King of 94 - 10 - Toronto

King of 94 - 10 (September 20-21, 2025)

(As remembered by Halifax - Oct 2025)

**Pics Below Courtesy of EA, Halifax, The Professor, NJ Killer, Len the Lengend, Flamshelter

Our third straight year at FreePlay Toronto. A very cool arcade bar near the downtown core of Toronto!

We went back to a previous format and removed the "Super Group" for round robin play. The Super Group consisted of the top 5 players based on the previous tournament at the King of 94, and they were playing for the top 5 seeds.

We saw an overall increase in the number of new players to the tournament, which was great to see!

Saturday, September 20, 2025

The Lord of 94 had 7 players this year. Jazz Jackrabbit played the previous year and we had 6 new players for this tournament. Therw

Group A was the only group to have all competitors win at least one game in their group. Last eyar's 2nd place finaihser, Mcmarkis, and Stantanator led the group at 5-1, and Halifax squeeked in to the King bracket at 4-2 having to win his final game of the round robin to qualify. It was his first time back in the King bracket for a live tournament since 2019. Joemullen07 (a sega player) opted to try SNES this year as well and faired well with a 2-4 record.

Group B had the usual suspects move on to the King bracket with AngryJay (6-0) and Kingraph (5-1) leading the way. Niuhuskie224, travelled from Illinois, to compete in his first king of 94 tournament and finished 3-3 to move into the Duke Bracket.

Group C had back to back, two time champion, The Professor (6-0) finish at the top of the group. Kidswasted finished 4-2 to mvoe on the th King. A bit of a shocker was a smzoma win over skankhunt by a score of 8-2. Skankhunt finished tied for 5th last year and the loss sent him down to the duke bracket at 3-3. The win propelled smozoma (4-2) in the King bracket for the first time .

Group D was the toughest group of the 4. Bobkudelski26 (5-1), Annatar (5-1) and Mooney (4-2) were able to move through to the King bracket.

SNES Round Robin + Playoffs stream

SNES Round Robin Results

Lord of 94 "Auto Goalie" Tournament - > Results

The Lord of 94 had 7 players this year. Jazz Jackrabbit played the previous year and we had 6 new players for this tournament. There was a couple of upsets in the open round of the play offs, JazzJackrabbit (5thseed) won over Benwardo (4th seed) 4-3 and 7-5, and Flamshelter (6thseed) won over Mike 84 (3rd seed) 3-4,1-0,4-3 in a really tight battle. Chris O steamrolled through the round robin and playoffs with 10 straight wins and defeating Steven S. in the final 7-2 and 7-4.

Puke of 94 Bracket (players with 1 or less round robin wins) - > Results

The Puke Bracket has 12 games played . Four of them were 2 goal games, and seven were 1 goal games. This showed how close the competition was and why we like the format like this. Everyone felt they had a chance to win it! Jesusplays94 returned after a hiatus from 2019 and captured his first hardware defeating rooster in the final 2-0.

Duke of 94 Bracket (players with 2 or 3 round robin wins) -> Results

The Duke bracket has 10 competitors and 18 games played. Half of the games were won by the lower seed showing how much parity was involved. Skankhunt (5th seed) won in the final over Tecmo Jon (8th seed) by a score of 3-2. It was the first time Skankhunt took home some hardware!

SNES Bracket

The opening round of the King bracket saw all upsets! Smozoma (11th Seed) defeated former world champion bobkudelski26 (6th seed) by scores of 5-4 and 6-5. Kidswasted(19th seed) took down Stantanator (7th) in another close battle 4-3 and 5-4. Halifax (9th seed) and Mooney (8th seed) had an epic battle. Halifax won a close one 3-2. Game 2 saw a 6-2 mooney lead evaporate in the third as Halifax came back to tie 6-6, but Mooney stayed calm the whole time, refocused won it in over time 7-6. Halifax managed to win game 3 after being down 3-2 and was able to pull off a late comeback and a final score of 5-3.

Balance was restored in round two. All the top 4 seeds swept their series. The Professor (1st seed) beat Halifax (9th seed) 4-1 and 5-4. Kingraph (4th seed) took down Annatar (5th seed) in a couple tight games, 1-0 and 6-5. Angryjay93 (2nd seed) also won by a narrow margin over kdiswasted(10thseed) 3-2, and 3-2. And last year’s runner up, McMarkis (3rd seed) won over smozoma (11th seed) 4-2 and 6-0.

