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NHLGamers, Welcome to the tenth iteration of the European Championship League! It is with great pleasure we are once again able to open the registrations for the longest running and most prestigious competitive NHL league in Europe. The best players and the best teams gather to battle for the title that's long been reigned between the current champion Linköping HC and HAVU Gaming. There have been challengers before, but the rumour has it that this season we'll see something special with a great uprising of new talent in our community. The pinnacle of NHL gaming - our Elite division is running as smooth as ever and interestingly enough has received an influx of new teams through relegation matchups and will most likely also see an Elite Qualification Series. The Pro and Lite divisions are extremely well established too, and competition is ramping up through the introduction of ECL Neo that was done last season. The divisions framework will roll on in the same fashion and teams will further solidify their position at a suitable level of play. If you don't know what we're on about by now, here's a briefing of what ECL is; ECL is a competitive EA Sports NHL League. Games are played in the EASHL game mode in a 6vs6 manner. Since ECL 4, we have implemented a division framework with Lite (and now also Neo) being entry-level, Pro being our mid-level and Elite holding the best 16 teams in Europe. A season in each division consists of a group stage/regular season and playoffs. Here is the planned divisions' structure for ECL 10: ECL Elite: 16 teams Sign up: ECL Elite eligible teams Gamedays: Monday, Wednesday & Thursday Regular season: One group Playoffs: 8 teams Best-of-7 7 days per round ECL Pro: 32 teams Sign up: ECL Pro eligible teams Gamedays: Monday, Tuesday & Thursday Regular season: Two groups Playoffs: 16 teams Best-of-7 8 days per round ECL Lite: 64 teams Sign up: Anyone can apply for ECL Lite Teams will be decided by Franchise history, Roster composition, and EASHL record ECL Lite registrants are also allowed to apply for a spot in ECL Pro Teams signing up for ECL Lite that don't make it into ECL Pro or ECL Lite will be automatically placed in ECL Neo Gamedays: Tuesday, Wednesday & Sunday Regular season: Four groups Playoffs: 32 teams Best-of-7 8 days per round ECL Neo: 32+ teams Sign up: Without restrictions Gamedays: Wednesday & Sunday Regular season: Four groups Playoffs: 16 teams Best-of-5 7 days per round Basic information/requirements of ECL: Regional restrictions: ECL is a European tournament format, however, we do not necessarily exclude North American or Russian players. North American players are not allowed to host matches / be captain in the lineup, which means all games need to take place on European servers. This also applies to Russian players - please evaluate your previous connection experience against some of the teams participating in the ECL, especially if you live in eastern parts of your country (which likely connects you to US West servers). In case of severe connection issues, we reserve the right to exclude teams or players. 6v6 tournament: ECL is played 6 vs. 6 only, using the EASHL Challenge Club game mode in NHL 20. Individual requirements: Each player needs to have an account at NHLGamer.com and create their personal player card. Roster requirements: Teams in ECL Elite need to have at least 7 players to sign up. Teams in ECL Pro, ECL Lite and ECL Neo need to have at least 8 players to sign up. The roster cap is 14 players. ECL Elite license: Teams in ECL Elite will be required to pay for an ECL Elite license in order to play (more details to follow). Rules: The ECL 10 ruleset will follow the same foundation as in season 9. Broadcasts ECL 10 Elite will be regularly broadcasted on the NHLGamer Twitch channel. Broadcasts will feature our favorite casters @Tougie24 and @Cyn, but also other familiar faces throughout the season. Be sure to follow our channel at twitch.tv/NHLGamer. ECL Elite Finals and prize pool The ECL Elite Finals information and prize pool will be confirmed close to season start. NHLGamer will continue to follow the COVID-19 situation and regulations and talk to the teams before making final decisions on how the ECL Elite finals will be played. When? ECL Elite is planned to kick off first, while the