Oh, EA has pretty much just pissed off fans of 29 NHL teams.

For the second year in a row, a member of the Chicago Blackhawks will be featured as the cover athlete of EA’s NHL series. Last year saw Patrick Kane slapped on the front of the box, while this year will feature linemate and fellow face of the franchise, Jonathan Toews. For the first time in the series’ 20 year lifespan the same team has been featured in back to back iterations.

Reading the comments on EA’s official NHL Facebook page from, uh, “enthused” fans of other teams, it is quite evident that people aren’t at all pleased with this historic event. Even as a Hawks fan myself, I’m a bit surprised by the move. What it comes down to is an attempt by EA to bring in casual fans of hockey, many of whom may have first been introduced to a full game this past Olympics, where the United States and Canada battled through three periods and into overtime for the gold medal. Toews was awarded the honor of most valuable forward competition-wide, and with his recent win of the Stanley Cup as well as the Conn Smythe trophy, he is about as household a name as you are going to get in hockey.

EA has also posted a new trailer for NHL 11 (seen above), which will feature a revamped physics engine, a new face off system, and plenty of other little additions and tweaks. Perhaps most important is the inclusion of broken sticks. Players’ sticks can break at random, meaning that skater will either have to play without one, grab a teammate’s, or return to the bench for a new one. Moreover, the broken stick will remain on the ice until the play is whistled dead, causing all kinds of trouble, as you can see in the trailer below.

The game will release sometime in September, but if you want a little more NHL before then, feel free to head over to my review of NHL 10. Also, to see reasons for Toews’ selection as cover athlete, check here and here.