NHL Hockey is an ice hockey video game developed by Park Place Productions and published by EA Sports.  The game released in August 1991 for the Sega Genesis under the title NHL Hockey in North America and released for the Sega Mega Drive in Europe and Japan under the title EA Hockey.  The game became massively popular warranting a sequel and spawned an annual franchise for Electronic Arts, making it the first game in the NHL series.

Electronic Arts decided to contract Park Place Production to develop a hockey game for them based off the success they had the year prior when they contracted them to develop John Madden Football for the Genesis.   When John Madden Football released in 1990 it became one of the most successful sports games of all time and they were looking to clone that success with other sports.  The growing independent developer was awarded the project and they began to build the foundation of a hockey game that would match the likes of John Madden Football.