other divisions will have some more time to sign up for this season: ECL 10 Elite will kick off on Monday, 6th of April, signups end on Thursday 19th of March 23:59 CET ECL 10 Pro will kick off on Monday, 6th of April, signups end on Thursday 2nd of April 23:59 CET Pro teams that play for potentially open Elite spots will need to be signed up by Thursday 19th of March. ECL 10 Lite will kick off on Tuesday, 7th of April, signups end on Thursday 2nd of April 23:59 CET ECL 10 Neo will kick off on Wednesday, 8th of April, signups end Thursday on 2nd of April 23:59 CET Elite Qualification Series If all 16 Elite teams don't sign up for the ECL 10 season, we will have an Elite Qualification Series among the teams that are qualified to take part. In this case the teams eligible for a possible Elite Qualification Series are: TIKI TALK (Elite Relegate #13) Almost Famous (Elite Relegate #14) BRAYCE Phantoms(Elite Relegate #15) Leksands IF (Elite Relegate #16) Vaxjo Lakers (Pro Quarterfinalist #5) Reality Check (Pro Quarterfinalis #6) Kaupallinen Yhteistyo (Pro Quarterfinalis #7) Black Horse (Pro Quarterfinalis #8) The Elite Qualification Series exact format will be determined based on the available spots and the teams that want to play for the spot in Elite, but the dates for the games are 22nd-26th of March, with potential gamedays on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday in order to ensure a fair competition for the spot. More details will be given to the eligible teams on Friday, March 20th. Where to sign up? Sign up for ECL 10 Elite here Sign up for ECL 10 Pro here Sign up for ECL 10 Lite here Sign up for ECL 10 Neo here Please note: If you are currently in negotiations with an organization and have plans to change your team name, but are uncertain if you will make it until the start of the season, please contact @Kenu with this information as soon as possible. If you are a free agent looking to be picked up, please head over here. If you are representing a team looking for players, please head over here. Support While it's totally ok to ask for help on Discord and you might get a quicker reply from fellow community members to some of the simpler questions, when you actually want to get help with an issue from our staff, please contact support. While sending PM's to staff members may be tempting, using our ticketing system is the best way to go. Discord You can join the NHLGamer Discord server by clicking here. In the NHLGamer Discord, add the appropriate ECL role as well as the role for your team to help with league communication. This can be done in the #role-commands-entry channel (see #role-commands-guide for instructions). What can I do to help out? If you feel like you want to do more for the project, head over to this article for some examples of what sort of staff we are looking for and where to get in touch. As for the small things everyone can do, follow our different channels and spread the positive word of our community and your fellow players and teams - together we can make a difference! NHLGamer on Facebook NHLGamer on Twitch NHLGamer on Instagram NHLGamer on Twitter NHLGamer on Discord Hopefully, that covers most of the questions you might have. Without further ado: Welcome to the ECL! Finally, a short word about COVID-19 As mentioned above, we will continue to monitor the situation with COVID-19 (also known as the coronavirus) when determining whether or not to have a live on-location element to the ECL 10 Elite season or not. We at NHLGamer love to get together with the community and celebrate the game and the players, but we must also be responsible in stopping the spread of the virus. We will communicate with the Elite teams internally about this before the start of the season. In addition to the considerations of a live event, we must of course keep the health and safety of our community in mind and reserve the right to pause or cancel the season, in addition to altering the details of it. If you've somehow managed to miss what the COVID-19 is all about and what actions you should take, we definitely recommend you read about it. UPDATE: We have made the call to postpone the start of ECL 10 Elite by one week, until Wednesday the 8th of April. There are several underlying reasons and without going into great detail we want to ensure the best quality output possible.

