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NHLGamers, Another day, another story! It is with great pleasure we continue welcoming new professional sports organisations into our growing community. This time we have the honour of announcing that the roster of Northern Ascendancy will from now on be representing Luleå Hockey. The team is a combination of the former Northern Stars and Northern Ascendancy, where a multinational core of players combine talent, skill and experience for a lethal force on the ice. "It's an interesting initiative to grow the sport and increase interest in the youth community and that's why we've decided to venture into NHL esports. We're going into this with an open mind and have now acquired a roster that will represent Luleå Hockey going forward." - Stefan Enbom, CEO of Luleå Hockey "Playing under the Luleå banner generated a great amount of interest and we're very happy with our decision to recruit the guys we have for our team. It's a group of experienced players who have played together for several years and have top 4 finishes in both the ECL and SCL under their belt. We're moving fast in traditional hockey and we aim to do the same in esports. ECL Elite starts this week and our team takes on the challenge of competing for the best European team in hockey esports." - Andreas @AntzLhf Joanson, Sporting director at Luleå Hockey For some comments about the team, we caught up with skilled defenseman and assistant captain Hampus @The_Alpha_Furyan Duvefelt: What was it with Luleå Hockey that made you want to sign with them? Well, first of all it’s a classic Swedish hockey team. Luleå might not have 100+ years of history, but in the 42 years they’ve been around they’ve played in the top Swedish league for most of that time. What made us keen to represent Luleå though was their incredible enthusiasm when it came to the world of NHL esports. Not to mention their exciting vision for the future. Having someone like Andreas @AntzLhf – who is familiar with EASHL and NHLGamer – leading this venture on Luleås part gave us a lot of trust that they would “get it right”, which was important to us. We had a few other offers, but Andreas consistently made sure to let us know the clubs plans moving forward and how much they specifically wanted to bring us onboard and in the end, that was one of the deciding factors. What will set Luleå apart from the competition going forward? Off-ice, I think the dedication and commitment from Luleå Hockey to developing their esports section will be as good as any organization in the NHLGamer scene. We feel confident we will have everything we need to be able to perform our best in EASHL competition. On-ice, we’ll continue to rely on our usual quick offense and creative passing game we’ve been using for the past couple of tournaments. When its off its off… but when it’s on, it can hopefully wreak some have havoc for our opponents. What are your thoughts in general on several traditional hockey organisations recruiting esports rosters? What do you see as the potential benefits? Well, I know I speak for everyone when I say its an amazing and inspiring thing. To actually put pen on paper and sign a contract to play the game you’ve played for years and years, since you were a kid, just feels tremendous. Unreal, almost. The benefits for the scene are hard to put into words. It means everything to have esports organizations like HAVU and sports organizations like DEG, ZSC Lions, Växjö Lakers, Färjestad BK and now Luleå Hockey join our community and show that faith in us that this can continue to grow and evolve. For the teams themselves, it's probably exciting to open up a new way of communicating with fans and to perhaps one day play in a league against each other – capitalizing on the already existing rivalries. For example, we look forward to playing Färjestad where you’ll have both the rivalry of Northern Ascendancy vs. Bucketeers, but also Luleå vs. Färjestad. NHLGamer extends a warm thank you to Hampus and wishes good luck in their debut season wearing the Luleå colors. Follow Luleå Hockey Esport on their Twitter and Twitch channels for all the updates you might want on the team! Luleå Hockey Luleå Hockey hails from the city of Luleå in Northern Sweden. Having been founded in 1977 makes the club rather young, but despite that they have had some success in the form of one national championship, one European Trophy and their most recent trophy - a CHL victory in 2015. Luleå Hockey has been the incubator for highlight reel talent like Linus Omark and journeyman goaltender Anders Nilsson to name a few.