The top four seeds would fittingly end up as the final four. AngryJay defeated Kingraph in the losers bracket semi 5-3 and then beat Mcmarkis 8-2 and 4-1 in the losers bracket final to move onto the Grand Final vs The Professor.

The winners side finalist (the Professor) starts with a 1-0 series lead in a best of 5. Overall a tight series as Theprofessor wins in 4 games. With 4-3, 3-6, 4-3 scores. He is the first back-to-back-to-back SNES world champion!

Pictured - The Professor (Toronto, ON) holding the King of 94 trophy.

Sunday, September 21, 2025

Group A had players that had come back after being away a few years from the tournament. Icestorm70 (5-1) returned since the first King of 94 when he finished tied for 5th. Sebeslip (5-1) returned from his last appearance in 2022 where he finished 3rd. What was remarkable was that both of their losses came from a new player from Pennsylvania, Sifty27 (2-4). Everyone in this group earned a win! NewJerseyKiller (4-2) lost his first two games 5-0 and 6-0 and things were looking grim to return to the King bracket but he rallied off 4 straight to qualify!

Group B featured newcomer NiuHuskie224 who had a great showing finishing 5-1 in his group. High expectations for Cash Money (5-1) as well from his run in 2024 and qualified for the King bracket. Chris O (4-2) returned after a one year hiatus to qualify as well. One big surprise was from Mcmarkis finishing 1-5 after placing 7th in 2024.

Group C was a group of 8, but as you only play 6 games you don’t play everyone in the group. No surprise that both Kingraph and Szpakman went 6-0. Kidswasted (4-2) and Matt D. (4-2) both qualified for the King of 94 bracket for the first time.

Group D also had four qualifiers, KGman (5-1), Chaos (5-1), TecmoJon (5-1) and JesusplaysNHL94 (4-2). Jesusplaysnhl94 returned after not attended since 2022.

Group E was interesting. While it was no surprise that Angryjay93 (6-0) and SOH (4-2) qualified for the king bracket, there was an expectation that one or two of Rigsby, Zepplin55 ad Mr.Tex would qualify along with them, but it was Len the Legend who came out of nowhere going 5-1 to make the King bracket. The previous year he played in the puke bracket, so it was a big jump for him to move up.

Group F was a tough group. Annatar (5-1), Kaze (5-1) and EA(4-2) all made it through, but everyone in the group had at least one win, and new comer Mike Eagles ruffled some feathers going 3-3 in his first appearance!

SEGA Round Robin -> Results

SEGA Genesis -> Stream

Lord of 94 "Auto Goalie" Tournament - > Results

The Lord of 94 only had two competitors this year. We placed them in the King of 94 round robin groups so they could play against a bunch of different other people and then played a best of 5 final. SnipesMcDangleson took the series 3 games to 1 over Super Mario 7.

Puke of 94 Bracket (players with 1 or less round robin wins) - > Results

The Puke of Bracket saw a few upsets along the way with the most notable being Richter(8th seed) beating Mr Tex(1stseed) in round 2, by a score of 3-2, sending Mr. Tex down to the loser bracket. Mr Tex would get his revenge later on winning 5-3 in the final 4. Halifax and McMarkis met in the winners bracket final. Halifax held a 5-4 lead and with just a few second left needed to get an icing and the game was over, but somehow McMarkis came out of no where with Mogilny, stole the puck and then smashed into the goalie and the puck tricked in with one second left to tie it. McMarkis would then go on to win in over time, 6-5. McMarkis would then go on to defeat Mr.Tex in the final 9-3.

Duke of 94 Bracket (players with 2 or 3 round robin wins) -> Results

The Duke of 94 bracket was well balanced in talent. 17 of the 28 games were two goal games or less, half of the games had the lower seed winning the game. It saw an amazing match between Thrillhouse (12th seed) and GoV (3rdseed) head to overtime after being tied 3-3. It was filled with a ton of crazy moments and near finishes. They played the full 10 minutes of overtime, that the game allows, and had to re-start the game. The played another 2 minutes before Thrillhouse won in double over time. We believe it’s the longest played game at the king of 94 tournament. Thrillhouse would have a great run overall, winning 6 straight games in the loser bracket to make it all the way to the final. His streak ended there as Philadelphia horsemen, joemullen07, beat Thrillhouse 5-3 to capture his second duke of 94 trophy in the last three years.