Welcome to the North American Championship League! The league will feature some of the best 6v6 teams in North America, hence the very accurate league name. This season of NACL has a $4,000 prize pool and featured an individual team buy-in of $200 USD. Before starting it’s important to give some information on the current structure of the league. There are 15 teams participating in this season, and each week we’ll be publishing a power ranking featuring our top 8 teams going into that week. This week we’ve highlighted some key additions, removals and a particular player to watch. This article was written before the season puck drop, but released just after the first round of action. 1) Entourage Key Additions: @Revv, @l JLP l, @Briere Key Removals: None Week 1, Player to Watch: @JClaus33 Notes: The CapsGaming Showcase Champions! Entourage was able to win the first-ever NHL 6s tournament hosted by an NHL affiliated team. In doing so they take home the top spot on our NACL Pre-Season Power Rankings, despite their championship hangover in S13 of ESHL. Adding backup goalie Revy will give the team some stability if / when @Scheckel29is unable to make games, and adding utilities JLP and Briere will give the team both depth and versatility when needing substitutions during the season. 2) Vertigo Key Additions: None Key Removals: None Week 1, Player to Watch: @P t P 10 Notes: Vertigo has been no joke early on, as they’re off to a hot start in S13 of ESHL and look to carry that success over into NACL this season. This team is a former shell of the team Legacy and is led by both @ScaryJoeyyand @Gwan. Several rostered players were featured in the dramatic overtime of the first-ever Game 25 of the annual CanAm tournament (Gwan and P t P for Team Canada, and @CaLL Me Jakoo, @Soy los 19 and ScaryJoeyy for Team USA). 3) Hidden Potential Key Additions: @YungGren, @r0tes, and @Thibodd Key Removals: @Dings16 Week 1, Player to Watch: @Auggy Notes: Hidden Potential came home from the CapsGaming Showcase, but not as champions. HP got swept in the finals by Entourage in convincing fashion but took an incredible leap forward from S12 ESHL. The core of the team for this tournament remains the same for the most part, with the only change being YungGren replacing Dings. Key members of Resilience (Rotes and newcomer Thibodd) have also joined the roster along with Dangs and Remi to serve as utilities throughout the tournament. 4) Phantoms Key Additions: Second Roster Key Removals: None Week 1, Player to Watch: TBD Phantoms will serve as a combination team consisting of members between The Underdogs and Phantoms. Both teams had great runs in the CapsGaming showcase, and their roster will definitely benefit from being able to pick and choose which lines play each opponent throughout the duration of this tournament. The Phantoms were able to make the final LAN as one of the remaining four teams in the tournament, and The Underdogs were one game shy of reaching themselves. We don’t expect to see many mix and match style lineups, but do look for this team to match opposing teams lineups, and play the ‘hot line’ down the stretch and through playoffs if they make it. 5) Composure Key Additions: @Hart x l79l, @TheCreasePolice (ESHL), and @Trobs Key Removals: @Foote Week 1, Player to Watch: @officialmark07 Composure picked up two of the best free-agent goalies available after a disappointing finish in the CapsGaming Showcase. Adding both JMoney (ESHL) and Hart (ESHL and NACL) added more stability and has created some healthy goalie competition between the pipes. Although early returns have been questionable at best in ESHL - look for both goalies (particularly Hart for NACL) to come into form in the upcoming weeks as the team works through a funk. 6) BBB Key Additions: @Bert, @Bass, @desyd19 and @Foote Key Removals: @Grim Week 1, Player to Watch: @Bones BBB did a great job reuniting with former teammate Bert (FlowMaster Joe). Bert was a key part of the core that won several ESHL championships with BBB in NHL 19. The team also did a great job adding reliable utilities in acquiring forward Bass19, defenseman Desy, and goalie Foote (S12 ESHL winning G). Foote and Perri both played for Composure just a few short months ago, and now both find themselves on BBB sharing the net once again. 7) 6th Sense Key Additions: @TheGreatMP7 , @Vaporize 17 and @Seb TopG (General420) Key Removals: None Week 1, Player to Watch: Vaporize 17 6th Sense has been retooled for success in the upcoming NACL by adding both GreatMP7 (Dahlia) and Vaporize (Infinity). On top of that, they’ve added one of the better free agent goalies in General420, who has already captured an impressive early record of 6-1-1 featuring an 83.3 S% and a GAA of 1.36 in S13 of ESHL. 8) Montage Moment Key Additions: @NugeTV, @OFs, and @Girgss Key Removals: None Week 1, Player to Watch: @Nasher Here we are with the most ambitious pre-season ranking on this whole list! The new image Montage Moment is here, but are they here to stay? Out of the gate with an impressive start of 8-1-1 in S13 of ESHL, this team has already caught many by surprise by splitting a two-game series with Vertigo (NACL: Pre-season Ranked 2nd) and a two-game sweep of Composure (NACL: Pre-season Ranked 5th). Montage Moment made a huge splash this off-season by signing three players with top-end 6s experience, headlined by streamer Nuge. Nuge and Girgs were also teammates in the CapsGaming Showcase as members of Infinity. Did we get the TOP 8 right? How does your ranking look? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

