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Photo courtesy of SEUL ry, Jääskeläinen. Taken at GameXpo 2018. NHLGamers, It's the final week of ECL 8 Elite and it all culminates at the pinnacle of the season - The ECL 8 Elite Finals at LanTrek in Tampere, Finland! With this short intro, we're launching an extensive coverage into the heated battle between first seed Written In The Stars and second seed FILADELPHIA. The games are scheduled to start at 17:00 CET on Friday, 1st of March, 2019 and we'll keep going for as long as it takes to make out a champion, believe me - that might take a while! Last time these teams met live, we ended up playing long into the night as game 2 wasn't decided until 6th OT when @Dominointi tickled twine. Stay tuned for our big ECL 8 Elite Final preview, dropping late tomorrow evening. You'll be able to find us all Weekend at LanTrek, as we're hosting the ECL 8 Elite Finals on Friday and casual FIFA 19 and NHL 19 tournaments on Saturday. NHLGamer can be found in the lower left hand corner (picture above). The ECL 8 Elite finals will be played on stage #2. To get you guys in the spirit, we'll be releasing short interviews with some members of the finalist teams over the next few days. Our first victim was long time FILADELPHIA goaltender and assistant captain @FinKonna: You and @sibeelius pretty much share the responsibility of the games, is there any logic or strategy behind how you play or do you just go with who's available? - In the regular season we've agreed that both goalies split the games. To start the playoffs we play two games each and from there on we go with whoever seems to perform better. Quickly go over your season so far. - Well, @jtorro1233 came in as a new guy and obviously we had an adjustment period. We didn't play too much before the season started, which came back to bite us, however I think we managed to bounce back nicely and found our stride towards the end of the season. The last time Written In The Stars beat you in a competitive game was in the finals of the Finnish Championships in 6vs6 (aka IS Cup 3) in the fall of 2018, do you think that gives you an edge? - They can't beat us lately, so that'll certainly play in our favour. They might be feeling the pressure building and there's a bit of a monkey on their backs. FinKonna is notorious for applying pressure to the opposing side, and he is determined to keep doing just that this upcoming weekend. He mentioned that he'll make sure to bother some of the SKY players a bit extra at the hotel prior to the games. Make sure to tune in at www.twitch.tv/nhlgamer for all the action on Friday! The games start at 17:00 CET and we'll have your very own Arttu Hämäläinen and Jani @Jiihooo86 Hetta in the booth. Unfortunately there won't be a separate international feed, but we will include English content in our broadcast. Hope to see you all at LanTrek this weekend! Your NHLGamer Editor, @jahajaha93

Hi NHLGamers, The quarterfinals brought us a whole bunch of more upsets, as did the previous rounds. The first seeded team of The Next Gen got swept, Elite experienced teams like SIKA and Gotham Knights got sent to improving their golfing skills as well. We congratulate TIKI TALK, Checkmate, POGGERS and Black Horse for their guaranteed shot at an Elite spot for ECL 9. The ECL 8 Pro Semifinals will be played between Monday, 25th of February and Sunday, 3rd of March 2019. Here are the matchups for the ECL 8 Pro Semi-finals: (2) TIKI TALK vs. Black Horse (13) Is it TIKI TALK's year? Will they finally make their way back to Elite in ECL 9? After a disappointing end to their ECL 7 season, TIKI TALK have finally shown their true potential in the 8th iteration of the European Championship League. They don't want to waste any more time in their quest to advance back to the highest tier division - two sweeps against Bellizzi and SIKA, you can call that impressive for sure. The teams iconic captain @itspardytime rules this team and the division playoffs so far by scoring 38 points (20 goals, 18 assists) in 8 games. TIKI TALK have been running with their top lineup for all games so far and we believe this won't change as you don't change a winning team, right? @Thewix93 (4 goals and 13 assists) and @PCJP (89,47 SV% and 1,00 GAA) are the defensive anchors which this highly potential offense need at the back end. Black Horse started the season