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NHLGamers, Right before the start of the 12th iteration of the European Championship League, Swiss hockey club EHC Biel-Bienne signed the roster of former The Black Jacks! The 3-time Swiss champions from the bilingual city of Biel/Bienne are after ZSC Esports, HC Lugano, EHC Basel and SC Bern already the fifth professional club from Switzerland who enters the EA Sports NHL 6s scene. After being founded in 1939 and reaching their three titles in 1978, 1981 and 1983, EHCB had to gain promotion back to NLA (the Swiss top tier) in 2008. In their red and yellow, EHC Biel-Bienne is on their hunt for the playoffs – in real life as well as on the virtual ice! Team captain Bryan @CuteTerminator7 Bolliger looks optimistically to the future: "We want to represent the club in its best light and with that we also hope that other clubs from Switzerland will enter the esports scene. Maybe we will see even more teams from the NLA on NHLGamer? We want to develop as a team and improve our style of play. Making the Playoffs this ECL will be the next step as well as finishing as good as possible in the next German Championship League!" Captain CuteTerminator7, Oliver @Red09Dragon08 Knapp and Dean @Sm0kez13_Bachmann played together since GCL 6, where they managed to win the Division 2 Championship with the Redlight Jokers. After that season, former Zürich defenseman Mario @Cami_7 Camenzind rebranded the former The Black Jacks as a partner team of ZSC Esports and added the mentioned trio as well as goalie veteran Peter @wobfighter Stein and big EHCB supporter Kyle @KG12PK88 Grossen to the team. In their first ECL 11 campaign in Lite the team managed to secure a strong 6th place in Group 1 but eventually got swept by TTK in the first round of the playoffs. Before the start of GCL 7, Sebastian @Sebwies2139 Wieser joined the "Eidgenossen“ to complete the goalie duo and later on received the Rookie of the Season-trophy for his efforts. Kevin @Gregson91 Householder and Janick @Janick_97 (ovechkin97) Hauser also joined the club to strengthen their offensive force. The Black Jacks managed to gain promotion in the qualification tournament and underlined their ambition by making the playoffs on a solid 4th seed but eventually found an early exit against PENTA in Round 1. Before the start of ECL 12 Lite The Black Jacks started the cooperation with EHC Biel-Bienne and is currently in a tight battle for a spot in the playoffs in group 2! We welcome EHC Biel-Bienne eSports to NHLGamer and wish them good luck in their first season in red and yellow!

It's been an exciting start to the season, which surely sets expectations high moving forward. We're excited for what's to come and brought friends Wilhelm, Kouvolan Lakritsi and Viaplay along for the ride! The first week of Elite action featured three full broadcast nights, out of which Thursday was hosted in Finnish by Oskari Koski, Julius Sorjonen and special guest Tuukka @FlyerKungen Kuha, who chimed in for color commentary in the first game between Tunnel Vision and YMCA Esports. As we're used to, the golden voices of Cody @Tougie24 Tougas and Paul @Cyn Anderson carried us through both the Monday and Wednesday broadcasts, with lots of more action to expect. We saw the first goal of the ECL 12 Elite season early on in the matchup between KOVA Esports and Rusty Blades in our broadcast on Monday evening, when Valtteri @Vire30 Vireaho not only opened the scoring for the season, but also opened scoring for his ECL Elite career - congrats! The Elite rookie does since then lead scoring for his team, that has struggled mightily with getting the puck to the back of the net, only racking up four goals in as many games played. Another team that somewhat surprisingly struggled with scoring has been HAVU Gaming, who only netted nine goals through their first five games played, but managed to salvage things on the statistical side by crushing ZSC Esports by 7-1 in their sixth game of the season. Consequently, the consistent contenders have dropped some points early on in matchups against YMCA Esports and Vesa Pompa, out of which their bouts against the Swedes extended into overtime on both occasions. A big talking point ahead of the season was definitely how Teemu @Xteemuz (Teemuyy) Polttila would fit in with his new team in FILADELPHIA and how the squad would rally around him in the adjustment period. Well, as you'd have it, FILADELPHIA has had a rather favorable schedule to start their season which arguably could have helped the adjustment, but Teemuyy has looked