NHLGamers, It's been an interesting road and it was surely an exciting project to complete the inaugural season of the eSHL together with the SHL, Aftonbladet and Area Academy. The league was announced in early December and we have surely came a long way since that. A total of 159 has been played over the course of 1,5 months. Now with the season in the rearview and all the celebrations out of the way, it's a good time to take a look back at what was accomplished along the way. Linkoping HC The eventual champions had an inaugural season to remember. Coming fresh off a European championship run, they added to their trophy case by claiming the beautiful eSHL championship trophy almost two weeks back. To be fair it wasn't much of a surprise that Linkoping was the team to hoist the cup at the end of the day, as they were highly touted championship candidates ever since the season started. The teams right winger Erik @Eki Tammenpää is one of the most recognizable faces in virtual hockey and played a monumental role in the success of his team, but ultimately the factor that won them the trophy was the chemistry built over time. The team especially thanked goaltender Casper @ICappeI Lundgren for his outstanding efforts in both setting up the contract and his stellar play throughout the season. They'll surely have some tougher competition in the seasons going forward, but for now Linkoping goes down in history as the first squad to hoist the cup. Photo credit: Elias Gammelgård Malmö Redhawks Malmo Redhawks recruited a particularly skilled Swedish bunch ahead of the players and added to it with some great Finnish talent, out of which especially Tuukka @FlyerKungen Kuha and Risto @Dominointi Järvi were excellent additions to an already strong roster. We knew ahead of the season what these guys could do, but the timely additions to the crew elevated the level of play a few notches and Malmo really found their stride in the later half of the season as they strung together a record setting 19 victories before Farjestad BK finally succeeded in cracking them in game two of the semifinals. Long-time defensive pairing Johan @Lehmannens Lehmann and Anton @antoniomannen004 Svensander were arguably one of the most balanced duos all season long. A success of a season resulted in a second place finish, which Malmo can be satisfied with. Photo credit: Elias Gammelgård Farjestad BK Being one of the first teams to announce their esports affiliation, FBK had a chance to get ahead of the competition and did so by signing one of the strongest Swedish-based teams. Prior to the season the squad stacked up their roster by adding the dominant defensive pairing Kristian-Mikael @Nassustelija Katajisto & Wille @willekunq Juntunen to solidify their opening squad, which turned out to be some of the biggest signings overall during the season. Centerman Christoffer @I-Maise-I Berntsson elevated his level and punched his ticket into the discussion about the very elite players on that particular position. FBK was expected to finish in the top four and did just that. Photo credit: Elias Gammelgård Leksands IF Leksands IF was one of the positive surprises this season. After a very disappointing finish to their ECL 9 campaign in the Elite division, the squad remained virtually unchanged and went back to the drawing board. With the backing forces of a stellar organisation and an accomplished esports personality as their manager, LIF managed to turn the page and found a new level to their play. The tight defense was extremely tough to crack for a multitude of teams over the course of the season and having goalies Kimmo @DUNZA Sunnari and Johan @Rundqviiist Rundqvist come to play at an extremely high level helped LIF a lot. Finishing in the top four is a pleasant surprise as stated. Photo credit: Elias Gammelgård Lulea Hockey One of the disappointments of the season can be found in Lulea, who only managed to accomplish a high mid-table finish despite coming off a promising ECL 9 performance and having time to perfect their play with their rather new found construction of players from several previous teams. LHF struggled to find any type of consistency throughout the season and as a result didn't string together any longer win streaks. We saw a lot of rotation in the roster as players even switched positions among themselves. Even signing superstar winger Jere @jergelii Jortama couldn't save LHF from a quarterfinal elimination against Leksands IF. Vaxjo Lakers HC Vaxjo was also quite early to announce their roster and with that had some time to adjust in their new colors before the season. The team boasted a rather large roster and ended up having a total of nine skaters play at least two games during the season. Performances were rather consistent and as expected, a mid-table finish is what the team managed to accomplish. FBK was a very tough opponent in the quarterfinals, but VLH managed to steal one victory in the series. Djurgarden Hockey The