as their name would imply and surpassed all expectations completely. While they struggled a little bit at the end of the season, which cost them a higher seed for the playoffs, they didn't hesitate to show their skill right at the start of the playoffs against the big guns. They eliminated the 4th seed Silver Sword Griffins in 6 games while burying the top seed The Next Gen in only 4. Is TIKI TALK next in the line on their way to winning it all? Their defense is the key to their success - while they don't win their games with style, they are hard to score against and will make you pay for your mistakes. While former top goaltender @Hullued now is showing that he can be a top center and leads the team in that role in all three zones of the ice, the defensive pair of @Miika (Since2009-) and @Exel56 do an outstanding job and @villamies95 in net is a real stud in his debut season! Pure offensive skill vs a brickwall, who's gonna stand tall when this series has been played? Our bet is on TIKI TALK in 6 games, but expect some really tight battles! (5) Checkmate vs. POGGERS (9) Checkmates situation is very familiar to the one TIKI TALK finds themselves in - they also had a disappointing outcome to the ECL 7 playoffs with a first round exit. Now they are back in business again. While in the regular season they played with quite a big roster, we get that familiar top 6 line up in the playoffs. This roster consists of guys who were able to beat Speedy Bros Hockey and Mentula SKA in 5, respective 6 games. Alike Black Horse, Checkmate is a defensive minded team built around the captain @TackleControl. They established this play style during last season as well, but what is different this year? Maybe the addition of the Elite experienced @Tuukka.R was the missing puzzle piece for their final success. Can they hold on to their strong defense and make it to the finals? Once a Wasp, now a frog - the evolution goes on, but they started with Quality right from the beginning! After defeating Raccoon Rampage and Gotham Knights in 5, respective 6 games, the team around the leader @Yoloberg will make sure to give the best fight they have to offer. The addition of veteran @Chafak helped them to go far in the playoffs. Look out for their offensive trio as they like to throw some extra sauce on their passes and might surprise you coming out of the gates. They are also quite good defensively and will make sure that their top 6 guys are on the ice to win them this series. It will be interesting to see which team is going to be the active part with more puck possession. We're expecting both teams to have to dig deep in their playbook if they want to advance to the finals. We believe it will be Checkmate coming out as a finalist, but it will take the full distance of 7 games! Results from the relegation matchups: (G1 #14) Clowns On Ice vs. Pata Hellalla (G2 #15) 2-4 At last we would like to wish all ECL 8 Pro semi-finalists good luck in these series and would also like to give a big congrats to Pata Hellalla for staying in Pro! Signing off for now, ECL Pro Writing Team @Mannheimer1938 & @Panarinz

Hello NHLGamers, We are a few weeks in to the ECL 8 Lite Playoffs and have now reached round 3. We've had the opportunity to watch a bunch of exciting games in the first two rounds and a some of the matchups have taken surprising turns! Round 3 of the ECL 8 Lite playoffs is to be played between Thursday, 21st of February and Wednesday, 27th of February. From now on we'll be polling Lite captains for the outcome of upcoming playoff series. We did just that for the 3rd round and below the matchups you can see our calculated result presented. Here are the matchups for round 3 of the ECL 8 Lite playoffs: (1.) Prowlers vs. Poston Fruits (36.) Prowlers 55% (3.) Dystopia vs. Western Express (31.) Dystopia 91% (5.) Blackdawgs vs. LammasLauma (28.) Blackdawgs 64% (11.) We Kings vs. Beast Hockey (27.) We Kings 73% (12.) Saucer Hockey vs. FarmiNaattori (26.) FarmiNaattori 91% (14.) Oton Letkutemppu vs. Me Carvoset (25.) Me Carvoset 55% (16.) Cheers Hockey vs. Reaperr (22.) Reaperr 55% (18.) Chatbox vs. Vesa Pompa HC (20.) Vesa Pompa HC 70% There you have it, guys! We're excited for the upcoming round and expect to see some tight games. Who do you think will advance? As always, play hard and fair out there, see you on the ice! ECL Lite Writing Team, @Willander97 & @Tonimo92