great in orange and black as of late. With five points in six games, he seems to be on par for similar production pace as in his previous ECL Elite campaigns, but most importantly he has played a big role in helping his teammates reach even higher highs - Erik @Eki Tammenpää, Paul @PleeMaker Arontie and Joonas @Patzlaf Paatiala currently hold a triple lead in the scoring department. A defenseman who has produced exceptionally well, on the other hand, is Farjestad BK defenseman Johan @Lehmannens Lehmann. In his first season with the squad from Karlstad, the right defenseman has racked up 3+10=13 points thru his first six games, and is rightfully topping the scoring table for defensemen in the league. Keeping up a pace of above two points per game in the best league in the world is unlikely, but his feat this far surely is admirable, it'll remain to be seen for how long he can keep this going. Finally, when it comes to netminding in the ECL 12 Elite, our Swedish brick walls seem to have things on lock this season with a five man lead and who else than Casper @ICappeI Lundgren topping the tables. Honorable mentions in this department go out to Elite rookies Erik @MrAllsvenskan Rotsenius and Ben @benu Rinnet, who have taken the league by storm and solidified themselves as formidable contenders in the rookie of the season-race early on. Transfers It's a somewhat rare occasion to see some movement at the Elite level after the start of the season, but some transfers have come to knowledge in the past week or so, we'll also be recapping possible movement in these reports. Here are the transfers that have come to light since the ECL 12 Elite season preview: JYP Jyvaskyla IN Joonas @swagx88 Kuossari (Free agent) The former Roots goaltender joins the ranks of JYP Jyvaskyla, after leaving the black and green on the brink of the season start. As a very experienced netminder at the Elite level, swagx88 is expected to form a very capable duo together with Santeri @Sandr0hh Reijasalo. Known for his aggressive style in net, he could very well be utilized especially against opponents who could have had trouble overcoming his style in the past. While swagx88 is very skilled on the ice, he is also an important player in the chat and as a vocal player he will surely help out his teammates in any way possible. OUT Teemu @ITemeI Laukkanen ITemeI leaves the team as is only natural, after being pushed down in the depth ranks due to the acquisition of swagx88. His new team is currently unknown, but he will surely be a great addition at least to any team in the Pro division on the lookout for a capable netminder with experience against top players. Power Rankings Provided by @MartindalexC This season, the logic behind the power rankings have been overhauled in order to make them based on something tangible that can actually be quantified - as opposed to just, "well these guys are doing kinda bad, right?". In short, a number (or points rather) is generated for each matchup a team plays that they should attain, going above this number (by collecting more points) means that they are above average, whereas going below (failing to collect points) means that they are below average. Said positive / negative number will be reset each week and the rankings will be based solely off of that, this decision was made so that each week's rankings are truly separate, and teams are not afforded a higher position simply based on previous weeks (i.e. the rank decay is incredibly high). With that said however, each team will also have their 'season-wide' rating visible so everyone can see how precarious, or safe, each team is based on their current form. There are some downsides, for instance the current 'model' is not fully fleshed out and this has led to some anomalous data entries that are kind of messing with the predicted points, so it may be that some teams are a little iffy in where they have been placed. However, for next week I will try to expand the data points that it's drawing from and that should hopefully even out any problematic entries. Either way, here are the ECL Elite Week 1 Power Rankings: 1. FILADELPHIA (6-0-0) [+4.5] 2. hREDS (4-0-0) [+4] 3. YMCA Esports (4-2-0) [+3] T4. Färjestad BK (5-1-0) [+2] T4. IQUE (1-2-1) [+2] T4. Vesa Pompa (4-1-1) [+2] 7. JYP Jyvaskyla (2-2-0) [+1.5] 8. HAVU Gaming (4-1-1) [+1] 9. POGGERS (5-3-0) [0] 10. SAWO Esports (1-3-0) [-0.5] T11. Rusty Blades (0-4-0) [-1] T11. KOVA Esports (2-2-0) [-1] 13. Tunnel Vision (0-4-0) [-2.5] T14. GOONS (3-2-1) [-4] T14. ZSC Esports (0-5-1) [-4] 16. Northern Ascendancy (1-4-1) [-5]