Name: Keith Brown – Rating: 48 – Career Games: 876 – Career Points: 342
It’s unfortunate that NHL 94 was the first real groundbreaking hockey game for any console, because by then Keith Brown’s career was essentially over. He’s on the Chicago Blackhawks roster, but was actually dealt to the Florida Panthers before the start of the 1993-94 season for Darren Kimble.
Still, Brown managed to break a barrier that is very near and dear to my heart. Born in Corner Brook, NL, I can only assume he is the first Newfoundlander to ever appear in a video game. Now, there’s a plethora of NHLers from Newfoundland represented in the EA series, and others you might not have known were Newfoundlanders that actually appeared in other games. For instance, Parappa the Rapper was actually from Goulds, NL.
Few people actually played NHL 94 with line changes on, but if you did, you would have noticed Brown on the third line defense pairing grinding it out with what little skill he had. With his 48 overall rating, he was slow and oftentimes he would be left in the dust by the opposing forward. Scoring one of those goals where you just crash into the goalie and knock the net out of its moorings while the puck slides in would have been quite easy with Brown on the ice. But the Hawks had Jeremy Roenick, so you could probably live with a few of those goals before you eventually decided line changes are dumb and nobody wants to waste those five minutes of ice time on bottom-six plugs.
Seriously though, Brown was actually a good NHL defenseman before the game was released. He broke into the league in 1979 just months after the Hawks selected him with the seventh overall pick in the ’79 draft. Should they have selected Ray Bourque, who went one pick later? That’s debatable (in the same sense same-sex marriage is debatable among uber-Christians). But that doesn’t mean Brown was an awful defenseman. In fact, he gave 14 seasons to that awful franchise before being discarded to Florida. In his rookie season, Brown got to play with a 40 year old Stan Mikita and an aging Tony Esposito. His best season came in 1985-86 when he recorded 40 points in 70 games.
I couldn’t tell you where he is now, because just try Google searching “Keith” and “Brown” and “hockey” with The Stanley Cup Finals happening between Chicago (Duncan Keith) and Tampa Bay (JT Brown).
Ridin' The Pine 