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NHLGamers, Today we’re happy to announce a very special partnership, it’s the first of its kind, where Team Frosty and the Finnish Mestis club (second tier) Kiekko-Vantaa is entering a mutually beneficial partnership with the objective to strengthen the esports and traditional hockey culture in the city of Vantaa. The first step of cooperation between the two clubs is launching the esports hockey team Frosty Kiekko-Vantaa (FKV) for the upcoming FCL season. The partnership entails that the NHL roster of Team Frosty will from now on bear the blue colors of Kiekko-Vantaa instead of the regular red accents of Team Frosty. Despite a change in colors, the team will be repping the familiar wolf emblem on their chest. Both clubs will have an increased visibility in each other's events and content creation around the partnership will be ramped up to the next level. “Our partnership was sparked from the simple desire to put Vantaa on the map in the esports world. Team Frosty is founded in Vantaa, so it was very natural to partner with a local sports club. Kiekko-Vantaa showed interest and we’ve been building this project together all summer.” - Team Frosty chairman of the board Semih Sahin “Partnering with Team Frosty is a great thing for us. Esports has seen tremendous growth recently and we feel that there’s lots of unique opportunities in this partnership. We’re also very proud to be the first Mestis team to partner with an esports organisation.” - Kiekko-Vantaa communications officer Mikko Mannonen “We’re over the top excited! It’s an honor to represent a club like Kiekko-Vantaa. Overall it feels like a dream come true to represent a traditional hockey club as a virtual hockey player. Our goal for next season is to improve our position from last season and to claim an Elite promotion spot.” - Sami “imosi1” Ibrahim on representing the new Frosty Kiekko-Vantaa Team Frosty and Kiekko-Vantaa are entering a partnership that’s new in the Finnish NHL esports scene in many ways. Kiekko-Vantaa will be the first Mestis club to join esports competition, but the tight cooperation between the two clubs is what will really set them apart from the competition. We’ll be eagerly waiting for what’s to come. Team Frosty The esports organisation from Vantaa was founded in 2018 by Semih Sahin and Max Öhquist. The organisation made their first stint in the NHL scene in 2018 and made a comeback with a new roster in the spring of 2020. Kiekko-Vantaa As their name suggests, the hockey club represents the city of Vantaa. The club was founded in 1994 and has been competing at the second highest tier of Finnish hockey since 2000, when Mestis was founded. Most notably, Antti Niemi represented the club in his younger years and in fact his #39 hangs retired in the rafters of Trio Areena. Columbus Blue Jackets goaltender Joonas Korpisalo has also made two stints at Vantaa in his early career.

NHLGamers, Almtuna IS, hailing from Uppsala in Eastern Sweden becomes the next Swedish traditional hockey team to start their esports journey. The club reached an agreement with long time fans and NHL gamers Dennis @PillenUpp Johansson and Daniel @dgsson Gustafsson, who will be acting as captain and assistant in the esports club. "Daniel and me wanted to launch an esports team for Almtuna IS. It's great that our beloved club wanted to go along with it and representing them is an inspiration going forward. We'll proudly be sporting Almtunas colors in upcoming events" - Captain Dennis Johansson on signing with Almtuna. We got in touch with goaltender and assistant captain Daniel Gustafsson for some understanding into the mindset of the team and background: Hi Daniel! First off, tell us a bit about your group of guys - what kind of players have you recruited and what are your strengths? - We've had a focus on recruiting players we are familiar with from before. Guys we know we can trust. Our squad is a bit older and possesses a lot of experience, several of our players have captained rosters in the past. Since the beginning, one of our main focuses has been taking everyone into account and making this a mutual project, which is something I feel we've done very well. We've still got our eyes open for a right-handed player capable of moving up and down the left flank. I've heard that both you and Dennis are Almtuna fans, how about the rest of your team? How does it feel to represent "your club"? - Me and Dennis both have grown up in Uppsala and as said - are passionate fans of Almtuna IS, naturally it's beyond exciting to be able to represent them. The rest of our team is divided across Sweden, but I guess this project has slowly converted them and they are now eager to follow Almtuna in HockeyAllsvenskan. After a summer break, the next league is just around the corner. How have you been preparing and what are your expectations moving forward? - Over the summer we've been playing around and participated in some practice tourneys. I feel our game has evolved for the better step by step. We're excited about the ECL and are hopeful about the SCL happening. We're expecting to join the Lite division in ECL 11 and are aiming for a playoff run. Above all though, we're looking to get Almtuna established in esports. Almtuna IS Almtuna IS competes at the second highest level in Sweden, HockeyAllsvenskan. The club itself was founded in 1932, but hockey wasn't added to the program until 1947. HockeyAllsvenskan has been the clubs level since 2003 and Almtuna IS has most notably produced players like Magnus Hellberg and Robin Press to name a few.