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NHLGamers, Another EA SPORTS NHL season is upon us. With our most successful year yet behind us, you can be sure we aren’t resting on our laurels. Instead, we are kicking things up a notch. NHL 19 saw the number of 6vs6 and 1vs1 tournaments produced by us here at NHLGamer.com increase by a significant margin. For NHL 20 we will be working towards solidifying this expansion of ours, while at the same time offering even more ways to compete in NHL gaming. While this is certainly cause for optimism (not yet celebration), it is also a time for reflection. Gamers, we want you to get amped up for the coming season. Because we hope to make NHL 20 the best year yet for competitive virtual hockey. That said, the intent of this “letter from the commissioner” (as @The_Alpha_Furyan coined it) is not just to wax poetic about how great the upcoming year will be. It is also to advice any and all teams and players out there to prepare themselves accordingly for what is to come. For example, with the increasing number of 6vs6 tournaments that we have planned there is a chance that we will see leagues and tournaments overlapping. Some slightly, others considerably more. This isn’t necessarily by design as much as it is a consequence of our conscious efforts to have prize pools and live finals for most of the tournaments we produce. If you are one of those teams that take great pride in competing in as many tournaments as possible, prepare to enlist a deeper roster. Or prepare to set aside a lot of time for EASHL gaming. We are working to produce as many as 10 (or more!) 6vs6 leagues and tournaments in the NHL 20 “calendar year” here at NHLGamer.com. Before you choke on your beverage, be advised that some of these tournaments will have restrictions placed upon them – mostly based on nationality/location. The 6vs6 leagues will feature (but not be limited to) our established ecosystem of leagues: ECL (Europe - Q4 2019) NACL (North America - TBC) FCL (Finland - 2020) GCL (Germany - 2020) RCL (Russia - October 14th, 2019) SCL (Sweden - 2020) 
While we talk a lot about 6vs6 here and it continues to be something we are very passionate about, we will continue working with 1vs1 competition as before and work with opportunities in the 1vs1 space as well. Barring confirmation from partners and sponsors, we hope to be able to release the information on any upcoming seasons and events as soon as we can. There is certainly a lot on the table for the next 12 months and we couldn't be happier to share it with the community that we have all built together. Speaking of which, if you're asking yourself "What can I do to help?", here are a few suggestions: Join our staff and get involved with NHLGamer Whether you're a team or an individual NHL gamer, all the positive content you produce around the game helps us all grow. Using hashtags, such as #NHLGamer and remembering to tag us (i.e. @NHLGamerCOM on Twitter) when find it relevant helps the content get noticed. Follow and interact with our social media channels Facebook Instagram Twitter Follow us and watch our broadcasts on Twitch Ideas and suggestions? Always feel free to send me an email ([email protected]) or private message. (If you need support, though, you can find it here) See you all on the ice. 🏒🥅🚨 On behalf of NHLGamer Kenneth “KenuFHR” Lehtinen

NHLGamers, This article will be a deep dive into the details of the HUT Fantasy Hockey Event that runs from September 27th until October 11th. How do the cards work? The way that these cards work are similar to evolution cards that we have seen before in HUT. The Fantasy cards will upgrade throughout the season but only based on the following conditions: Skaters will upgrade when they score a goal during a NHL, SHL or Liiga game. Goalies will upgrade when they record a victory while in the lineup of their NHL, SHL or Liiga team. Each goal or victory award the player card with a +1 OVR upgrade. Also note that playoff and cup games will not contribute towards the upgrades of these cards. Sets/Hut challenges As always with a new event, there is a new batch of sets and also hut challenges. I’ll go through each of the sets and also take you through the solo challenges and give an evaluation if they are worth completing considering various factors. Sets The first set requires you to exchange 50 gold players for a Gold Collectible, this is a set I personally would recommend avoiding simply because you get a better value doing a similar Icon Collectible set. Icon Collectibles are currently valued at almost double of the Gold Collectible and the requirement for the sets are the same, I would rather go for the Icon set. The set I advise you to avoid at all costs requires you to give up six Gold Collectibles (adding up to 210,000 coins) for a 33% chance at any of these cards. More than likely you are paying over 200k coins for a base gold card when for that price you can have a shot at an 88 Teemu Selanne or Joe Sakic who would be a mainstay in your squads. I would also stay away from the next two sets, which require you to trade in either 16 Gold Collectibles for a 1 in 3 choice pack or 18 Gold Collectibles for an Ilya Kovalchuk master item. Ilya Kovalchuk has a very sleek card design with very nice synergies which are 1 point for 1T, 1 point for SP and 1 point for BM. 1T and SP are arguably the two most effective synergies in the game as they improve your whole team when activated. The downfall of this card is his price as mentioned. 