During our time at the EA Sports Fall Starting Lineup '09 event, the company began showcasing their NHL 10 title for PS3 and Xbox 360 by having Boston Bruins' Milan Lucic take a game producer to the boards and rough him up a bit, as we talked about previously. That moved into some gloves-down fisticuff demonstrations and a bit of a Q&A:

Press: "Do you like fighting?"

Milan: "Yeah, it's ok. When you win it's good."

Neither Sean or myself got our hapless mugs manhandled by a pro hockey player so we're sadly lacking in pictures at this point. However, once we moved inside we were able to get some information on what NHL 10 is up to, from the new 'Be a GM Mode' to first-person fisticuffs, buying out players, and EA finally adding a fantasy draft mode. The producer actually joked about getting death threats if they didn't add this one! But, the biggest thing we can talk about right now is the Be a GM Mode, so here goes.

Be a GM is a new game mode designed to give you the feeling of actually being a team's general manager. You get hired by a team owner and given expectations for your performance in terms of season wins, playoff spots and such. Staying on top of updates and offers is done with a Blackberry cell phone interface that can even pop-up in the middle of drafting and trading. To help you manage your team you have four helpers: an Amateur Scout for helping you get better draft pics, a Pro Scout to help improve your trades, Medical Staff to keep your players on the ice, and an Assistant Coach who helps build up player skills. Each can be improved by spending points on them.

One of the more interesting elements of the Be a GM mode is not only can you get fired for sucking, you can also get hired on to a new team. If you're doing well, you might get a call from a bigger team offering you a job with more pay, but bigger expectations. This can happen more than once, and you can even jump ship from a floundering team before you get the axe. With experience in past dynasty style games, the EA producers built in a way to keep players from being able to pull off an unrealistic succession of rapid trades and other shady business: a GM rep bar that drops like a rock if you try shady stuff, making future trades harder. And, finally, at the end of a game a career wrap-up shows you whether you've been a rockstar or not.

The overall trading AI has been built up too, with team identities this time around, each one with a plan in mind when making trades (e.g. rebuilding teams will go for younger players, teams headed for a playoff win want veteran players who can really kick butt, etc).

That's all we can share right now, but check back on the 28th for more news on NHL 10 for PS3 and Xbox 360.