With the NHL season in limbo, it’s only natural that many of us have been breaking more and more frequently with reality. That is, we’re opting for a virtual reality over the one we’re being presented by Gary Bettman, Donald Fehr, and their muppet minions.

Alas, I don’t enjoy EA Sports’ NHL 13 the way I had hoped. In the coming weeks, I intend to showcase different (and frustrating) shortcomings of the game as part of a series of posts.

This time, we’re going to take a look at how frequently the puck seems to slip "through" players sticks, bodies, and apendages.

Perhaps the reason this "glitch" is so annoying is that it’s obviously just EA’s way of making the AI more difficult to play against. Rather than create more sophisticated defensive systems, they’ve just cut virtual holes through all of your players.

This has always been frustrating, but it became glaringly obvious when I first began playing online. Suddenly, my poke checks and pass interceptions were so effective that my human opponent (TLN’s own Danny Gray) was reduced to non-verbal shouting. What had changed?

Is the computer really any better at protecting the puck? Ha.

There are plenty of other infuriating aspects of the game, so share any others you’d like me to feature.