NEWSLETTER
For the first time in the video game’s history, EA Sports’ NHL franchise will include women’s teams. In an announcement today, EA Sports and the IIHF have worked out a partnership that will allow the game to use the IIHF Men’s and Women’s World Championship tournaments, as well as the Men’s World Junior Championship tournament in the game. Along with it comes rebranding of the international hockey team logos and sweaters.
IIHF x #NHL22 🌎🎮
Play the World Juniors now and represent your country with International Teams 🏒 then get ready for Women's Hockey coming January 🗓
Learn more 👉 https://t.co/ne7VqMY66l pic.twitter.com/ls2V4a7X0R
— EA SPORTS NHL (@EASPORTSNHL) December 9, 2021
Although EA’s NHL franchise has had the ability to have female players in the game through the Create-A-Player route, this is the first time that stars of the Women’s game like Hilary Knight, Kendall Coyne-Schofield, and Marie-Philip Poulin will be included in the game.
ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski spoke with U.S. Gold Medalist and Blackhawks development coach Kendall Coyne-Schofield about the new inclusion to the game and what it may mean for Women’s representation in hockey moving forward.
Big news: For the first time, women's national teams are going to be a part of @EASPORTS NHL 22!
I spoke to @KendallCoyne about it (and her hope that she gets a 100 in speed!) https://t.co/ED3N726uWb
— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) December 9, 2021
It is so cool to see EA not only partnering with the IIHF to update the looks of the international teams in the video game, which it desperately needed to feel more authentic, but to also include the real women’s players for the first time. Much like 2K Sports did with adding the WNBA to their NBA2K franchise a few years ago, it would be awesome to see EA integrate the PHF and PWHPA into the NHL franchise in the next iteration of the game.
The new IIHF update will be live in NHL22 in early-January.
