You had a simple mission: get all 10 pucks to the other side. It sounded so easy, but that was before you and your opponent started frantically firing pucks at each other. Now, for every puck you get to the other side, there seems to be another coming back. Can you keep up with their pace? Will you have the accuracy needed to squeeze pucks through the hole? Or will all the pucks be in your side at the end?

NHL Fastrack

Published: 2008

Designer: Jean-Marie Albert

Publisher: CSE Games, BlueOrange Games

2 players

5-10 minutes

Thanks to CSE Games for providing a review copy! 

NHL Fastrack is one of the more interesting dexterity games I’ve come across, and one that might be well-suited for a wider crowd, not just traditional hardcore gamers. The concept’s incredibly simple, but can lead to a lot of fun. You have a rectangular board painted like a hockey arena, complete with faceoff circles, NHL team logos along the side boards, a launching elastic on each side, and a middle wall with only a small opening. Each player receives five hockey pucks and then, once you start, has to simultaneously use their elastic to launch pucks through the opening to the other player’s side. The game ends when all 10 pucks are on one side, and that’s all there is to it.

This leads to an entertaining frenzy, though. You want to fire pucks as quickly as you can, but that can diminish accuracy, so you have to strike a balance between lining up your shots and just blasting away. Also, pucks will frequently arrive at the slot at the same time or get stuck in the central slot, causing ricochets and adding to the chaos.

Pucks will occasionally flip up and over the central divider and into the opponent’s zone, which is legal, but if they sail outside of the arena entirely, they’re “in the penalty box” and out of play for the rest of the round (so then you only need nine on your opponent’s side to win). A single round can range anywhere from two to 10 minutes, depending on how evenly matched the players are and how much luck each gets, but both quick, frantic duels and longer battles of attrition can be quite fun.

The fun is where this one shines, and it’s what makes it suitable for a wide crowd. There isn’t a ton of strategy here, but there also aren’t a ton of rules or a long playtime, making this quick to explain and easy to get people into. Also, simply launching pucks with the elastics is a blast. This game proved to be a hit at a friend’s bachelor party this year, with all sorts of people getting into this and even a mini-tournament being formed. It’s a game that can be played in a beer pong setting or a more serious one, and it works fine for a whole tournament or just a few rounds with two people.

There are a few downsides to this. If you want more strategy in your dexterity games, this isn’t the one for you; games like Flick ‘Em Up and the upcoming Cosmic Kaboom might fill that niche better. If you want a firm hockey experience, too, this isn’t really the game for you; using pucks and having the NHL license is cool, but this is much closer to air hockey than actual hockey. (Games like NHL Ice Breaker may work better there.) Also, this is limited to just two people at a time, so in a larger setting, you’ll need to take turns or set up a tournament. That works fine, as rounds are short and this is fun to watch as well, but this may not be the pick if you want to get a large group all involved at once.

With that said, though, NHL Fastrack does a great job of providing a fun, light game. It’s highly addictive and replayable; you’ll probably have at least a couple rounds every time you’ll pull it out. It’s something that will interest a lot of people, and even if it’s not a hit with someone, the short round time means you haven’t locked them into something long-term.

It’s well-made, too; the elastics on my copy are still holding up perfectly after at least 50 rounds have been played on it, and the official NHL logos on the pucks haven’t faded much at all. The pucks do tend to get some scratches, which doesn’t bug me much. They also do tend to leave some black marks on the white ice of the board after repeated plays, but those can be easily cleaned off with a sponge or a magic eraser; my copy still looks good even after this many plays. This is a game I’m happy to have, and one I’ll likely pull out at times for years to come.