After watching Brian Ekberg and Jon Miller play a few online club games in NHL 09 and reading our glowing review, I was convinced that I need to play the game. I'm glad I did--it's fantastic. I've created my own player in Be-A-Pro mode. He's a right wing sniper for the Rockford IceHogs of the AHL. My first game was a success from a team standpoint (we won), but I didn't do much to distinguish myself individually. By the second game I had become a bit more accustomed to the controls and played much better. In fact, I scored the first goal of my young career. The goal was nothing fancy, but because you do get attached to your player it was actually really exciting for me. I was happy that the game lets you take screenshots (and video) so I could save the moment for posterity. Here's me celebrating my first goal:

Later that game I decided to prove that I could play a little defense. Here's the young phenom Aaron Thomas bringing the pain:

I'm now about 6 or 7 games into my career and I'm starting to get more comfortable shooting the puck with the right analog stick. I still tend to go to my backhand too often because of poor positioning, but sometimes it works out as it did with this sweet backhand goal. I totally beat the guy to the puck, headed straight for the goal and lit the lamp. This one was so cool (at least for me) I had to save a video:

While I was fiddling with the camera for the replay of my backhander I found a neat angle where you could see ice shavings from a defender flying across the screen. It was too awesome of a shot not to share: