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NHLGamers, The ECL '22 Winter Elite season is now capped off and while the Finals were over almost as fast as they started, history was made this weekend. Frölunda did everything in their power to challenge the big, bad REDS but this time it just wasn't enough. By hoisting this cup, hREDS have etched their names in the history books by being the first back-to-back ECL Champions ever. hREDS wingers Vili @Vilupoika Häkkinen and Niklas @NikkeDangles Tukiainen were on fire in the finals and produced a majority of their teams offense, while centerman Perttu @Beniittto Kemppainen locked down the back-end in cohesion with defensemen Aaro @xDoumi Ruuhinen and Tuukka @Tuukka.R Röpelinen (KingOfApes_). Goaltender Filip @Faze91- Azri claimed his second title in only his fourth competitive ECL season - what an effort! We caught up with the captain @Beniittto in the midst of the celebrations: You're now going down in history as the first ever team to win back-to-back ECL Championships, what is it that makes you so great and how much do you appreciate doing it with these guys? First off, it feels great. We've got a good group of guys and all of us are capable players, which makes it all possible. Also, the chemistry both on and off the ice can't be overstated. Playoff series, no matter how tightly matched, have had a tendency to be over in rather quick fashion lately. What do you think is the reason behind that? Our game is simply put very complete, which makes us a tough team to beat in any given game. If we have one off-game, we're able to bounce back real quick, consistency is key. You took on a defensive role in the Finals, was that a conscious decision that your wingers will do the scoring and you shut down the opposition? Yeah we definitely talked a bit about that. We didn't want to give up any soft goals and decided to most importantly focus on shutting down their offense. Our wingers definitely got the job done with the scoring, which sealed the Championship for us. It looked like Frölunda HC caught you off guard a bit in game 4, was it difficult to regain your composure for the second gameday when being in such a dominant position? We didn't really change anything in our preparations and came into the games with a good mindset. We weren't able to set up any warmup games, which I think did us in for that one. How are you going to celebrate the Championship tonight? Naturally, a couple of drinks with the boys, and we'll see where the night will take us after that. hREDS' road to the championship: #1 seed with the record 22-5-3 Quarterfinals: vs GOONS (8) 4-0 Semifinals: vs Granit Gaming (7) 4-1 Finals: vs Frölunda HC (3) 4-1 The winning roster: GOALTENDERS #91 Filip @Faze91- Azri DEFENSEMEN #27 Aaro @xDoumi Ruuhinen #94 Tuukka @Tuukka.R Röpelinen (KingOfApes_) (A) FORWARDS #23 Niklas @NikkeDangles Tukiainen (A) #89 Vili @Vilupoika Häkkinen #96 Perttu @Beniittto Kemppainen (C) If you happened to miss the broadcast, you can rewatch the action from Saturday here. Thanks for tuning in and congrats to the champions!

SportsGamers, The sun is shining, and the snow is melting. As your traditional hockey seasons might be pushing towards the postseason, on the virtual side of things, we're just about to witness the Elite Finale tonight! We're very excited for what the games ahead will hold, but we're also turning our heads towards the ECL '22 Spring season and launching registrations for all divisions. For the ECL '22 Winter season, we brought in licenses to our lower divisions for the first time. We received huge support from the community and will continue with the same formula for the ECL '22 Spring season. We're always in the process of developing further, so all feedback will be welcomed with open arms. During the ECL '22 Winter season, you probably also noticed our rebrand, which brought a new name, a refreshed website, and some other added features. Most importantly, this allows for us to operate vertically across all sports games in the esports market. The community is certainly also interested to know on which console the ECL Spring will be played? We’ve decided that the ECL '22 Spring season will be played on the PlayStation 4 version and we’ll move to the PlayStation 5 version in the next ECL. However, this does not exclude playing other tournaments on the PlayStation 5 version already in the summer. Without further ado, let's go into it. The ECL is the pinnacle of European NHL esports - a league where all the best European NHL gamers create teams and compete against each other in the game mode EASHL (6v6) for the title of Best EASHL Team in Europe. The league currently features five divisions, so action is guaranteed for everyone regardless of skill level and experience! 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. Russian-owned organization's participation is currently prohibited indefinitely. The ban affects organizations, meaning that Russian players and their private created teams will be able to participate, but cannot be affiliated to a Russian-owned organization. 6v6 tournament: ECL is played 6 vs. 6 only, using the EASHL Challenge Club game mode in NHL 22. 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 licenses: Teams in ECL Elite & ECL Pro will be require their respective ECL '22 Spring license in order to play. Optional licenses are available for the ECL Lite and Core levels. More details below. Rules: The ECL '22 Spring ruleset will follow the same foundation as in ECL '22 Winter season. Wildcard Battle: 5.-10.3. ⚠️ ECL Lite Qualifier: 5.-13.3. ⚠️ ECL Pro Qualifier: 5.-13.3. ⚠️ ECL Neo: 5.3.-1.4. ECL Core: 5.3.-1.4. ECL Lite: 5.-20.3. ECL Pro: 5.-20.3. ECL Elite: 5.