Live Updates: 2025 Commissioner’s Surprise Hockey Blast Tournament

Welcome to the live update page for our 11th annual Commissioner's Surprise Hockey Blast Tournament--where EVERY team has a chance to win it all! Last year, we played the finals of the tournament on-location in Salt Lake City as part of our “UTAH-ctober” event. This year, we’re again conducting the preliminary rounds through the PLAAY Games community, we’ll conclude the tournament on-location in Dallas, TX at BGG.CON 2025, the annual BoardGame Geek convention at the Hyatt Regency hotel (we’ll have more information on our BGG.CON booth and activities coming soon!)

Want to claim a game? We’d love to have you participate! You can play with either the full-play or “express” versions of HOCKEY BLAST Pro Hockey Game, you’ll be using the just-released 2024-25 Pro Season cards (or PDF). Just look over what’s available and let us know what game you’d like to play!

How does the Commissioner's Surprise Tournament work? Well, EVERY pro team from the HOCKEY BLAST 2024-25 Pro Season card set is included in the tournament, all 32 teams! It's single-elimination, and the match-ups were completely random—we literally DRAW them out of a hat! This format always generates some surprises, as there's no seeding, home ice is assigned randomly and hot streaks are over-rewarded! Last year's final four included three teams who finished second in their respective divisions in real life (Carolina, Edmonton, Boston) and our annual “Cinderella team,” last year it was Washington . We expect similar drama again THIS year! Here’s a recap of the entire 2024 tournament.

Games are listed below. The community member who is playing/played the game is indicated in (parentheses), the winner of the game in green.

First Round

Joe Cards got the tourney underway with New York/Vegas, let us know if YOU’D like to be part of the fun!

New York RGR 3 at Las Vegas 5 (Joe Cards): This was a great game. Started out looking like Vegas was going to run away with this game, but The Rangers fought back in the third period, pulled the goalie with a little under 2 minutes left in the game,, scored, and came within 1 goal of tying the game. NYR Pulled the goalie again with under a minute to play, but Las Vegas scored an ENG to seal the win! 

Montreal at Philadelphia (TBD):

New York ISL at Los Angeles (TBD):

Vancouver at Seattle (Rob Gallamore):

Anaheim at Tampa Bay (Joe Cards):

Pittsburgh at Utah (Chris Hoffman):

Florida at Buffalo (Michael Balch):

Calgary at Columbus (Steve Heller):

San Jose at New Jersey (James Cast):

Chicago at Detroit (Alex Pawlik):

Boston at Toronto (Andy Sexton):

Edmonton at Winnipeg (Michael Owens):

Carolina at St. Louis (TBD):

Dallas at Colorado (TBD):

Nashville at Minnesota (Tim Lucas):

Ottawa at Washington (TBD):