” and so forth. However, the instruction book for Konami Ice Hockey reveals that teams had the following nicknames: Chicago Angels, Edmonton Bears, Los Angeles Hawks, Minnesota Wilds, Montreal Fighters, New York Devils, Toronto Eagles and Vancouver Bombers. Why team names were dropped from the North American release is anyone’s guess, especially since Konami’s popular basketball game, Double Dribble, used nicknames that riffed on NBA teams.

4. THAT’S GRETZKY ON THE BOX

The painted artwork prominently featured on the box cover of Blades of Steel is based on a photo of Wayne Gretzky and Tomas Jonsson from the 1983 Stanley Cup final, though with changes to the players’ likenesses and uniforms. Konami Ice Hockey also based its box-cover artwork on that photo, and while it modified the player likenesses, it didn’t alter the uniform colors of the Oilers or Islanders.

5. IT’S “GETS THE PASS!”

The use of digitized voice in Blades for the NES was novel at the time, as not many home video games then featured speech due to technical limitations. The play-by-play, though sparse, made the NES version feel like a TV broadcast. While we understood Face Off!, Penalty Shot! and, of course, Blades of Steel! on the title screen, there was some debate as to what the announcer was saying whenever a pass was made. Was it Hit The Pass!, With The Pass! or something else? In the arcade version, where the audio is much better, you can clearly hear the announcer say, Gets The Pass! Mystery solved.

6. THERE IS A RARE VERSION OF THE GAME

Blades of Steel for the NES was re-released with altered packaging when Konami reissued its most popular games in 1992. The box and label on the game cartridge have a red frame around the artwork, with the added text “Konami Classic Series” at the top. However, the game itself, as well as the instruction booklet, are unchanged. While not impossible to find, the “Red Label” version sells for a premium over the standard version.

7. THE CHEAP WAY TO BEAT THE COMPUTER

Want a surefire way to beat the computer on Blades of Steel for NES? Pick a fight in front of the opponent’s net, and the referee will stop play and award you a penalty shot. Works every time! And once you get a lead, skate the puck behind your own net and wait. The computer’s forechecker will repeatedly run into your goalie and get knocked down trying to get to the puck. You can just have your puck carrier stay there until the clock runs out. Artificial intelligence in video games sure has come a long way. 

The Hockey News Archive is a vault of 2,640 issues and more than 156,000 articles exclusively for subscribers, chronicling the complete history of The Hockey News from 1947 until today. Visit the archives at THN.com/archive and subscribe today at subscribe.thehockeynews.com