SEGA Bracket

You want upsets? We got upsets.

The opening round saw SOH (12) take down last year's third place finish Kaze (5) 7-3, 7-4. NewJerseyKiller (14) beat Tecmo Jon (3) 3-1, 5-4. Kingraph (15) beat CorbettKB (2) 6-1, 7-3. Szpakman (10) over smozoma (7) 3-1, 6-3.

Some notable runs:

Despite losing to Kingraph in round one, which is no shame to anyone who plays KingRaph, CorbettKB dropped down the lower bracket and won 4 straight to finish 4th overall.

Cash Money, one of the Philadelphia Horsmen, played in his first King of 94 and ended up as the 6th seed. He made it all the way to the winner's bracket semi final, while everyone else was taking note along the way. He lost to Szpakman in a tight series 3-4, 4-3, 7-5 and finished tied for 5th. In game two, he was a goal away from finishing top 3 (and the cash money)

Szpakman seeded 10th made it all the way to the winner's final before being swept by angryjay93 4-0, 6-0 and finished 3rd overall losing to scribe99 in the semi-final.

It was a rematch of last year's final between Angryjay93 and Scribe99. Angryjay had not lost a game all day and was in true dominant form. He had beat scribe99 6-0, 7-1 earlier on the winner's bracket side to send scribe99 down to the lower bracket. As always the winners bracket started off with a 1-0 series lead in the best of 5. Game 2, Angryjay93 continued his dominance with a 6-0 mercy rule win. Game Three, scribe99 put up a fight but ultimately could not avoid the sweep losing 2-1.

Angryjay93 has won back to back to back world titles and is now a 5-time world champion!

SEGA King of 94 -> Results

Pictured - Angryjay 93 (Sacremento, CA) holding the King of 94 trophy.

The Swedish Experience

This is a tournament re-cap post from one of Swedish competitors, Limpan via Instagram.

Note that below is google translated from Swedish to English, so there's some text that didn't transfer properly, but you'll get the gist of the great experience he had!

Back to reality again after the Atlantic trip and NHL 94 World Cup in Toronto, Canada. Extremely difficult competition with the best from the NHL 94 community with 1500 members in place. Paul and I were the first contestants ever outside of North America! We threw ourselves into the wasp nest against experienced online players, with good courage. Saturday focus on the SEGA version of NHL 94.

16 places of the barely 50 participants made it to the A-finals, to settle for the title. 5 of these places were already reserved to seeded players in group A who only played for which seeding place they would get the playoffs. These 5 guys had come in the top 5 in last year's tournament. Thus, there were 11 places to play about for the remaining groups. The groups moved on and the top two. Then there were two places left to play about. With 4 wins and 2 losses, I grabbed second place in group C, which was enough for a qualifying place for the A playoffs. 8 players made it up in qualifying for the last two places. I won my first qualifying match (which was also live-streamed, with nice support from home in the stream chat 🥰) to then fall on the goal line when I coded the second qualifying match. Just outside of the A-game, a little sour, but at the same time ok considering the resistance 😬😅👍

Still in "town", we had also registered for the Super Nintendo tournament on Sunday. Yes, the Sega and the Super Nintendo versions of the game differ significantly, so just because you are good at one doesn't mean you are good at the other. I have hardly played the Nintendo version, but once in front of the game, you want to win, of course. Therefore everything was a fun bonus and was pleasantly surprised that I did not become a punching bag but won 3 out of 6 games in the group stage, which was enough for the B finals. In the playoffs, I barked all the way to the B-finals, but there it stopped. But overall far above expectation!

A very fun trip and experience that ended with a fun and challenging tournament! Met many new nice acquaintances 🇨🇦🇺🇲. Also very fun to do this with @paulsellerholm 🤩

Also thanks to Henrik at @nostalgibutiken.com who sponsored our t-shirts 🇸🇪