NHL Slapshot is a video game being developed for Nintendo’s Wii, and you’ll play it by wielding a hockey stick.

Okay, it’s not an actual hockey stick. It’s not as big. Or as expensive. It’s a plastic mini-stick which holds the two Wii controllers, the Remote and Nunchuk. It’s much like the mini-sticks that I and my siblings, cousins, and friends used to use in the living room while playing knee hockey.

Which is to say that it’s enough of a hockey stick that you – or your kids – will be winding up to shoot virtual pucks at the television.

A word of advice. If you want to preserve your fancy flat-screen, carefully explain to your children – or husband/boyfriend – that they should not shoot actual pucks at the television.

Those little hockey sticks were part of the inspiration for NHL Slapshot, coming from EA Sports this September.

David Littman, creative director for EA Sports’ hockey games, created a prototype for the development team by sawing down a $200 composite stick and taping Wii controls to it. The final product, he told me by phone, is just like holding a real stick in your hands.

“When you want to take a slap shot, you wind up and shoot,” he said, “just like you would on the ice.” The hockey stick controller is also used to pass and body check.

In the past couple of years, EA Sports has only developed hockey video games for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. NHL Slapshot, being developed in Burnaby at EA Canada, expands the hockey simulation experience with a Peewee to Pro mode.

Joe Nickolls is the line producer on the game. He said that while the virtual hockey players start out younger than with the PS3 and Xbox 360 hockey games, they are doing the same things.

“You work your way up the ranks and the game gets progressively deeper as you go along,” he said on the phone. “This is not an arcade experience. You still need to be concerned with performance.”

NHL Slapshot, explained Nickolls, is as “deep or shallow as you want it to be”.

“You can play backyard hockey with your friends,” he said, “but you can also go full-on with five-on-five, drafts, trades, playoffs.”

NHL Slapshot will also include mini games such as a two-player shooter versus goalie mode, or two-on-two pickup.

Wayne Gretzky will be a playable character and is the cover athlete for the game. In a press release, the Great One said, “Being on the cover of the new Wii version of the game is exciting and is probably going to make me a bit cooler in the eyes of my kids.”

Gretzky was an easy choice, according to Littman and Nickolls, because he’s already done so much to grow the sport of hockey.

“EA has grown the sport of hockey through our video games,” Littman said, “and we just want to get hockey in the hands of more people. Gretzky’s grown the sport already. Now we can grow it together.”

Cross-posted at the Georgia Straight