Boardgamenews.com – NHL Ice Breaker: A Top Sports Game
September 2, 2009
Sports Games of All Sorts (Part Two)
By Dale Yu
So, what makes a sports game good? In the end, the same things that make any game good or bad. Is the game fun? Does it have nice components? Do I want to play it again after a game? Some special considerations that I take into account for a sports game include: Does the game capture the flavor of the real sport? Would the game succeed if it had another (non-sports-based) theme? But in the end, I judge a sports game on essentially the same criteria I would for any regular game…
NHL Ice Breaker: The Card Hockey Board Game
Type of Game: card game with hockey theme
Why I like It: This is a nice game that I first saw at Origins in 2006. It is a cousin to Card Football (a game which didn’t quite make the cut for Football games). It uses the same rules and special 54-card deck. In this game, each player uses a 54 card deck (standard 52 cards and 2 jokers) – and each card in the deck has a special hockey action on it. During play, players take turns playing cards, and the highest card (or poker combination) played wins the hand and gets to use the special action printed on their card. While this sounds like the classic card game War, there’s a bit more to it. Players can continue to play cards (up to 5) after the initial showdown. So, if I play a King and you play a 7, you might choose to play another 7 to make a pair. Now, I have to either play more cards or stop. There is a board representing a hockey rink, and as you win hands in the card game, you are able to control the puck and move the puck towards your opponent’s goal. There are also special spaces on the board which trigger special “icebreaker” rules. But, the overall goal is to move the puck forward enough that you get into the “shooting zone” – when the puck is in this area, you now have a chance to shoot at the goal. The game plays quickly (maybe 30 to 45 minutes), and it is an enjoyable take on War…
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