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The last four teams are left and we move to the Semifinals stage of the Lite division. A long season sees it's end when the best teams face each other for a place in the Finals. Who will gain a straight Pro spot for next season? Will someone be able to find another gear or pull an ace from their sleeve? Structure & Prize Pool Schedule The teams that are left aren't that surprising after all, but especially Valco came all the way through seed #26 and won the seeds #1 Arkham Asylum and seed #2 Tadpole with the lead of goal scorer by God’s grace - captain @itspardytime, who has found a new level with the whole team. Among the goalies, @Misantti and @DUNZA have been on their own level. (6) Spirit vs Valco (26) In this one, we're looking at two pretty different teams, with some striking similarity at the same time. Both teams trust their right side like a rock. Valco plays many situations through their captain @itspardytime. Also @Toivonen_ from Spirit seems to be their main guy for attacking. So the winner of the series will probably be the team who can change their playstyle during the series because the two main guys will be marked men. Follow @NuariJamal and @VesKuLiNe. (7) IK Oskarshamn vs Synergy Hockey (10) Swedish clash. While Synergy Hockey have been marching their way to this stage of the playoffs, IK Oskarshamn have had a bit more of a bumpy road. Two game seven wins still shows that they deserve to be here and the team holds that certain resilience. IK Oskarshamn looks a bit like last season’s winner Mora IK. A strong five man unit and their wingers score at a very high rate. @snippystatue leads his teams scoring and will be battling with the experienced @Supremski throughout the series. Follow that clash, it might be the series decider. Socials Here's an update to the social media instructions. Our sponsors this season are Kouvolan Lakritsi, St Hockey & Wilhelm. 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 very 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 #ECL22Spring 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.

As the season has rolled on already to the semifinals, we're now in for a couple of very exciting matchups, where younger underdogs are challenging the proven top teams. Both hREDS and Frölunda HC are clearly hunting for the title, whereas GOONS and SAWO ESPORTS are the young guns around trying to have their say in the eventual winner. Structure & Prize Pool Schedule The previews were written in cooperation by @jahajaha93 & @ose16. (1) hREDS vs GOONS (5) TOP SCORER (Playoffs) Vili @Vilupoika Häkkinen 4 GP, 7+6=13 vs Samu @xKeskitalo Keskitalo 5 GP, 4+9=13 GOALTENDER (Playoffs) Filip @Faze91- Azri 4 GP, 4 W, 93,94 SV%, 0.5 GAA, 2 SO vs Ville @Supreex Korhonen 5 GP, 4 W, 83,33 SV%, 1.6 GAA, 1 SO REGULAR SEASON RECORD 26-2-2 vs 20-8-2 REGULAR SEASON SERIES 3-0, 4-0 hREDS dominated in the first round against Conquer Gaming. Their 18-2 goal differential against the regular seasons biggest dark horse tells that the back-to-back champions are getting warmed up just in time for the bigger games. Starting the playoff run with an 8-0 win is a statement of it's own, that's for sure. Once again the predators showed that their ability to defend patiently when it's needed is also a big strength in this team. Even though sometimes their defense would slip up there is still a big hill to climb when scoring goal against hREDS as their goalie Filip @Faze91- Azri once again leads all the goalie stats and was the only goaltender to record two shoutouts in the first round. There is still no signs for hREDS' momentum dropping and they have more than a solid chance to make it three in a row this season. GOONS managed to win Örebro Hockey in 5 games on their way to the semifinals. A crazy coincidence is that just like their coming opponent hREDS, also this black and red team started their playoff campaign with a 8-0 blowout win. The series between GOONS and Örebro was expected to maybe be a little tighter than it was but the numbers don't lie and they were the much better team in that series. It's interesting to see if they could find some keys to break hREDS' insane momentum. 21 scored goals in the opening round of the playoffs definitely boosted their goal scoring confidence, which is a good thing because against a top team in Europe you have to capitalize on every chance you get. Last season we saw this same matchup the quarterfinals as hREDS were able to sweep GOONS. Among the top 10 point producers in the playoffs you can find 9 players from these teams. The first game of the playoffs of course is the biggest factor for that but it doesn't take away the fact that both of these teams include a lot of firepower. Young guns Arttu @laitineen64(Laiitinen) Laitinen and Roope @pikkuroger Bergström have already proved their scoring ability in the playoffs also. You can find a lot of similarities when you compare these two to hREDS' Niklas @NikkeDangles(NikkeNHL)Tukianen in being first a very skilled forward but now being great on the defensive side of things also. In the goalie battle Ville @Supreex Korhonen is ready for the matchup against the best goalie in the league as he made 40 saves in the first round which was most among the goaltenders whose team