Leaderboard

NHLGamers, With the addition of our new ECL Core division comes a transition period, which takes time and to allow for that change we are now launching signups well ahead of the league start. The signups are now open, so tell your friends and get ready for the greatest NHL gaming experience to date! Signups will be open until Wednesday, 7.4 OR Monday, 19.4 at 23:59 CET depending on division. Sign-up period 1: 23.3-7.4, applies to ECL Elite ECL Pro ECL Lite ECL Pro Qualifier ECL Lite Qualifier Sign-up period 2: 23.3-19.4, applies to ECL Core ECL Neo Divisions framework The divisions framework for the ECL 12 will follow the same logic as for previous seasons with the addition of Core in between the Neo and Lite divisions. We will have a total of five divisions with the following team allocation: Elite 16 teams, Pro 32 teams, Lite 64 teams, Core 128 teams and Neo 32+ teams. ECL Elite: 16 teams Sign up: ECL Elite eligible teams Regular season: One group Playoffs: 8 teams Best-of-7 Gamedays: Monday Wednesday Thursday Prize pool: TBA ECL Pro: 32 teams Sign up: ECL Pro eligible teams Open spots will be decided based on Qualifiers Regular season: Two groups Playoffs: 16 teams Best-of-7 Gamedays: Monday Tuesday Thursday ECL Lite: 64 teams Sign up: ECL Lite eligible teams Open spots will be decided based on the Qualifiers Regular season: 4 Groups of 16 teams Playoffs: 32 teams Best-of-7 Gamedays: Tuesday Wednesday Sunday ECL Core: 128 teams Sign up: Without restrictions (but capped at 128) Regular season: 8 groups of 16 Playoffs: TBD Best-of-7 Gamedays: Tuesday Thursday Sunday ECL Neo: 32+ teams Sign up: Without restrictions Regular season: TBD Playoffs: TBD Best-of-5 Gamedays: Wednesday Sunday Preliminary schedule for the ECL 12 season: ECL Pro & ECL Lite Qualifiers 12.4-29.4 Regular season kick-off ECL Neo 25.4 ECL Core 2.5 ECL Lite 9.5 ECL Pro 20.5 ECL Elite 24.5 Playoffs ECL Neo 30.5-4.7. ECL Core 6.6-16.7 ECL Lite 13.6-18.7 ECL Pro 28.6-28.7 ECL Elite 5.7-31.7. What is the ECL? The ECL is the pinnacle of European NHL esports. The abbreviation stands for the European Championship League and it features NHL 6v6 esports in four divisions aimed at various skill levels. League games are played in the EASHL mode and the platform is PlayStation. Basic information/requirements of ECL: Regional restrictions: ECL is a European tournament format, however, we do not necessarily exclude North American or Russian players. A European server will always be used. 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 21. 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, ECL Core 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 12 ruleset will follow the same foundation as in season 11. The updated rulebook will be available before the season. *If you're an existing team that wants to change names, simply sign up with the old name and contact support for the name change. If you're having issues with signing up overall, please contact support. Don't have a team yet? Team looking for additions to your roster? 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. Did your team sign with an organization that is represented in the game and needs in-game unlocks? Fill in this form. (Only if your organization has unlockables available in NHL 21)

Hello NHLGamers, This article will be a bit detail-heavy and if you're new to the ECL this article will most likely not answer all of your questions. The intention of this article is to bring clarity to the upcoming ECL 12 season; When will it be played? When can I sign up? Who is qualified for what level? Due to the introduction of our new Core division and the restructuring of other divisions coming with that this season, we are now launching signups exceptionally early in order to ensure proper time for qualifiers that need to take place before the regular season starts. That is also why the signups will be concluded in two various groups, as instructed below: Sign-up period 1: 23.3-7.4, applies to ECL Elite ECL Pro ECL Lite ECL Pro Qualifier ECL Lite Qualifier Sign-up period 2: 23.3-19.4, applies to ECL Core ECL Neo When the signup window for ECL Elite, Pro, Lite and the Qualifiers has shut, we will be ready to start