Leaderboard

Despite his young age, Aleksi @loimmu Loimuvirta has been playing virtual hockey for several years. During his career, he has represented not only his current team FILADELPHIA in various constellations and under various names, but also Farjestad BK and teams like Victorious Secret HC and Laser HT back in the day. Recent years have been very rewarding for the solid defenseman, filling up his trophy case nicely, most recently with the FCL title together with FILADELPHIA. A lot of different memories have been seized along the long virtual hockey career. However, one memory is above all others, namely playing for the first time in a live event, which also turned out being a success. "The best memory for me is definitely the first live event, which was the IS Cup 3/eSM, where we managed to grab our first Finnish Championship title. It was amazing to be able to put faces to all the gamertags and to get to know people better in general." Beginning of FILADELPHIA Loimmu has been a part of FILA's defense corps for several years already. He talks about how the team started in the first place and how it has become one of the long-term success stories of the scene. "FILA was built from the start with the mentality of being a team coming to challenge for the title of best team in Europe. Joonas @Patzlaf Paatiala then put together one of the most skilled teams in the scene, but at the same time the team also had the best team spirit, at least in my own opinion. Out of these two factors I'd consider the latter as being the x-factor for us, although the importance of raw skill cannot be understated. Often we'd be trailing but catch up and eventually win due to maintaining a level of humor in the game despite our playing not being that good at the moment. I think we've always been on the same track and kept spirits high." When asked, he admits to being a very big fan of the Philadelphia Flyers and being especially fond of Kimmo Timonen besides legend Jaromir Jagr as a kid. In addition to playing NHL, Loimmu's selection of favorite games also includes CS:GO, which he often spends his free time playing. He admits that playing CS:GO is a very good change of pace from the regular NHL grind. "If I wouldn't spend so much time on NHL, CS would definitely be my game of choice. Currently it works as a great tandem for me alongside NHL. The most intriguing aspect of CS is the importance of skill, perhaps a NHL could also take inspiration from this, taking into account the growing popularity of competitive." Gaining experience on the right wing Loimmu is a very familiar sight in the defensive zone, but over the course of his virtual hockey career he has also played as a right winger. Even though his career began as a forward, the defenders role gradually became his favorite. "Yes, the RD spot is the most comfortable place for me to play, and RW comes in as a good number two. I started my career on the right wing, and then moved over to the middle lane before establishing myself as a defenseman. I'm ready to play as a forward if the team would need me to. In the off season, Erik @EkiTammenpää wanted to test out defense and we ended up switching spots for a couple of weeks. The team quickly realized their mistake and moved Eki back up front." Playing as a defender has its own challenges and aspects to it. Loimmu admits that possessing some forward experience has been very useful. He notes that often mistakes made by a defender are more clearly visible, as they often lead to goal-scoring situations for the opponent. Nor do defenders often get the credit they deserve for their success. "I'd say pacing the game is one of my strengths and as a forward I clearly noticed how much it would help you out when the defensemen would also handle joining the rush well. On the other hand, there are downsides to playing as a defender too, mainly that your mistakes are usually regarded as graver when compared to making similar mistakes on offense. I think defenders also rarely get credit for a good game. If a team wins 7-2 then the attackers have been great, and if you win 2-0 the goalkeeper has been a brick wall." When asked if Loimmu has any favorite way of scoring a goal, he grins and says that he enjoys deflecting the puck in via opposing players shin guards. Starting off with Joukki Loimuvirta has always liked hockey, and he admits that's the biggest reason he's still seen on the virtual ice. He notes that the console scene has grown very much over the past few years, which is only a positive thing. "I've always liked hockey, that's the biggest reason I'm still playing NHL. Back in the day when I started out, the scene wasn't as big as it is now (thanks to @Kenu) so I didn't really look up to any specific top players. On the other hand, Joakim @Joukki Nyholm introduced me to 6s at the beginning of my career, and back then he was way better than me. Despite this, we got along well and I think Joukki must have seen some potential in me since we kept playing together. At the time, I looked up to him and I'm happy to say we're still good friends to this day." Starting 6 - Loimmu's picks We asked the defender if he could put together the starting lineup of his dreams - then what would it look like. The only condition was that he can't pick his own team's players. "In my opinion, there are too few absolute top players in the scene, so this is what I'd call a 'project team' consisting of some veterans and prospects. C Risto @Dominointi Järvi: ''Seppo'' is one of the longest serving top-of-the-line forwards in the entire scene, and would certainly be a good mentor in this team with his great hockey sense. LW Roope @pikkuroger Bergström: Scouted by Patzlaf, pigguroger is (at least according to Joonas) a big name for the future, and would surely have a good time scoring with the next guy besides him. RW Niklas @NikkeDangles Tukiainen: Perhaps the scene's most skilled forward, ''NikkeDee" guarantees jaw-dropping plays perfected on the practice ice. LD Kristian-Mikael @Nassustelija Katajisto: Lempäälä's gift to the world, Nassustelija would be the backbone of this team, supporting with surefire defensive play day in and day out. RD Viljo @viba2008 Kähkönen: Despite his very young age, Viba has caught the attention of several teams. There are rumours that he also has potential in hockey on the actual ice and I'm sure he'll do great in whichever sport he chooses to be his number one. G Ville @Supreex Korhonen: Supreex has been around the game for a long time, and it would be interesting to see him play for a top team in the league. Right now, one of the best goalkeepers around." We asked the experienced defender what kind of greetings he would send to those young people who might dream of playing competitively at the top of the virtual hockey world one day. "As I said before, there aren't too many top players in the scene after all, so if you're interested in NHL, I suggest you pick up the controller and try to take some influence from the streams of top players. After that you should be ready to get into some 6v6 action!" "Most of the top players have a background in either hockey, floorball or football, so I suppose that won't hurt you. I don't think it's a coincidence, because you need that sense for the game. Secondly I'd like to pinpoint that even this game requires some grinding and hours put into it, and above all a passion for hockey. Of course to succeed in a team sport you also need to be able to take others into account, no one likes playing with grumpy gamers", Loimmu continues.

