Following one of the most exciting Olympic Hockey tournaments ever, the NHL returns with a new energy from players returning from Vancouver after a 17-day break from their normal duties as superstars on their respective teams.  Albeit far from a break as hockey fans got their fix watching national pride take over and teams, the remaining games for each team should provide some excitement as we near the playoffs.  Which teams will benefit from the Olympic experience players had?  Which teams will tail off following the break?  Will any team dethrone the Pittsburgh Penguins or will the sim from the beginning of the season hold true?  Today, the road to the Stanley Cup begins again while many, including myself, are still recovering from the Winter Games hangover.

For the NHL development team, as they get closer to tightening up new features for the next iteration of EA SPORTS NHL and from what I've seen in the game, I'm confident that our fans are going to love what NHL 11 will be delivering this year.  Does that mean it's too late for our community to get their input in?  No way.  The dev team and I have been monitoring our forums and reading tweets and balancing fixes with implementing their feature set.  They're starting to work later and later into the evenings and even in these early builds, the game is shaping up nicely.

So here's your opportunity to not only give your feedback, we would like to invite YOU to our NHL 11 Community Day set for May 20th.  As with previous Community Day's, you will join other community voices and represent our forums with feedback to the developers along with being one of the first one's outside of our organization to get a look at NHL 11.

What feedback would you give to the developers if given the chance to spend the day with them and the game? Are you a critic that just wants to see the best possible game developed for all fans? Or maybe you're a proud voice in the NHL community and the game's #1 fan! How would you make the best of an opportunity to be a part of the NHL Community Day?

Tell us why on this forum post before March 12th when we will be locking the post and being the selection process.  Good luck and maybe we'll see you at this year's event!

As part of the ongoing FIFA 10 community event at EA's magnificent Vancouver studio, the assembled community members got the chance to put the development team themselves to the sword on a real football pitch.

It was an energetic break in the bright sunshine from all the hands-on FIFA 10 time everyone had been enjoying on Xbox 360 and PS3.

Our international attendees are certainly hardcore footy fans, and fancied their chances against a load of atrophied games developers. Or at least, that was the plan.

Turns out there's nothing atrophied about any of these guys. The FIFA team features staff from 18 different countries, and all of them are skilled footballers. Hell, one of them was once a runner up in the Red Bull international football freestyle championship (although he's an animator on FIFA 10 these days).

Jason and Rob Thompson - hosts of the daily EA SPORTS Live radio show broadcast from Florida - dropped down to the pitchside to take in the scene, and managed to hoik FIFA 10 producer David Rutter off the pitch for a chat mid-game. Check it out below.

This morning we brought the community leaders to Twist Conditioning, a training facility in North Vancouver dedcated to specialized training for athletes.  In NHL 10 this year, there is a big focus on improved physical play and in real life hockey a big part of that is ensuring hockey players are fit, have great endurance, and are just tough overall. 

NHL athletes are some of the toughest in all sports and we wanted to give our hockey fans a taste of what players go through in the off-season training for camp and even training to get into the league in general.

The trainers at Twist put the guys through an hour and a half of pretty good conditioning drills from ball-handling/stick skills, quickness drills, ladder drills, and even taking the guys onto the field to work on speed with parachutes and on power with harnesses.  At first a lot of the guys were a little hesitant towards the drills in general but by the end of it, they all felt really good about their efforts and I've got to say that these gamers are not only competitive on the sticks but they work hard to be the best for real and worked themselves to the limit today.  They were joined by EA staff as well, including yours truly, and the experience really gave everyone a great appreciation for what players go through to get ready for season play.

When we returned to EA Canada, the community gang met up with David Littman and other producers of the game, along with our special guest Zack Stortini from the Edmonton Oilers. We had a great Q&A with Zack and he even demonstrated for the group how best to gain the advantage in an on-ice fight.  Currently, the gang are on the sticks and will be playing the current build until close to midnight tonight.  Here are some early pics from today's stuff and we'll be looking to put together some videos as well to share in the near future.  Big thanks to EASTON Hockey for providing our community leaders with Synergy and Stealth Sticks to take home as a souvenir of their trip to EA Canada.

Also, if you haven't already, go check out the first video blogs with some inside stuff on NHL 10 from Litty: 

Producer Blog - Part One

Producer Blog - Part Two

Hey NHL fans.  It's the night before the NHL 10 Community Event and I thought I would get ahead of our early morning and post part two of the video blog I recorded with David Littman this week.

David and some of the other producers will be joining the community on Friday to give them their input not only from NHL 09, but they will also get some hours with the current build of NHL 10 and be able to provide the team with some valuable feedback that will hopefully help the team create an even better title as they near the Beta state of the game.

Make sure you tune in to EA SPORTS Live at 12:00 PST for coverage from the NHL 10 Community Day and here on the Inside EA SPORTS blog for stories and video as well.

Hey NHL fans.  As we are on the heels of the NHL 10 Community Day coming up tomorrow at EA Canada, I had an opportunity to follow Producer David Littman and get the inside scoop on next year's hockey title, NHL 10.

I was even able to get some juicy tidbits for the hockey community to chomp on while getting a brief tour of the NHL development space.  We also get a chance to quickly meet some of the other producers who will also be chiming in over the next months on the improvements to the game and the cool stuff coming for next year's title.

Enjoy the video and look for Part Two with more good stuff prior to tomorrow's Community Day!