It was between periods at Amalie Arena in Tampa when the PA announcer asked the crowd if they were ready to play “Bolts of Steel.”
Suddenly, everything on the ice became … digitized. Like an 8-bit video game from the Nintendo Entertainment System days. Familiar music started playing on the loudspeakers.
It was “Blades of Steel.”
For the uninitiated, “Blades of Steel” was the “other” prominent NES hockey game. Made by Konami, it opted for a more realistic take on the game than Nintendo’s “Ice Hockey,” which featured international teams and the still-famous option of creating a lineup based on body type.