NHLGamers, The season of competitive NHL is well underway, but we’re just starting to ramp up the heat with the ECL kicking off and more good things in our near future. The skill and hard work in this community does not go unnoticed as all of us together act as the driving forces for the sport that we love. With that being said, it’s an honour to have the opportunity to present the newest organisation entering competitive NHL - Färjestad BK! Färjestad BK is one of the most successful Swedish hockey clubs and therefore it is only right that they would acquire a prestigious virtual counterpart as they will be represented by the former Bucketeers. The team was formed in 2016 and has been playing together in some capacity ever since. ECL 5 was their first outing at NHLGamer and after one season of getting acquainted, they quickly paved their way to Elite competition in consecutive seasons from ECL 6 to ECL 8. The teams strongest competitive showing so far was the first SCL season in the spring of 2019, when they placed 3rd after going undefeated through the group stage. Stefan Larsson, CEO of Färjestad BK comments as follows: “Of course, this is an interesting investment that we are getting into. The esports is growing globally and is already established in many other sports such as basketball and football. We are inspired by the opportunity to step into a relatively unknown but potentially large market, where we hope and believe in strong synergies going forward.” What is the long-term goal of FBK in esports? “It is still too early to say what the long-term goal may include, but I see it as we now have an opportunity to broaden the Färjestad BK brand by reaching people we may not have previously been able to reach. This creates a potential platform for us to grow in the future, even in a digital world.” - Stefan Larsson, CEO of Färjestad BK We also got in touch with team captain Filip @Obagol Feldt for some comments about their team and what’s in the horizon for them: What will your squad look like the upcoming season? How have you improved your game? There have been a couple of changes in the squad quite recently. Our long-time captain @Dercie has unfortunately decided to step down and take a break from NHL. We have also lost our left defender Daniel @Demski13 Gadd who is a part of another interesting project. We have therefore had to replace two top players and really nice persons and we have found excellent replacements in Mattias @Tacterz Hjelm (LW) and Atte @Aze Turtiainen (LD). Bucketeers is mostly known as a compact and defensive minded team. We know that we can always rely on that part. We have most recently focused on improving our pressure and our offense and we strongly believe that Tacterz together with Robin @Rubituss Söderqvist, Christoffer @I-Maise-I Berntsson and Matti @SelanneFIN Makkonen will form an offensive force to be reckoned with. We are very happy with the squad we have registered for ECL. We enter the ECL with a squad consisting of four forwards, four defenders and two goalkeepers. Our offensive lineup looks really interesting and we believe we have a lot of experience and stability on the defensive side as well with Finnish defender l-Aze-l bringing a lot to the table. We also have reliable defenders in long-term team members Johan @Jerkix Eriksson and Pontus @Terasniska Teräsniska. Another interesting recruit is Anton @pajenc Carlsson who not only is a useful addition on the back end but he can play on any position and is a useful asset to any team. We have also recruited an exciting goalkeeper in Pascal @Waern26 Waern who is not yet especially known on the ECL stage. It will be interesting to follow his journey and continuous development. He will be in charge of guarding the net together with myself. What does it mean for your players to represent a big and well-known organization such as Färjestad BK? It feels like the NHL esports is growing rapidly and we are very proud and happy to become a part of Färjestad BK as they are now entering the esports scene. We have a very close cooperation and we believe that Färjestad can help us develop and take our game to the next level. Färjestad always strives to become the best at everything they do and that is very inspiring to us. I think it is safe to say we have never been more excited about the future! Do you have any relations to Färjestad within the team? As of right now we have a couple of guys with a close relationship to the team and to the city. Jerkix, Tacterz and our newest recruit Waernn_ are all big supporters of the team. Färjestad BK plays in a city called Karlstad and since Rubituss most likely will move here we will have three players in the city in the near future (Tacterz and Jerkix already live in Karlstad). That helps us a lot in the day-to-day contact and it is of course something of a dream come true for our players who have been long-time supporters of the team to also represent them in the esports scene. What are your goals as a club in the near future? We will strive to become the best team in Sweden and in Europe. It is a long and tough journey to get to that point, but we are more than ready to put in the work that is required to get us there. We feel like we have improved much since our third place in the SCL in spring and want to keep improving in every game and every season. Färjestad BK has high ambitions just like us and it will be super exciting to find out what we can achieve together. Let’s get this started! Thanks for a great interview and extensive answers to Obagol. Good luck with the upcoming season to the team! FBK’s ECL season kicks off Wednesday - stay tuned for more announcements regarding that. You can follow the team on their social media channels over at Twitter, YouTube and Twitch. Färjestad BK FBK is one of the absolute Elite organisations in Sweden. The team hails from Karlstad in central Sweden and managed playoffs for 20 years straight between the seasons of 94-95 and 13-14. Färjestad is also one of the most economically prevalent clubs in Sweden, showcasing their excellent management alongside strong performances on the ice.

NHLGamers, Even though there were three sweeps, the IS Cup 4 playoff-quarterfinals provided us some exciting one goal and overtime games. This time around, two of the four lower seeded teams made it to the next stage, documenting the parity atop the European scene. AND: The four remaining teams have paved their way all the way to the live event at GameXpo next weekend! The GameXpo event is held at Messukeskus in Helsinki, Finland between 15.-17.11.2019. The event includes all kinds of gaming an esports with the IS Cup 4 final event being one of the big tournaments. Head over to the GameXpo 2019 website for more info and tickets. Please note that the schedule for the IS Cup 4 playoffs is as follows: Round 1: 28.10 - 30.10 Round 2: 31.10 - 3.11 Quarterfinals: 4.11 - 6.11 Semifinals & Finals @ GameXpo: 15-16.11 Here are the matchups for the quarterfinals: (1) HAVU Gaming vs. Butterfly Effect (6) (2) Delusion vs. FILADELPHIA (5) We reached out to a player from each finalist team for some comments about how they feel going into the final weekend: @willekunq (Defenseman for HAVU Gaming): "I expect tight games. It's nice to see everyone again and just have fun!“ @jergelii (Center for Butterfly Effect): "HAVU is a very familiar team for us, there´s basically no tournament without this matchup in the semifinals. So I´m expecting tight games. I think we will see a low-scoring series and tight defensive battles in both ends." @ICappeI (Goaltender for Delusion): "I expect a tough matchup. We're facing an experienced team with players that have a winning mentality. I've played Eki in the last two live events I've been at and it will be important for us to shut him down. I have confidence in my team and we'll do everything we can to beat them. This time I want to leave Finland as a winner!" @Eki (Forward for FILADELPHIA): "We know what to expect from Delusion. They have four players from the old Symphony team we beat in the FCL semifinal. And of course, Janzuh who played for us for many seasons and with some of us for years. We will have to play well to beat them, but I'm always confident in my team, especially on LAN." We would like to wish all of the teams good luck for the live event! Feel free to let us know your predictions in the comments!