made to the semifinals. This season has had many positive signs for GOONS but it's not yet their time to advance to the finals. HREDS will go hunt their third straight championship to the finals by shooting GOONS down in 5 games. (2) Frölunda HC vs SAWO ESPORTS (3) TOP SCORER (Playoffs) Paul @PleeMaker Arontie 4 GP, 7+3=10 vs Valtteri @Vattuyy Virtanen 6 GP, 5+3=8 GOALTENDER (Playoffs) Casper @ICappeI Lundgren 4 GP, 4 W, 84,62 SV%, 1.00 GAA, 0 SO vs Niklas @uhNikke Nieminen 6 GP, 4 W, 75,00 SV%, 1.83 GAA, 1 SO REGULAR SEASON RECORD 23-4-3 vs 21-7-2 REGULAR SEASON SERIES 2-1 OT, 3-2 Frölunda HC managed their first playoff test with their new lineup very well. Still, a sweep against Roots Gaming was only a start and they will definitely want more from this season, and their semifinal opponent will be tougher to beat. Erik @Eki Tammenpää is in the look for his first goal of the playoffs as surprisingly, he wasn’t able to get one in the Quarterfinals. Like the regular season showed, Paul @PleeMaker Arontie has a hot stick as now in the playoffs he has been able to light the lamp 7 times which is leading the league. Defense also worked well as the Indians surrendered only 1 goal in every game. Frölunda HC are now looking to get to the finals for the eighth season in a row. SAWO ESPORTS was able to get the monkey off their back by winning HAVU Gaming in 6 games after last seasons huge disappointment in the playoffs. HAVU managed to even things up after being 2-0 down in the series but perhaps that only strengthened the SAWO squad - they were put in a tough spot, which they handled very well. Putting away the series after a couple of tough losses will bring experience to the future in similar positions. Against Frölunda they will likely need more goal scoring power than only their wingers, who scored 10 out of SAWO's 12 goals in a 6 games series. Like the whole lineup, Niklas @uhNikke Nieminen had a tough time in the second night of the series against HAVU, but were able to bounce back in games 5 and 6. In this matchup those kind of off games aren't possible if SAWO wants to make it to the finals. This series you could expect to be tighter than the other. SAWO has a very talented team with great ability to defend well and at the same time make incredible plays in the offensive zone. Both of these teams are looking to get all their players involved in scoring. One of the key points will be how well Frölunda will be able to contain Jere @jxrska Laukka and Valtteri @Vattuyy Virtanen. These teams started their season against each other so we will see which team has developed their game more during the season. It all will come down to the fact that Frölunda's scoring power is more well rounded. Frölunda will continue their hunt to get back to the top with a 4-2 series win. See all of these teams in action tonight at the SportsGamer Twitch-channel! Our broadcast is starting with the Pro Finals already at 18:15 CEST!

SportsGamers, It's been a long road to travel for teams in the Core division thus far, and now we're down to the top four! Through four playoff rounds, these teams have defied odds and bested their opponents, now only eight wins away from the trophy. In Core, the playoffs consist of the top 8 teams from each group being seeded against other teams who finished in the same position (e.g. group winners are seeded #1-4, group runners-up are seeded #5-8 and so on.). The Semifinal round of the playoffs will start on Sunday the 5th of June 2022 and end on Thursday the 9th of June 2022. Here is a full schedule of the ECL '22 Spring Core playoffs: Round-of-64: 01.05 – 05.05 (BO7) Round-of-32: 08.05 – 12.05 (BO7) Round-of-16: 15.05 – 25.05 (BO7) Quarterfinals: 30.05 – 02.06 (BO7) Semifinals: 05.06 – 09.06 (BO7) Finals: 13.06 – 14.06 (BO7) [Provisional date] For the relevant rules regarding these playoffs, please find extracts from the ECL Rulebook below. Essentially, each series will be a best-of-seven and the higher seeded team will play 'at home' first, then alternate back and forth with the lower seeded team.    (1)  Rögle BK vs Chiefzz HC  (7) A quick glance at the rosters puts Rögle BK in the favorite position in this series by a landslide and they've consistently plowed through opposition throughout the season at convincing pace. Chiefzz HC will be in for a challenge unlike anything they've seen thus far this season. While Rögle is surely looking to crush their opponents with scoring explosions like only they've been able to do this season, Chiefzz HC will benefit from trying to keep the score low for as long as possible. It's tough to imagine this series going past five games.  Prediction: Rögle BK advances, 4-1 (3)  Frolunda HC Region vs Etelan Vetelat  (6) This one could turn out to be a very interesting series. Frolunda HC consists of several up-and-comers and some very talented players with lots still to learn, but great potential, whereas Etelan Vetelat holds some very experienced gamers in their roster, with several seasons at higher levels under their belts. Statistically, Frolunda HC has a tendency to play a bit more offensive compared to their opponents, who you could imagine want to utilize their experience and chemistry in order to overcome this challenge.  Prediction: Etelan Vetelat advances, 3-4   Good luck for everyone!