the preseason qualifiers in order to determine who will land at which level and to ensure the maximum competitiveness of each division. Here's a layout of the season schedule starting with the Qualifiers: ECL Pro & ECL Lite Qualifiers 14.4-29.4 Regular Season Kick-Off Dates: ECL Neo 25.4 ECL Core 2.5 ECL Lite 9.5 ECL Pro 20.5 ECL Elite 24.5 Playoff Dates: ECL Neo 30.5-4.7. ECL Core 6.6-16.7 ECL Lite 13.6-18.7 ECL Pro 28.6-28.7 ECL Elite 5.7-31.7. All dates are preliminary, but according to current plans. We realize that a lot of the season will be played during the beautiful summer months, so we ask that teams take this into account and make sure there are enough players on the roster to complete the season successfully. There will be a midsummer break from June 24th to the 27th during which no games will be scheduled. In ECL 12, Neo will continue acting as the entry level into competitive virtual hockey and with that, will continue at the pace of two gamedays each week. Our other divisions will run at the pace of three weekly gamedays with Elite also hosting three broadcasts weekly. Gamedays: ECL Neo Wednesday Sunday ECL Core Tuesday Thursday Sunday ECL Lite Tuesday Wednesday Sunday ECL Pro Monday Tuesday Thursday ECL Elite Monday Wednesday Thursday ECL 12 divisions framework: ECL Elite: 16 teams Sign up: ECL Elite eligible teams Regular season: One group Playoffs: 8 teams Best-of-7 Gamedays: Monday Wednesday Thursday Prize pool: TBA ECL Pro: 32 teams Sign up: ECL Pro eligible teams Open spots will be decided based on Qualifiers Regular season: Two groups Playoffs: 16 teams Best-of-7 Gamedays: Monday Tuesday Thursday ECL Lite: 64 teams Sign up: ECL Lite eligible teams Open spots will be decided based on the Qualifiers Regular season: 4 Groups of 16 teams Playoffs: 32 teams Best-of-7 Gamedays: Tuesday Wednesday Sunday ECL Core: 128 teams Sign up: Without restrictions (but capped at 128) Regular season: 8 groups of 16 Playoffs: TBD Best-of-7 Gamedays: Tuesday Thursday Sunday ECL Neo: 32+ teams Sign up: Without restrictions Regular season: TBD Playoffs: TBD Best-of-5 Gamedays: Wednesday Sunday Then, the information you've all been eagerly waiting for - here are the teams that will be eligible for the ECL 12 Pro and Lite Qualifiers: Pro Qualifier teams: Lite Qualifier teams: Note about the ECL 12 Lite Qualification Tournament: During the preparation of the new ECL 12 season, we noticed that the transition qualifier that we previously introduced for the ECL 12 Lite season had a small error. We failed to take the Wildcard teams into consideration in our math for the qualifiers which would have lead to an 68 team Lite division. We will still use the previously announced system we mentioned in our structure article, but we will be making a small adjustment: The playoff line will be moved from above the 7th seed to above the 6th seed. This means that the top 5 teams out of each qualifying group has a chance to continue to play for the ECL Lite promotion, while the 6th-8th ranked teams in each group will solidify their spot in the Core division. We apologize for the miscalculation while creating the new system, but we still believe that having a chance to fight for the ECL Lite promotion as a 5th ranked team in your individual group still gives you a very fair chance to make it. Below you'll find an updated image of the ECL 12 Lite Qualification tournament. We have also updated the original news story with the corrected information. Gauging interest for an ECL Warm-up tournament Due to the combination of sign-ups, qualifiers and the staggered start of the different divisions, some teams might find themselves waiting for the season start longer than they would want. This is why we are gauging the interest towards a short ECL Warm-up tournament where teams get their chance to get some games in as they prepare for the upcoming season. If you think this would be something your team would be interested in - please leave a comment below! Edit: Due to technical reasons, the sign-up start has been moved to March 23rd. Edit 2: The order of the Pro Qualifier teams has been fixed for clarity on the seeding order, as per the original Division and Promotion Structure documentation.

As an action towards the instances of improper and unacceptable behavior in our community, we will be updating our rulebook(s) and community guidelines to set clear expectations and a code of conduct that is to be followed in all interactions around our community. A clear-cut guideline on what type of behavior will not be tolerated and what might be the repercussions of such actions. At NHLGamer, we want to ensure a fair, safe, and inclusive environment for gamers of all ages, genders, and backgrounds. We are tremendously proud of the community that we all have built together so far but know that we can do even better by being even better towards each other. In the process of working to enable this type of environment, we need to have rules in place and will occasionally have to give out suspensions to our users. This is not something we enjoy doing but is necessary to preserve the integrity of the rulebook and the game. Our ideology has always been and will continue to be, that when someone crosses the line – our main priority is to put a stop to it and then educate the team/individual and everyone else in the community about why the action in question is wrong and unacceptable. The purpose of punishment is to drive the point home, to ensure actions have consequences, and to discourage teams/individuals from repeating their offense(s). In short, rules are there for a reason, and should you break them you will be punished. And, hopefully, learn from it. While different cultural and educational backgrounds do not make inappropriate behavior acceptable, it can sometimes create gaps in how different people interpret a situation. Like we mentioned above, two of the integral goals of our community are inclusion and education. That means we will also do our best to understand the reasoning for the behavior of a person who breaks our rules, to make sure we give them the best opportunity to learn from their mistake and not repeat it - not just because of the fear of punishment, but to make them understand why it is not acceptable. If the user does not learn from their mistake, though - we do reserve the right to more severe punishment. It is an instinctual reaction in many of us to want to punish someone who breaks the rules we as a society – or, in this case, community – set out for ourselves. It can even be tempting to, if the rule transgression is egregious enough, banish the rule-breaker in question forever and purge him or her from sight and mind. But is that the thing that puts the individual on a path to fixing their actions? To making things right? While the most extreme of cases might call for such a decision, it should not be a quick-trigger action. At the same time, a rulebook cannot – and should not – be written under the assumption that a perceived softness in punishment will not be abused. So, how do we find the medium between these two ‘extremes’, as it were? In order to make this process as transparent and fair as possible, we are working to set a standard on how these cases will be determined. Here is an example of how it could look*: First offense, 2 weeks - 3 months Second offense, 6 months to 1+ year Third offense will cause a minimum of 3 years and up to a permanent community and league participation ban *Note: This is a work-in-process example. This will only be used on serious matters. We reserve the right to go higher depending on intent. We will also be adding rules about apparel on broadcasts and socials: No tobacco, alcohol, drugs, nudity, hateful or otherwise inappropriate text, logos, or images No discrimination No brands that compete with our partners** **Exceptions can be made in the case of team partners On a more general level, we are not satisfied with the efficiency that we were able to handle support tickets, especially on the League Administrative side during ECL 11 and the goal of our work in preparing for the next season is to mitigate the bottlenecks that lead to this situation. The reasons behind the long turn-around time on some of the tickets were e.g. A large number of tickets compared to the size of available support staff Partially insufficient tools at the disposal of some of the support staff A need for better-defined rules in some cases that would have helped resolve cases more efficiently and perhaps avoided a support ticket in the first place Please do not misinterpret this as distrust towards our rulebook. We are proud of our rulebook, but like any rulebook, it requires updates, further specifications, and re-evaluating certain aspects due to changes to the game, changes to public opinion, and the growth and needs of our community. Finally, while we have no intention of becoming the internet police, we do take our role as one of the leading entities in this community seriously. We do want to educate when and where we can and continue to make this space a safe and welcoming one for people from all walks of life. Therefore, we will be looking to partner with different types of third-party organizations in the future to help give our members access to useful, well-researched information from people that are actual experts on subjects like racism, sexism, depression, and addiction. This will require time and research as we do not intend to simply stamp a logo on something, believing that solves the issue at hand. In the end, we will always be open to continued feedback, criticisms, and suggestions. We are not perfect, nor will we ever be. But we can always try to do better. And we will.

A few weeks ago @sumskoy26 was displayed in an RCL tweet in which they were wearing a t-shirt that had an extensive amount of racist imagery on it. Prior to being notified of this by NHLGamer members, the image in question had been used in previous RCL broadcasts. Upon being called out for such a t-shirt publicly by other NHLGamer members, @sumskoy26 proceeded to act belligerently, going as far to call one member an “AFA clown”. LA has been in contact with @sumskoy26 in order to ascertain the motives behind the submission of such a photo to the RCL broadcast crew. In this conversation @sumskoy26 claimed that the t-shirt was worn for ‘satire’ purposes / as a joke – despite then conceding that they knew it would be taken more seriously in the ‘Western world’, as opposed to the Russian audience that, for the most part, the RCL broadcasts would be solely reaching. Without prompting, although closely following this conversation, @sumskoy26 apologised on Twitter for the picture in question and their actions, saying that they had regret regarding it. NHLGamer takes a strong stance against racism and discrimination of any form. We want to build a community that values people equally, regardless of their race or creed, and having images like the one in question be circulated puts a great stain on what we are trying to achieve. As such, we have decided to suspend @sumskoy26 from all events and tournaments on the NHLGamer platform for 90 days from the day that this statement was made, therefore the suspension will run from Tuesday, the 23rd of February, to Monday, the 24th of May, 2021. LA