NHLGamers, We're closing in on the end of the ECL 11 Elite regular season and with that it's only natural that the noose around the necks of some ensembles is tightening, whereas some others are still scrambling for those last couple of points in order to either secure their playoff spot or put them in the best possible position for the postseason. The past week held some interesting events and even some records were broken, as FILADELPHIA's Casper @ICappeI Lundgren passed former goalie colleague turned winger Hannes @Hansulinho Kettunen for most ECL Elite shutouts in one season. The former record stood at 9 shutouts replicated in both the ECL 8 and ECL 9 regular seasons, but is now at 11 with four games to go for FILADELPHIA. That means that @ICappeI has the possibility to totally deny the opposition in 50% of the regular season games, which is something absolutely unheard of and will surely be a record that could stand the test of time for quite a while in the ECL as we know it. It remains to be seen how far they can take it as a team, but the opposition in their last week will be tough as HAVU Gaming and KOVA Esports are looking to spoil the party. Another player deserving of an honorable mention and some extra pats on the back is SJ Gaming winger Mikko @EABUNKA Kärkkäinen, who announced that despite receiving terrible news about health concerns in his immediate family was able to show up to play on Thursday night against hREDS. No concerns were visible as the skilled winger took the ice, leading his team to an overtime win and an overtime loss, securing 3 points for SJ Gaming while grabbing a goal and a helper in both games for himself. Obviously there are things way bigger than the sport we're all playing, but the performance Thursday night by @EABUNKA surely is an inspirational show of determination and the support given by the community to a player in distress once again proved that we are way bigger than just the group of people playing video games for a pastime. That's an early nominee for this season's wholesome award. At the moment, most teams are at 26 games played, with Team LEISURE and SJ Gaming being the exceptions. No spot in the standings is set in stone, but a number of teams have been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs at this point. With certainty we can state that a postseason among the top eight will take a minimum of 31 points, meaning that SAWO ESPORTS, YMCA Esports, Gotham Knights, SJ Gaming and KOVA Esports are still within striking range but the leash is extremely short at least for SAWO, who will have to win every game while Northern Ascendancy and Roots will have to draw blanks for the rest of the week - and even then it's up to tie-breakers. The battle at the bottom of the standings is raging tough as no one will want to be left dead last facing direct relegation. Currently in 16th place is Dark Horse, who are in for a tough last week with games against KOVA Esports and hREDS remaining, so a near perfect performance will be needed in order to get our of the trouble they've put themselves in. When it comes to scoring points, it seems like no one does it better this season than Cover gamer Tuukka @FlyerKungen Kuha and rightfully so. The HAVU winger has been a consistent performer throughout his career at the top level but is actually on pace to break his ECL Elite scoring personal best of 73 points this season. The two most prevalent goal scorers can be found on @FlyerKungen's line, which of course has contributed to his totals and the entire HAVU trio with Risto @Dominointi Järvi and @Hansulinho added to the mix seems to be as ready as ever for the postseason. The only player outside of your current top three teams making his way into the top 10 scorers is André @Foppatofflan Liljegren from Roots, who fits the color scheme but has also played an incredible season after taking a short stint outside the Elite division with Djurgarden Hockey back in ECL 10. Take a look at the scoring leaders for defensemen and you might think we've made a mistake but no, Väinö @vSilenttio Pietilä brings glory to his dear Roots Gaming by being close to surpassing his personal best performance at the ECL Elite level (31 points back in ECL 4 Elite with SIKA) while being in a position to see postseason action with this team for the third consecutive season already. It seems like he has been teasing calling it quits for an extended time already and would be going out on a high note after an individual performance like this, but you surely can't quit now, can you!? Goaltenders - who knows anything about those? I for sure don't but as already stated, @ICappeI is out here setting records and looking good doing so. However, outside of the top 10 winningest goaltenders this season, we find Juuso @Juizki Nikkinen, who's a part of a struggling SAWO Esports but definitely helped his team out last week. The solid netminder shut out the opposition in three straight contests, keeping his own net untouched for a total duration of 249 minutes and 17 seconds, which might be some kind of record at this level if someone would be keeping track. In general, @Juizki has put forth a solid effort all season long, but his team has faced their fair share of adversity and are highly