ESPN National Hockey Night on SNES is one of those mid-90s sports games that somehow nails the chaotic energy of real hockey without getting bogged down in realism. The controls are simple—pass, shoot, check—but the action gets surprisingly intense when you’re scrambling for loose pucks or trying to sneak a slapshot past the goalie’s glove side.

What I like is how the game doesn’t take itself too seriously. The players have that exaggerated SNES sprite charm, and the hits send guys flying in a way that’d probably get you ejected in real life. First time I played, I accidentally checked my own teammate into the boards and couldn’t stop laughing.

It’s not the deepest hockey sim out there, but for quick matches with friends or just burning 20 minutes between classes back in the day, it held up. The commentary’s hilariously repetitive (you’ll hear “HE SHOOTS—HE SCOOORES!” roughly 500 times), but that’s part of the nostalgia. Still fun to fire up when you want that old-school arcade hockey vibe.