In a surprise move, Electronic Arts will dip its toe into the Wii platform with a release of a new hockey title to be called NHL Slapshot.  EA Sports with its NHL hockey series has been the undisputed champion for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 platform for a number of years, despite 2K Sports releasing the NHL 2K challengers.

The interesting thing is that while EA ground the NHL 2K titles to a pulp on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, NHL 2K sold exceptionally well on the Wii. Of course, it always helps when you have no challenger; and 2K Sports took total advantage of the situation by last year highlighting the fact in their commercials that they had the only Wii hockey title. It appears that EA has caught on and thinks that there is a big enough market for an EA Sports-produced hockey title for the Wii platform.

What makes NHL Slapshot unique beyond the fact that they will be using Wayne Gretzky as the pitchman for the title, the game will use a mini-hockey stick that will be combined with the Wii motion controllers to control the action in the game. The game itself will be totally different from the regular mainline NHL title for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Of course, EA isn’t yet explaining exactly how the Wii version will be different, but we suspect that game will be dubbed down to attract a more pick up and play audience that will enjoy the game using the motion control combined with the mini-hockey sticks.

2K Sports has confirmed that it will be releasing NHL2K11 contender for the Wii only this year. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions  will take a year off and undergo additional time for development and tuning prior to attempting another release. 2K’s decision to continue to with a Wii release for 2011 has to do with the exceptional strong sales on the Wii platform in Canada, and obviously EA wants to try to cut into that market share and continue to dominate the video game hockey market. No release date has been announced for NHL Slapshot, but we suspect that EA will fill in the blanks during E3.