-20.3. * Sign-ups will close 23:59 CET on the last day mentioned unless otherwise specified. Additionally, players qualifying for the Wildcard spot must be on the team roster by the time the sign-ups close. Below you'll find the condensed version of what's new this year in the ECL. For a longer look, please read our article about the new era of ECL. ECL Winter & Spring ECL seasons will no longer carry the same numerical distinctions next to them as before. Instead, NHLGamer will be hosting two annual ECL seasons: ECL Winter and ECL Spring. The combined prize pools for ECL Winter, ECL Spring and the ECL Grand Finals will be larger than anything seen before in NHL esports! We’ll be hosting an ECL Grand Final – with an additional prize pool – to crown the annual ECL Champion. This much-anticipated best-of-seven event will feature the ECL Elite teams who won ECL Winter and ECL Spring, respectively. Prize pools for ECL Pro, Lite and Core ECL Elite remains the pinnacle of virtual hockey gaming in Europe but as our community continues to grow and the competition becomes increasingly tougher, playing in ECL Pro, Lite and Core is more prestigious than ever before. We’ll be adding a license and prize pool for our second-tier division; ECL Pro – and voluntary licenses and prize pools for ECL Lite and Core. ECL Pro will feature a mandatory license fee and prize pool. All the money from the team licenses goes into the prize pool. The top sixteen (16) out of the divisions’ 32 teams will be awarded a share of the prize pool. ECL Lite and Core will feature a voluntary license fee and a prize pool for the teams who choose to acquire a license. The top 16 teams that choose to acquire a license in ECL Lite (64 teams) will be awarded a share of the prize pool. The top 32 teams that choose to acquire a license in ECL Core (128 teams) will be awarded a share of the prize pool. See more about licenses in our Licenses section. The divisions framework for the ECL '22 Spring will follow the same logic as for the previous season. 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. Please use the below links for more detailed info about each division and which teams are eligible to sign up: Wildcard Battle information (for ECL Lite and Pro Qualifiers) ECL Lite & Pro Qualifiers information ECL Neo Season Information ECL Core Season Information ECL Lite Season Information ECL Pro Season Information ECL Elite Season Information *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 22) Social media Here's an update to the social media instructions. Our sponsors this season are Kouvolan Lakritsi, Wilhelm & St Hockey. Twitter: When posting tweets of your lineups, matchups, recaps, clips, articles - or any other content you might want to create - please make sure to tag the following accounts and hashtag: @SportsGamerGG #ECL22Spring #NHL22 #esports #kouvolanlakritsi #MukanaWilhelm Instagram: When posting on Instagram, please make sure to tag the following accounts and hashtag: @SportsGamerGG #ECL22Spring #NHL22 #esports #kouvolanlakritsi #MukanaWilhelm Note: It is super helpful and critical for us to succeed in getting our partners tagged, so they get the necessary mentions and interaction to validate their participation in the future. That being said, it is understandable that there may be circumstances due to your other partners where you are unable to tag competition etc. Your support is appreciated. As there are quite a few hashtags by now, especially from a Twitter perspective with limited characters, we recommend using at least #ECL22Winter in the text part of the tweet and leave the sponsor tags for the end. If you need to cut out tags, remove #esports and #NHL22. For Instagram this shouldn't be an issue. PS: We would love for you to follow our social channels, as they are an integral part of the ECL season. Discord Instagram Facebook Twitch Twitter This post has been promoted to an article

Finally it's here, the culmination of the ECL '22 Winter Elite season. Only the top two teams in Europe remain. There's many names for this top-tier rivalry, but now we'll call it the NHL Esports new 'battle of the titans'. We decided to reach out to the netminders on both ends of the ice for some thoughts about their history and the upcoming games. Faze, FILADELPHIA, now Frölunda HC, in the finals last season. How did it feel to win the  ECL in just your second Elite season? ”It felt awesome, we have an amazing group of players and we all knew that we were capable of sweeping them. And we really did perform to our best in that series. To win my first Elite championship was something special, I couldn’t imagine sitting there when I started playing NHL back in NHL 20. And to do it with this group of guys couldn’t have been better”, the hREDS netminder Filip @Faze91- Azri noted. Cappe, in the last ECL Finals your team took a beating. What's your mindset going into the rematch and by that, the ECL '22 Winter Championship?  ”We know what we can do and we have shown that against hREDS in the last five games we’ve played against each other in the FCL and ECL”, Frölunda goalie Casper @ICappeI Lundgren briefly comments, and seems very focused on the task ahead.  You have faced each other in the finals several times in the last year, does this matchup have any special significance? @Faze91-:  ”It’s for sure always fun to play these big games, and Frölunda in the Finals is something special. I'm sure it's gonna be an exciting series to watch.” @ICappeI: “It's definitely special to play in the Finals!! It's always fun to test yourself against the best out there and I believe hREDS is right there with us.” What is your greatest strength as a goalie, and have you changed your play style from NHL21? @Faze91-: ”Reading the play for sure, reading the opposition's plays and always being one step ahead. That’s my biggest strength. Of course I've changed my game style a bit, but that’s something I want to keep for myself.” @ICappeI: ”Playing goalie in NHL 22 is quite different from what it used to be. So much random stuff is happening so it can be quite frustrating to play between the pipes. I’m not a big fan of the gameplay right now and kind of miss NHL 19-21. However, I enjoy playing this game because of my teammates, I love being able to compete with such a great group of people.” How will the series end and which things will show up in the deciding matches? @Faze91-: ”4-0 to us, we are a really strong team and we have been feeling it the whole season. If we play our best I feel like there is no team that can challenge us. I think the deciding factors will be the focus and the form coming into the games, which team will score the first goals and have the routine to close down the games.” @ICappeI: ”The first games will be huge in this series as we’ve seen in the past two ECL Elite Finals. Paul @PleeMaker Arontie has looked amazing recently so I’m excited to see what he can do in the matchup against Tuukka @Tuukka.R Röpelinen (KingOfApes)! I think we’ll win it 4-2.” Tune in for the ECL '22 Winter Elite Finals this weekend! The broadcast will start at 19:30 CET on both Friday and Thursday. You'll find us at www.twitch.tv/SportsGamerGG with Cody "Tougie" Tougas and Paul "Cyn" Anderson in the booth to call the action!