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I_Eki_I is the winner of the 2018 NHL Gaming World Championship and $50 000 (twitch.tv/nhl) Our very own @Eki has won the first ever NHL Gaming World Championship! Eki, who was unbeaten through the European qualifiers and the European regional finals, showed that he really is the best 1vs1 NHL 18 player in the world at the moment, as he beat every single one of his opponents in the World Finals in Las Vegas. In the finals he met JrPens91 and he won the best-of-3 series 2-0 with the scores of 2-1 and 7-3. Huge congratulations to Eki and coach @plee999 for the success in the tournament. Also congratulations to @Artuzio for his great effort of making it into the top 6. A longer article will be published later. The results of the group stage in the World Finals (twitch.tv/nhl) The final results of the tournament (twitch.tv/nhl)

Hi there NHLGamers, Welcome to another edition of "Who's Hot and Who's Not". A format first introduced during the very first ECL Summer Cup, the "Hot or Not"-column was a source of much emotion and debate during its first tour of duty... so naturally it’s been making a comeback every now and then! For this Summer Cup, we’re hoping to make this a weekly thing, reviewing the performance of players and building our knowledge week by week. I’ll be kicking off by highlighting some first week performances, but hopefully I’ll get some other writers in on the fun as we go along. Let’s get to it: Who's Hot Forward - @Eki The fresh NHL Gaming World Champion has also went on a complete rampage in the Summer Cup, totalling 33 points in only six games, resulting in an average of 5,5 points per game. Seems so easy, right? This young man is surely taking the virtual hockey world by storm and is on his way to becoming the wonderkid of the scene. Runner-up - @Joukki NG Puck Nation has found a great one-two punch in Joukki and team captain Hazard-Laser, who have lead the second-highest scoring team in the whole league to a 7-3-0 record starting off the group stage. Currently, Joukki places first in both total points and goals scored. Defenseman - @vatalisti The Eki-vatalisti combo is one of the deadliest weapons in the Summer Cup. We even saw it in action as the duo pulled off one beauty of a breakout play straight from the pelimies80 playbook. This power duo is fine tuning their play that we’ll have the privilege to watch next season as FILADELPHIA plays their first Elite season. Goalie - @Caazual (AcED719) AcED719 has managed to go undefeated through the eight first games of the season, letting in less than a goal per game and amassing five shutouts in the process. He's faced only 7 shots per game on average, so he surely is showing up big the times he is needed. We'll be expecting the great efforts to continue! Runner-up - @JanneK. (JANURI98) Going 9-0-1 in the first ten games isn't an easy feat. Januri has a solid team in front of him but that doesn't take away from the credit of sporting amazing stats in every category. Who's Not Forward - @pajenc The ECL Pro champion was the first round pick of NG Mousetrap and big things are expected of him, as he is paired with his ECL teammate @Tacterz flanking him to the left. However, the Summer Cup hasn't started too well for Pajen so far, as he is -9 in eight games, with a total of 7 points on the board. Defenseman - @Bleiki (Bleiki81) Bleiki has been an all-rounder for NG We Dem Boyz so far, with four out of six games played on defense. He's managed to put up a decent 1+3=4, but a -21 will not do for a defenseman. We'll be hoping for improvement from this guy! Goalie - @Camora The captain and goalie of NG Thunder hasn't quite got the start he wanted. Going 1-0-7 thru eight games won't do wonders for your team and a GAA of 4.00 isn't too flattering either. There is still time to bounce back, so let's hope Camora does just that. This listing is rather stat-based and the views expressed are also based very much on the leaderboards. We're hoping to get a better grasp of each team as the tournament goes on and hopefully we can evaluate our players even better next week. For the ones mentioned in our Hot listing - keep up the good work and you might see yourself there again next week! For the ones on the Not list - don't let this push you down, take it with a grain of salt and keep chipping away at it. The only way to improve is by going on and practicing.

The two European players to make it into the World Finals: I_Eki_I and Artuzio, being interviewed by Andrea Helfrich (twitch.tv/NHL) Hey NHLGamers, Tonight is the night when the NHL will be crowning the first ever champion of the NHL World Gaming Championship and in addition to the ultimate bragging rights, that person will be walking away $50 000 (roughly 43 000 €) richer! Not too shabby, eh? Our very own community members Arttu "@Artuzio" Mustila and Erik "@Eki" Tammenpää are representing Europe, after coming out on top in the European Regional Finals. In case you didn't see the behind the scenes footage and the interviews with the gentlemen after securing their spots in vegas, you can check out the video below: The six players playing in the 2018 Gaming World Championship Finals are Finnish players Erik ”I_Eki_I” Tammenpää and Arttu "Artuzio" Mustila, Canadians Nicola ”FoolX90” Bruna and Matthew ”YungGren” Grenier, and John Wayne ”JohnWaynee90” Casagranda and David ”JrPens91” Roebuck from the USA. The majority of people seem to have the opinion that the Canadians or Finns will come out on top of this, while the two representatives from the USA are expected to finish 5th and 6th. And when we say the majority of people, we're of course referring to Twitter predictions. Most of the predictions put I_Eki_I, YungGren or Foolx90 on top. Predictions are only predictions, though, and whoever plays the best will come out on top at the end of the finals and we certainly can't wait to watch this thrilling display of talent tonight. The six finalists competing for the $50 000 main prize (picture credit: nhl.com/fans/gaming) The NHLGWC Finals will start tonight at 22:00 CEST and while we don't know the exact details of the schedule, we know that all players will face each other once and based on these games, the top two players will face each other in a best-of-3 final. That should provide us with plenty of exciting gameplay and what we assume will be a long stream of NHL Gaming action. Read more about the NHLGWC competitors elsewhere: NHL.com interview with all of the finalists Ilta-Sanomat interview with I_Eki_I (Finnish) Ilta-Sanomat interview with Artuzio (Finnish) The stakes for the games played are high - there's a lot of money on the line! (twitch.tv/NHL) While we are generally speaking very unbiased here at NHLGamer, we would like to wish the best of luck to our community members @Artuzio and @Eki! Get that championship guys! Let us know your predictions in the comments below! PS: We're pretty sure @plee999, coaching I_Eki_I, is the best dressed coach at the event Be sure to check out the finals embedded below or by visiting the official NHL Twitch page today, Tuesday June 19th, tarting at 22:00 CEST: