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Hi there NHLGamers, We come bearing sad news to you, as EA Sports has today announced that the Challenge Club-function will not be present at launch in NHL 19. Don't panic just yet, though! The devs also made sure to let us know that this feature will be available again in the first patch early October. Why? The all new World of Chel required a rewrite of the old dressing room function EA had. World of Chel has a bunch of new features, such as the outdoor ones and rollover lobbies, which have certain requirements for the dressing room function. The previous Club Challenge dressing room was very restrictive tech-wise and didn't allow for much improvements. This restrictive structure didn't align with the vision EA has for EASHL, as they are now building a new dressing room function to allow maximum control for the player when setting up games with friends. What? In NHL 19, a new dressing room function will be implemented. When patched into the game, you will be able to select between a few game types in the dressing room. For what we know as Challenge Club, choose "Private Game". You will have to select a password for your game, after which a protected lobby will be created. All invited players will now be able to join the lobby using your password. This is how EA describes the process: When you are in the Dressing Room, go to Matchmaking Settings. Set “Game Type” to “Private Game.” Create an alphanumeric password between 4 and 10 characters. Make it unique enough so only you and your friends and opponents will know it. You will then be able to select your side. You can choose between Any, Home, and Away. Ready up. From here, you will match up directly with other players that entered same password that you used. This new dressing room will provide more control to the player in setting up games. We'll also see the highly requested option for club challenges in EASHL 3's and also the option to randomize teams. When the dressing room is patched in, there will also be a number of more features to it, these will be announced closer to the patch date. When? You can expect the patch to be out early October. Assuming that this goes as planned, this will have no impact on the start of the ECL 7 season.

Hey NHLGamers, On Friday I had the privilege to attend the NHL 19 press event in Helsinki and talk with lead producer Sean "Rammer" Ramjagsingh about the game. A couple weeks ago we asked you to send us your questions for the NHL developers and once again the community delivered! We had a bunch of messages on the forums, Twitter and Facebook and while I didn't get the chance to ask all of them, I'm positive that we got most of them covered. The event itself was very well organized and this time around EA had set up plenty of game units connected to the internet, so even the most serious gamers could play head to head without the disadvantage of playing down-screen. NHL Gaming World Championship 2018 winner Erik "@Eki" Tammenpää, who recently joined Sampi, was a very wanted guy for the press at this event and he was giving interviews left and right throughout the day. I also had the pleasure of playing my only game of NHL 19 against him and an exciting game it was! There were quite an amount of familiar faces at the event and you should be able to find at least @Dominointi, @Eki, @Hansulinho @MakezCR @Nieppii & @PleeMaker in this video. It was a pleasure to meet the guys, as always! « Huge thanks to all of the NHLGamer community out there for all your beta feedback! » -EA Sports NHL producer Sean Ramjagsingh extending a thanks to our community Rammer and the dev team was very pleased to see that our community had sent us loads of questions, we were even able to provide some ideas they haven't thought of previously. The producer and the whole team wanted to extend a thanks to all of you. « As the community knows, EASHL in my opinion is one of the greatest experiences we have in the game. By building out the World of Chel and the multiple different experiences, I feel like we can lower the barrier of entry into the EASHL ecosystem which is only going to make the competition better. » – Rammer on the development of World of Chel and EASHL We were very pleased to hear that the thought behind World of Chel wasn't just to bring out an enjoyable game-mode, but also to lower the barrier for new players to enter and experience the fun of EASHL. Hopefully we'll see a growth in the player base of EASHL and get even more skilled players into our community. « I think being able to practice is a big part of the learning curve in EASHL from a team-play perspective. This year we made a big decision to try and build out the experience around EASHL with the World of Chel. We think it’ll be an important tool for us to bring newbies and more people into the competitive EASHL scene. » – Rammer on Practice mode in EASHL Without further ado, check out the video below! What do you think? Did you like what you heard? Something we missed? Let us know in the comments.

Hi there NHLGamers, As you might have heard by now, our very own @Eki and @Artuzio have signed new contracts with an esports organisation called Sampi. I had the chance to have a discussion with both guys regarding their new contracts and how all of this went down. Most of you might have noted that Eki was already signed to Helsinki Reds, so this is a transfer for him. Artuzio, however is now signing his first ever pro contract. NHLGamer congratulates both! Team Sampi is most likely a very unfamiliar name to all of you, not simply because of the fact that is isn't a big organisation, but it wasn't officially founded until September 1st 2018. The founder of the franchise is professional football player Jakub Jankto, who currently represents Sampdoria in the Italian Serie A. "Jakub contacted me a few weeks ago and told me about his plans of launching an esports franchise. He mentioned that he used to compete in EA Sports FIFA some years ago, but financial restrictions came in the way. I think he even won a Czech championship in 2012. Jakub also got the chance to pursue a professional football career. He has a desire to help young gamers achieve their goals without restrictions.", says Eki about how the contract talks with Team Sampi begun. Artuzio says that in addition to NHL, the organisation has players competing in FIFA and Rocket league. competitive NHL will be one of the main focuses of the organisation. « Team Sampi made me an offer I couldn't refuse » -Artuzio on signing with Team Sampi I asked Artuzio about how he feels about his new organisation: "After the European Qualifiers of the NHLGWC I started receiving offers quite consistently, but I didn't want to rush it. Team Sampi made me an offer I couldn't refuse, so I'm very excited to represent them and start making a name for my new team!" What will your roles be representing the new organisation? "The organisation is so new right now, so I'm not completely sure what my role will be, but the main objective of Team Sampi is to support us players and provide the possibilities for us to compete at the very top.", said Eki. Both Eki and Artuzio will be focusing most on attending various tournaments and competitive play, they will be streaming occasionally but it isn't a requirement of the organisation. As this is now a transfer situation for Eki, I wanted to go a bit into the reasons behind the transfer and what he had to say about his former organisation Helsinki Reds. "Team Sampi offered me a contract I couldn't refuse. I have nothing bad to say about Reds, it was a good time. I learned a lot about the esports business and got to participate in all kinds of events thanks to them. It was a completely new thing for me. As Helsinki Reds was so close by, they were very involved in my gaming, creating stream graphics and hosting events. Team Sampi will be different in the sense that they merely aim to support their players and stay in the background. As of now there are no plans on hosting events or such. We will simply focus on winning and gaming." A piece of advice from the champion - Eki, as you now have some experience in the scene and have signed your second contract, what kind of tips would you give to gamers out there waiting to get their shot and sign a deal? "Once you have some success, you might get be getting several offers. I'd suggest staying patient and not just signing any deal. I've heard of players with really bad deals, so be careful and don't just sign a deal for the sake of representing an organisation." "Vegas didn't go as planned and I feel I am better than that, so I'll be looking to attend as many tournaments as possible and gain a lot of success in NHL 19. Versus is my main focus due to my contract, but I'll be looking to compete in some 6v6 action too!", states Artuzio after being asked about his ambitions for the new iteration of NHL. Eki's Car situation - I recall you saying you'll be buying a car if you win the NHLGWC, what kind of car stands in your driveway? I asked Eki. "I didn't get a car, says Eki with a laugh. I received the money a few weeks ago and decided to save it. It was the smart thing to do." Not only an unbelievably skilled gamer and new found the poster boy for the EA Sports NHL series but a responsible young adult too, who would've known? Huge thanks to both Eki and Artuzio for taking the time to have a chat with me. On behalf of the community, I wish both luck in their upcoming competitions. We're excited to see what the future brings!