18 collectibles add up to a total of 630,000 and in that same price range you could be looking at a Gretzky or Lemieux which are much better cards right now. Last season Kovalchuk scored 16 goals in the regular season which would make him a 96 OVR - that’s a great card without a doubt, but keep in mind this kind of production happens over the course of the season, so you’ll have to wait on your investment to reach its full potential. The best two sets to complete are the Fantasy Hockey Collectible set and the Fantasy Hockey Prospect set. You will earn a Gold Collectible from the Fantasy Hockey Collectible set, as you can earn these Fantasy Hockey Collectibles through solo challenges each weekday over the course of the event, this is a good way to stack up on Gold Collectibles. In the Prospect set you exchange a gold collectible for a Fantasy Hockey Prospect choice pack. Just keep in mind only NHL, SHL and Liiga goals or wins count towards the OVR boost, so stay sharp on who you’re picking. Solo challenges Apart from the collectible challenges there are 10 base challenges to complete from these you will earn 6 packs which are base packs and mini packs. If you have around 2 hours free to complete these i would recommend them because you will get 6 free packs and there is always the opportunity to pull top tier cards from these packs. If you are pressed for time i would stay away from these as the rewards aren't as great as you would get from doing competitive seasons game or squad battles games. Item lineup (projected overall for the season) Below you can find a list of current Fantasy Hockey items with their current overall and their projected final overall based on their performance last season. Master set Ilya Kovalchuk, RW - 80 OVR (96) Skaters Kris Letang, RD - 82 OVR (98) David Krejci, C - 77 OVR (97) Teuvo Teravainen, LW - 76 OVR (97) Ryan Johansen, C - 82 OVR (96) Shea Weber, RD - 78 OVR (92) Seth Jones, RD - 83 OVR (92) Ivan Barbashev, C - 77 OVR (91) Mikko Kousa, RD - 83 OVR (91) James Neal, RW - 79 OVR (86) Milan Lucic, LW - 79 OVR (85) Taylor Hall, LW - 72 (83) Goalies Jimmy Howard, G - 75 OVR (98) Prospects Skaters Henri Jokiharju, RD - 83 OVR (83) Alexander Nylander, RW - 79 OVR (82) Martin Necas, C - 79 OVR (80) Filip Zadina, RW - 79 OVR (80) Eeli Tolvanen, LW - 79 OVR (80) Goalies Cal Petersen, G - 76 OVR (87) Who to buy from the market? Kris Letang is the first card I would be looking at in the expensive section of this event, you can currently find him around the 250k mark on the market and I can see him having a successful season ending up in the high 90's eventually, which will boost his value by a whole bunch. A great card if you're willing to invest. Jimmy Howard is also a good pick up for around 250k. Last year he went on to amass 23 wins, which would put him at the 98 OVR mark and it's hard to see the wings not picking up at least 20 wins even though they are one of the less talented teams in the NHL as of now. As we head over to Europe and take a look at Mikko Kousa, I believe he is the sleeper card in this wave of Fantasy Hockey items. Last season he hit 8 goals which would take him to a 91 OVR, but in the seasons before he has hit highs of 12 goals, which would take him to a 95 OVR. For 150k you can not go wrong with this pick up also considering he starts at a 83 OVR so he will be able to slot in your squad right from when you pick him up. Cards to avoid Taylor Hall should be avoided, not because of his stats or potential but because of his price. If you can pick up this card for under 300k it will be a good investment but right now he is at 600k which is one of the more expensive cards in the game, he starts off as a 72 OVR so he will not be useful until he gets at least over 10 goals which is the downfall of this card. The only way this investment will work is if you are willing to wait, he will more than likely be playing with Jack Hughes, who has been on fire during preseason and this could push Hall to have a career high season. It is also his contract year so he will be looking to show the devils his true worth. Cal Petersen has already been sent down to the AHL which is a simple reason to avoid him, because he won't see NHL action to upgrade this card. The only way this card will reach its value would be if one of LA’s starters ended up injured and he got some game time, but we will have to wait and see if this card will come good. What will we see added next week? Next week EA will drop more fantasy cards (11 NHL players, 1 SHL player) and I can see a theme with these cards. Most of the cards are either starting out at a low overall or are for players who are either expected to be high risk/high reward picks or might not amass too many goals or wins. Also, it is notable that all defensemen in the first week are playing on the right side. It might just be a coincidence but some left defensemen should be included in the release for the second week. Here are some cards I could see being included in next weeks Fantasy Hockey release: Jack Hughes - New Jersey Devils Kaapo Kakko - New York Rangers Charlie Mcavoy - Boston Bruins Auston Matthews - Toronto Maple Leafs Corey Perry - Dallas Stars Cam Fowler - Anaheim Ducks Oskari Laaksonen - Tampereen IIves Niko Ojamaki - Tampereen Tappara Oscar Moller - Skelleftea AIK Linus Hultstrom - Djurgardens IF David Rittich - Calgary Flames That'll be it for this time, I'm enjoying the idea of Fantasy Hockey very much. It's kind of bringing dynamic ratings to HUT, but not quite. Which card do you think will be the best value? What do you think about this event? Give us your thoughts in the comments!

