Board Games: The Blog Series (Part 2)

MONOPOLY + NHL = EMPIRE MANIA?!

Yes, it's true. Back in the 1980s, the National Hockey League marketing group licensed a Monopoly-themed board game, and called it "Empire Mania". I own a copy of the game, and from the box cover the game looks less like actual hockey playing and more like Uncle Pennybags' beard wearing, hipster cousin that is wearing a suit he pulled off a rack driving and flying all over North America, and chasing all the women in town -_-

If you remember your hockey history, then you know during the 1980s the twenty-one team NHL had two conferences: The Campbell Conference and the Prince of Wales Conference. Each consisted of two divisions: The Norris and Smythe resided in the Campbell Conference, while the Adams and Patrick were in the Prince of Wales Conference (think of the Campbell as West, and the Prince of Wales as East). The Patrick Division consisted of six teams, while the other three featured five teams in theirs; hence, a twenty-one team league o_O In Empire Mania, players had to purchase and sell as many teams as they could to earn a monopoly with the winner claiming the Stanley Cup. Funny how you had to BUY the Stanley Cup in order to WIN. Empire Mania also had weird teams such the Quebec Nordiques, which occupied the space Monopoly gamers would refer to as "Boardwalk", and you could buy the Winnipeg Jets for a million dollars. That's right: ONE MILLION DOLLARS (cue music)
Classic board games, in spite of accuracy issues, are cool collector's items ^_^ It's always nice to whip out the old Empire Mania board game with friends, some of which don't know a thing about hockey, and have a good time playing it. You don't need to know the history of the Washington Capitals to know how to play, or know what the tag-up offside rule is ^_^ Which reminds me...


TEXAS HOLD 'EM + NHL = ICE BREAKER

I bought it when I was driving around Toronto last year. I never took it out of the box; I'm scared!