current hockey pride of Stockholm finalized their roster a few days before the season. The team mostly consisted of former Miracle-players, so we had an idea of how DIF would match up against the competition in this league. In regards to earlier performances, the team finished somewhere around the expected positions by just about making the playoffs. Some internal differences were rumored throughout the season and might have affected performances to some extent. HV71 HV71 had an interesting take on team building, as they had been chipping away at their eSHL-project for quite some time prior to the season. Jönköping native and team captain Daniel @Demski13 Gadd was selected to lead the process and recruit a team consisting of local talents, a feat in which he succeeded rather well. The team pushed into the playoffs and managed to challenge several contenders with their structured defensive play and fast paced counter offense over the course of the season. It'll be interesting to see how the team fares and develops going forward but once again the importance of captain @Demski13 for this team cannot be stressed enough. Rogle BK Company of Geeks is a long-time virtual hockey franchise and has seen some great success in their time but fallen off the radar a bit in recent years. That is the roster that Rogle BK recruited for their inaugural eSHL push and their team did a decent job when taking into account the circumstances. By no means was Rogle the strongest team around, but not making the playoffs must sting. Orebro Hockey Orebro Hockey signed an interesting mix of rather experienced players to their team. With that, there were some expectations set and the team had a realistic chance of making the playoffs. A playoff spot eventually fell out of reach and the biggest problem of the season was lack of scoring power. A total of nine skaters played a minimum of two games, but five managed to find the net in the form of a goal or two. The team combined for only 41 goals in 22 games and will look to better that in the future. Skelleftea AIK Skelleftea AIK is another team that decided to go mainly local in their recruiting process and as a result their roster was extremely inexperienced with only a few prior competitive 6's games combined. The beginning didn't look good as the team quickly fell into a losing streak, but eventually managed to overcome Rogle BK for their historical first win. Eventually the season was finished with a total of three wins and an 11th place finish, but the players have gained some valuable experience and rookie player Liam @RookieLIAMOVIC Carlsson won the internal scoring title with over a point per game, which is very promising for the youngster. IK Oskarshamn A lot of eyebrows were raised when IK Oskarshamn first announced their roster - they had almost no prior experience of competitive 6vs6 NHL gaming and on top of that were one of the last teams to solidify their squad and start practicing. The start was absolutely horrendous as it seemed like team after team put IKO in a body bag on a nightly basis. It took a few weeks, but performances slowly started improving. A pivotal moment was the decision to recruit a few players with more experience at the transfer deadline. @Fancystick and @Halvdan89 handled the defensive responsibilities after the deadline, which gave the team a chance to compete against Skelleftea AIK in their headline matchup at Sportbladet. The clubs first eSHL season wasn't pretty to look at by any means, but rumours are out that development and preparation for the future is already being planned and put into action. To cap off the inaugural season, we'd also like to hand out some mentions in form of individual trophies to players that performed in exceptional manner throughout the season. These trophies are unofficial and have been chosen by the eSHL content creation team of yours truly and @l-Furyan-l. Here are your picks for each trophy: Most valuable player - The MVP is awarded to a player that performed exceptionally well throughout the season and with those performances played a monumental role in the success of their team. Awarded to: Tuukka @FlyerKungen Kuha - Malmo Redhawks Honorable mentions: Daniel @Demski13 Gadd - HV71 Best offensive player - Awarded to the most offensively outstanding player of the season. Awarded to: Tuukka @FlyerKungen Kuha - Malmo Redhawks Honorable mentions: Risto @Dominointi Järvi - Malmo Redhawks, Henrik @Eken45jr Eklund - Malmo Redhawks & Paul @PleeMaker Arontie - Linkoping HC Best defensive player - Awarded to the best shut-down player of the season. Awarded to: Kristian-Mikael @Nassustelija Katajisto - Farjestad BK Honorable mentions: Johan @Lehmannens Lehmann - Malmo Redhawks, Aleksi @loimmu Loimuvirta - Linkoping HC & Jonas @Supremski Söderlund - Leksands IF Best goaltender - Awarded to the most outstanding goaltender of the season. Awarded to: Casper @ICappeI Lundgren - Linkoping HC Honorable mentions: Johan @Rundqviiist Rundqvist - Leksands IF Thank you all for a successful inaugural season, we're extremely excited about the future holds and will be bringing you some interesting stuff in the coming weeks! Photo credit: Elias Gammelgård Photo credit: Elias Gammelgård Photo credit: Elias Gammelgård Photo credit: Elias Gammelgård