NHLGamers, The yearly time has come where we announce a recruitment round. As you know, our operations have always been ran with a fairly small crew, but it's a fact that we are growing faster than ever and the future holds several interesting projects. This is certainly a great time to be a part of this community, but another harsh fact is that nothing could be accomplished without hardworking staff. In order to ensure and maintain a high production quality and tackle all these new projects, we reach out to you in order to ask for help. We are recruiting staff for several different positions and are looking for new staff members to work both with our European and North American leagues and tournaments. You will find a list of open positions below: DIVISION LEAD As division lead you are in charge of running the day-to-day operations of your assigned division together with your assigned division assistants. This entails making sure the schedule is being followed and games are reported accordingly, fixing possible errors and communicating with teams in order to solve possible conflicts or escalating the issue to League Administration if required. DIVISION ASSISTANT As division assistant you are helping out with the daily tasks of operating your assigned division. This entails making sure the schedule is being followed and games are reported accordingly, fixing possible errors and communicating with teams in order to solve possible conflicts or escalating the issue to League Administration if required. You report to the division lead. GRAPHIC DESIGNER As a graphic designer you'll be working in tight co-operation with the other staff and will assist in various types of content creation. Examples of content include (but are not limited to) stream artwork, images for news stories or even animations or pictures for social media. We're hoping that you have some previous experience in image editing and have a small portfolio to showcase in your application. You will also need to have access to software required for completion of your tasks. VIDEO EDITOR/CONTENT CREATOR We know there's a great deal of talent out there among you gamers! We are looking to take our content creation to the next level by generating more video content in addition to the traditional stuff that we have been doing. You will be free to pitch ideas of what you want to create and will be working together with our streaming crew and other content creators in order to figure out what type of content to push out. As a video editor you know a thing or two about video and audio quality and putting together a video using tools such as Adobe Premiere or Final Cut Pro X. You don't have to be a professional, but we would like to see some of your previous work in your application. WRITER/INSIDER You are responsible for producing content as discussed with the editor-in-chief. You are expected to be able to produce coherent text in English by yourself, but your content doesn't necessarily have to be perfect, as it goes through your editor-in-chief before publication. We hope that you have an interest to investigate and dig deep for those juicy stories. Knowledge about players and leagues will come in handy, but is not mandatory. Please send in any articles you might have written previously as a reference. Feel free to sweep us off our feet with your application, in case you don't have previous journalistic references to send in. BROADCASTERS As a broadcaster you will have a very visible role on our Twitch channel.Your tasks will include commentating on matchups that are being streamed and engaging with the chat while doing so. We also hope that you'll have new creative ideas to bring to the table as we're constantly looking to improve out content production. We hope that you have some experience in using Twitch and Discord. Streaming experience is beneficial too. We are mainly looking for English speaking broadcasters, but are also interested in learning about Finnish and Swedish broadcasters, so don't hesitate to let us know if that is the case. For the English broadcasting, we expect you to have a good spoken English and some knowledge about the league and it's players. However, let's not forget the most important trait we value: enthusiasm. As an NHLGamer Staff member, you will have a lot on your plate and we expect a certain level of work ethic, but in return you are provided with an interesting opportunity to enter the esports industry and develop your skills in a supportive environment. Several of our long-time members have made great improvements and taken steps towards a career in esports. The positions are unpaid at this time, but offer an opportunity gain valuable experience and a network of colleagues. Contact Please send your application as an email to [email protected]. Please attach an introduction, your resume and a portfolio if you have one.