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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.

NHLGamers, Our North American following has been longing for some 6v6 action ever since the last NACL season concluded with the victory of Vertigo in mid May. We've been asked a lot about when our next North American event would be and the time has come to reward your patience. In cooperation with Northern Arena and Goalie Guild Gaming, we are proud to be bringing you The Northern Arena NHL 20 Cup - presented by Xbox Canada - with a prize pool of $10,000 USD. The Northern Arena NHL 20 Cup will feature a qualifying stage, where any North American 6v6 team can enter for a chance to represent one of the NHL's 32 franchises (including Seattle). Once the teams have qualified, the 32 best teams in North America will play throughout August in a battle over the largest slice out of the $10,000 USD prize pool. There are three ways to qualify for the Northern Arena NHL 20 Cup: Official NHL Esports Team Representative: The NHL Cup will have four NHL Esports Team Representatives. The Florida Panthers, Columbus Blue Jackets, New Jersey Devils and Anaheim Ducks. The Florida Panthers and Columbus Blue Jackets have their own teams, whereas New Jersey Devils and Anaheim Ducks will be allowed to approach any of the existing qualified teams. Qualified teams reserve the right to decline would they rather represent another team. Standings from the CBJ Summer Cup: The top six (6) teams in the standings from the CBJ Summer Cup as of July 31st will be invited to join the NHL Cup. These teams are 1. Underdogs, 2. Composure, 3. BBB, 4. Entourage, 5. Vertigo and 6. X Factor. Qualification tournaments: Teams who have not qualified through the aforementioned ways will need to qualify through an open qualifier. 24 spots will be up for grabs in the three (3) total qualifiers that will be held on Friday, August 7th, Tuesday, August 11th and Saturday, August 15th. For further details about the format of the NA NHL 20 Cup, please refer to this league format document. Please also get acquainted with the ruleset of the Northern Arena NHL 20 Cup here before registering your team for the tournament. You can also visit the NA NHL 20 Cup official landing page for more information. NHLGamer is the official tournament partner for the NA NHL Cup. The tournament itself will be run on our platform here at NHLGamer.com Should you need any assistance, please don't hesitate to contact our support. Click here to sign up now! We've also set up a place in our community forums where you can discuss, introduce your team, look for players for your team, or find yourself a team. The official Discord channel for the tournament is run by Northern Arena. Additionally, we'd like to offer you the opportunity to join the NHLGamer Discord. When? Here is the schedule for the Northern Arena NHL 20 Cup: Registration period: Monday, July 7th - Tuesday, August 11th, 2020 Qualifying period: Friday, August 7th (Qualifier 1), Tuesday, August 11th (Qualifier 2) and Friday, August 15th (Qualifier 3) Signups for Qualifier 1 closes: Tuesday, August 4th Signups for Qualifier 2 & 3 close: Tuesday August 11th Regular season: Tuesday, August 18th - Thursday, August 27th Playoffs: Saturday, August 29th - Saturday, September 5th Broadcasts More detailed info about what to expect in regards to broadcasts will be published closer to the tournament. What we can tell you now is that the semifinals and finals will be aired live on GINX TV and www.twitch.tv/northernarena. We want to take this opportunity to thank the handful of NHL teams that are involved in this event. In the end, we understand what makes a league successful is having the support of the players and teams. To earn that support we will do everything we can to make this an equally exciting and entertaining event. In return, we kindly ask for your cooperation and support, especially on social media. When posting tweets of your lineups, matchups, recaps, clips, articles - or any other content you might want to create - can you please make sure to tag the following accounts and hashtag: @NorthernArena @NHLGamerCOM @XboxCanada @ginxcanada #NHLCup Disclaimer: The event is approved by EA and supported by some NHL teams. Not all players are official representatives of respective NHL teams.