All the action, no bruises. Your chance to be an NHL Ice Hockey coach from the comfort of your own home.

* Coach your own NHL club from the comfort of your own home

* Compete in a league against other coaches throughout the world

* Play through full regular season and playoffs

* Sign players, draft players, choose lineups and deal with injuries

* The ultimate in NHL simulation games, running all year round

Welcome to Slapshot and to Ab Initio Games. Slapshot is our simulation of NHL Ice Hockey. A game which you play by email, against other players throughout the world. You make all of your decisions at home, send them to us via a special website or by mail and once the games are run, we send you back all of the results and information you need.

In Slapshot you are the coach and manager of an NHL club, taking your team through the regular season and then the playoffs, trying to reach and win the Stanley Cup. 

In Slapshot we try to make the game work the same way as in real life, with realistic decisions to be made about team management. The choices you make are the same as you’d have to make in real life. Sometimes you’ll have to make tough decisions, whether to sign better players, or develop your stadium and income sources to improve your future finances.

In addition to the management decisions about signing and cutting players you’ve also got to shuffle your lineups from game to game. You’ve injuries to contend with, as well as players losing form. You have to decide which players to play in which lines together, who to use in power-play situations and in short-handed situations. You also have to decide how regularly you can play your star goaltender and when you need to rest him.

Slapshot is a management game. Rather than concentrating on the "game-day" coaching aspect the focus of the game is on longer-term roster building, though there is still a significant element of control over game-day decisions.

Slapshot runs all year round - the game isn't a "fantasy game" based on the performances of real life players in the NHL - it's a simulation of how real life Hockey works - much more involved, and we think, much more fun. Turns are normally run every two weeks to give you plenty of time for planning and analysis.

Click here fort details of the changes to Slapshot being introduced in 2024.

This page is just a brief introduction to Slapshot. Click here for more detailed information about Slapshot and how to join the game.

Slapshot is only one of the North American Sports Games we can offer - we also have Baseball, American Football and Basketball Games as well as a number of other sports. Click here for our full list of sports titles.