In the 1996 movie “Swingers,” the characters are playing a Sega Genesis hockey video game, and the footage on screen is from NHLPA Hockey ’93.
However, the dialogue confuses matters. Within the lore of the movie, they’re playing a game that doesn’t exist.
Jon Favreau’s character laments the fact that there’s no fighting in the game, and that “fighting was the best part of the old version.”
Vince Vaughn’s character responds, “but you can make their heads bleed.” He later bulldozes Wayne Gretzky to make his head bleed and put him out for the remainder of the game.
In reality, NHLPA Hockey ’93 includes fighting AND bleeding heads. The next version, NHL ’94, removed both elements of the game.
Bleeding heads never returned to the NHL series, but fighting did, in NHL 96.
So, case closed. The version of NHL that replaced fighting with bleeding heads is a Hollywood fabrication.
