NA NHL 20 Cup Wrap-Up

After the dust settles, and the craziness of such an amazing event as the Northern Arena NHL Cup co-produced by NHLGamer has finished, we can finally look back on the storylines and some of the highlights of the tournament.

There were multiple qualifying events, and after 91 teams battled it out, the top 32 teams in North America advanced to the next stage of the event, getting to go up against the best of North America. There were new faces, new teams, and established teams looking to cement themselves as one of the best teams in NHL 20 for the history books of the rising esport. As a whole, the NA Cup saw 100 teams throughout the qualifiers and regular season.

Growth Under the Watchful NHL Eye
While NHLGamer and the European player base it has is no secret to professional teams stepping into the spotlight and sponsoring teams or simply giving their support, the North American community has slowly been gaining more traction in professional team support. Starting with 1v1 events from many teams, onto the Caps Gaming Showcase and the first 6v6 North American LAN in over 10 years, more and more NHL teams are entering the esports market in varying quantities. It’s a fantastic step for growth in the scene, and will hopefully continue to progress more and more, with more teams and more events coming together in the near future.

While the likenesses of every NHL team were used in the NA Cup, the Anaheim Ducks Gaming, Canadiens Esports, CBJ Gaming, FlaPanthers Gaming, and NJDGC were representing their NHL organizations and all either picked up a roster and actively supported them, or brought their own roster to the event. The active engagement and community outreach these small actions can bring to the community is extremely rewarding and truly feels like NHL 6’s is on the rise heading into the 2021 season. Perhaps with time some of these 1v1 events transition to the dark side of 6v6 (or perhaps a hybrid of both).

Cup Contenders Shined in Regular Season
Another interesting addition to this specific event was the invite system, where the top 6 teams at the halfway point of the CBJ Summer Cup were directly invited to compete in the NA Cup. It allowed teams performing well to skip the qualifier process altogether. It also gave spectators an idea of who to look out for at the top of the standings.

Essentially all of the 6 invitees had very good regular season performances, where 5 of the 6 invited teams made up the final top 8 in the playoffs, as well as 3 of the top 4. In fact, both of the top seeds in each conference were held by invited teams, with those being Entourage with a 12-1-2 record, and the Underdogs with a 13-1-1 record. Those two teams also happened to meet each other in the finals, where Entourage took home the crown in 4 games.

Teams Who Shined in Northern Arena Cup
There will be the teams with high expectations of winning it all, but there will also be teams who turn some heads and really make a name for themselves with a solid performance. With NHL Esports being relatively new, you may only recognize a handful of team names off the top of your head, but with some very good regular season and playoff runs, there were a number of teams who will have some eyes on them to continue their run heading into future events.

Teams such as Calgary Prodigy HC, who came into the event after a decent top 16 finish in the CBJ Cup in their first event as a team, ended up finishing second in the western conference with a 10-2-3 record. They ended up making it all the way to the conference semifinals, finishing top 8 in the event. The young team proved they can compete against the best, and hopefully, they can stick together for more future events.

A team from the Eastern Conference that really turned some heads could be Philadelphia Problematic/Road 2 Glory, who had an impressive run in the regular season going 11-3-1 and making it to the conference semifinals. A team I thought would be around the playoff bubble were in fact the complete opposite, and shocked a lot of people competing in a pretty top-heavy conference.

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While we could go through every single team's journey and go game by game for storylines, there will be many things to take away from such a fun event. It was amazing to watch the best 32 teams in North America go head to head to wrap up the 2020 season. The 6v6 traction has been heating up recently and capping it off here with another great event.

Congratulations to the Entourage for another title, but also to the Underdogs for being amazingly fun to watch all tournament long. You can pretty much guarantee both of these teams will be back in plenty more finals come October.

Special thanks to everyone who helped make the event run as smoothly as possible, being everyone from Northern Arena, NHLGamer, to the production crew, to the admins and moderators. With every great game of hockey comes an army of people behind the scenes to make it run as smoothly as possible.

We also want to thank all of the NHL organizations and sponsors involved in the event, and everyone who followed the tournament and broadcasts for your support!