doubtful to make postseason in any other form than a relegation battle. Power Rankings The power rankings reflect games played between 11.1 and 17.1. Making a return this season will be the Elite: Power Rankings, provided by @MartindalexC. As always, the rankings are generated by weighting a team's results with the level of opposition that was faced, i.e. a team that went 4-0-0 against teams at the very bottom of Elite may very well be ranked below a team that went 0-4-0 against Elite's very finest. Without further ado though, let's have a look at how teams fared over the fifth week of ECL 11 Elite: 1. HAVU Gaming (6-0-0) [+1] 2. FILADELPHIA (4-0-0) [-1] 3. Färjestad BK (3-1-0) [=] 4. JYP Jyvaskyla (5-1-0) [+3] 5. SAWO Esports (5-1-0) [+11] 6. Roots Gaming (2-2-0) [-2] 7. hREDS (3-0-1) [-1] 8. Vesa Pompa (1-2-1) [+1] 9. Northern Ascendancy (2-3-1) [-4] 10. SJ Gaming (2-1-1) [+2] 11. KOVA Esports (1-4-1) [-3] 12. YMCA Esports (2-2-2) [+1] 13. Gotham Knights (2-4-0) [-2] 14. Team Leisure (0-4-0) [=] 15. Dark Horse (1-5-0) [-5] 16. Conquer Gaming (1-3-0) [-1]

NHLGamers, The ECL 11 Lite season has progressed to the quarterfinal stage and the stakes are higher than ever. There are four tremendously exciting matchups to be played and all of these teams are hungry for the chance to compete for possible promotion spots. the eight best teams are left to battle it out in best-of-seven series. Last round, several predictions failed but the most fascinating thing is that in a top tier league like the ECL, there are so many great players and teams that you can see many good teams losing despite a great campaign simply because their opponents are even better or just happen to have a great day. However, the lightning rarely strikes the same target twice so I won't necessarily flip the table entirely by predicting some of the phenomenons of the season ending in this round. Here is the full playoff schedule for ECL 11 Lite: (1) Bjorkloven Esport vs Oton Letkutemppu (51) Oton Letkutemppu is no noubt one of the phenomenons of the ECL 11 Lite season. Last round, they knocked out 2nd seed ECDC Memmingen Esports so reaching this far is by no means an accident and there could be more to come. Bjorkloven Esports has been a dominant team so far and eliminated another surprise team - the Golden Nights - in quite impressive fashion. Oton Letkutemppu is now in for their biggest challenge yet but has all the means to continue their success story in these playoffs. Bjorkloven Esports is the favorite but like we have already seen, just about anything can happen in these games. Prediction: Oton Letkutemppu has played their best so far but this time the challenge is likely to be a little too tough and this teams quite phenomenal playoff journey is likely to end. Bjorkloven Esports faces a great team in the series but advances with the score 4-2. (6) Ringette HC vs Hotbox (42) Similar to the cases of Oton Letkutemppu and Golden Nights this season, Hotbox has managed to pave their way into the top eight against all odd and are running an outstanding playoff campaign. Ringette HC is, however, their biggest challenge so far with a bunch of individual skill and the ability to move the puck quicker than most teams in the division. Hotbox must maintain their current level and boost it just a little bit. Maintaining the level might not be the problem, but boosting it enough to beat Ringette HC four times in this series looks like it could be too much even for this team. Prediction: Hotbox puts forth great opposition but Ringette HC ends this campaign convincingly 4-1. (8) Exerceo vs BoxinElite (24) In this series an underdog playing at the limits of their potential faces a marginally but probably decisively stronger opponent. BoxinElite is also one of the highlights of this season and I greatly underestimated their potential in the last round against Lekstugan HC. Exerceo on the other hand is a slight favorite in this matchup but there is no reason that BoxinElite couldn't cause an upset and after reaching this far it is probably not too surprising anymore. This time, BoxinElite will not go underestimated and will at the very least go down swinging. Prediction: BoxinElite beat favorite Lekstugan HC last round and might do that again. However, Exerceo knows that and sure are more ready than Lekstugan HC for what's to come. Exerceo disrupts BoxinElites run this time by winning 4-2. (18) Sjukstugan vs Grenoble BDL Esport (22) Grenoble BDL Esports eliminated Sinister in an exciting seven game series. Sjukstugan eliminated Old Farts quite unexpectedly in four straight games. They have the advantage of being able to prepare for longer but Grenoble BDL Esports sure have a massive boost from their recent game seven victory and they also must have a high confidence after defeating a strong Sinister team. I would not be surprised if we end up fighting our way to a game seven again in this series and Sjukstugan will definitely be the biggest test for Grenoble so far. Sjukstugan is their biggest test so far. This is arguably the series to watch this round. Prediction: Game seven needed. Grenoble BDL Esports has the strength to battle through the series but Sjukstugan is too strong. Sjukstugan advances 4-3. As always, play hard - have fun!