Good day NHLGamers,
As some of you may know, we here at NHLGamer.com recently made the decision to provide coverage of the IS Cup NHL tournament, hosted by SJK (Seinäjoen Jalkapallokerho) - a sports team in the top professional league of Finnish football and also one of the first organizations to establish an eSports section within their club. You may remember that a big part of SJKs investment in eSport was signing NHLGamer staff member Dominointi as their NHL player and enlisting ECL franchise Rynnäkköviikset as their grassroots organizaton.
The following article will be Part One in a Two-Part series where we cover the event, recap all the exciting things that happened and show off all the fun image and video material we collected during our stay.
Look for a video-heavy Part Two later this week where we provide you with some interviews plus some sights and sounds of the tournament!
The IS Cup
The concept of the IS Cup meant bringing together 16 top NHL Versus players from all over Finland (including NHLGamer members Jageksi, Hansulinho, Dominointi, Artuzio, KingOfApes_, Chafak, PleeMaker, Kaneyh and I_Eki_I) to do battle at SJKs home stadium, OmaSP Stadion, for a total prize pool of 1500 €. The tournament also featured a FIFA competition using the same structure and prizes but for the purposes of this article, we will be focusing on NHL.
To be able to participate in the IS Cup finals, the contestants had to either fight their way through an extensive online qualifier or participate in a local event organized in Seinäjoki a couple of weeks prior.
For me personally, covering this tournament meant traveling from the relatively safe confines of Stockholm, Sweden to the deep forests of Seinäjoki, Finland.
In an effort to try and get to know the city I was due to visit, I did what any reasonably sane man with limited time would do - I turned to Wikipedia. During my research process, I learned a great many things. I learned that the city of Seinäjoki originated around a gunpowder factory around the turn of the 18th century. I learned that the city is famous for its three big events; its tango festival, its racing festival and its rock festival. Finally, I also came to understand I was looking at a 3 hour train ride from Helsinki to Seinäjoki, accompanied by nothing more than @Kenu and his wits.
As I was leaving Wikipedia, I was not sure what to expect. However, as it turns out, I needn't worry - the city (and tournament) exceeded all my expectations. But now, let us get to the coverage of this event:
All 16 players of the IS Cup were divided into groups of 4 and put through a group stage to determine which 8 players would move on to the tournament Quarterfinals. Going into the tournament, professional eSports players Hansulinho of ENCE eSports, Dominointi of SJK eSports and Chafak of Paranoia eSports had to be considered among the favorites to win the trophy, but each player would be tested early and often in their groups. The level of play at IS Cup was incredibly high and not something you see in your everyday NHL 17 Versus sessions.
After many tough games and unexpected outcomes, the playoff tree shaped up like this (with all series being played Best of-3):
Quarterfinals
Dominointi - PleeMaker [1-2 in games]
Hansulinho - Eskoeinari [2-0 in games]
Chafak - Dreammickie [0-2 in games]
I_EKI_I - EEPI [2-0 in games]
As expected, the Quarterfinals featured several big moments and tight-checking playoff hockey. The first-round series we found ourselves most invested in was the one between @Dominointi and @plee999, this partly due to the rivalry of the match-up (these players faced each other quite recently in another Versus tournament, FCT - Finnish Championship Tournament, where Plee barely edged out Domi in the Semifinals) but also due to the big crowd of people amassed around these two star players. Throughout the entire tournament Plee had, without a doubt, the biggest fan following - something that can usually either make or break a player when push comes to shove. At this point in the tournament the fan support had seemed to benefit Plee, but going up against Domi would prove to be his biggest test yet.
Plee took Game 1 by a score of 4-3 and also took the lead in Game 2 to loud cheers, but Domi showed his tournament pedigree and came back to win Game 2 by another 4-3 score. The stakes were incredibly high for Game 3 but both players seemed unfazed and cool under pressure. Ultimately, Plee got off to a good start by scoring the first goal, forcing Domi to play more aggresive to go for the equalizing goal. As often happens when one team goes all-out, the other team takes advantage and mounts an effective counter-attack. Plee did just that and ended up shutting the game down by a 3-0 score. Plee moved on the next round where he would face tournament favorite @Hansulinho. In the other playoff series, MUKIMIEHET player @Erkki (I_EKI_I) managed to win his round and move on to the next round where he would face Dreammickie. Dreammickie advanced through somewhat of a surprise 2-0 win over @EA_BUNKA (Chafak).
Semifinals
I_EKI_I - Dreammickie [2-1 in games]
Hansulinho - PleeMaker [0-2 in games]
The matchups above meant 3 out of 4 players in the final rounds were members of the NHLGamer community, something we couldn't be prouder of. Perhaps Dreammickie will make it 4 out of 4 in the near future? Keep an eye out, Gamers! Sadly, we didn't get a chance to watch the Semifinal games as we were busy interviewing SJK tournament host Mikko Jokipii at the time, but judging by the amounts of cheers coming from the main event hall (where the game between Hansu and Plee was being displayed on the main screen), we could tell there was a great game going on. After consulting with fellow NHLGamers that were at the stadium, we learned that I_EKI_I had won his matchup over Dreammickie in a tight 2-1 series while Plee had continued his incredible hot streak and beaten Hansu by a score of 2-0.
Bronze game
Hansulinho - Dreammickie
The Bronze game didn't actually feature a Best of-3; the tournament organizers instead opting for a one game, winner takes all-approach to this battle. Ultimately, these types of games can be hard to re-load for after you've been eliminated in the semifinals, but Dreammickie managed to give it one last push to beat Hansulinho and receive the consolation prize of a PSN Plus subscription (12 months).
Finals
I_EKI_I - PleeMaker [0-2 in games]
So came the finals, and a chance for the winning player to walk away with 1000€ while the runner-up would receive 500€. Plee was heavily favored by many after weathering such a tough storm on his way to the finals, but I_EKI_I had nonetheless impressed as well on his way to the championship finals. The room was packed, the crowd was loud, both players had music in their ears and the announcers were ready - showtime. During the finals, the Twitch stream for the event reached almost 1000 viewers, which was incredibly fun to see. As far as the actual games go, Plee came roaring out of the gates with a vengeance and put up several goals in the first few minutes of Game 1. I_EKI_I never recovered from the intense start by Plee and lost Game 1 by several goals. He managed to re-load for Game 2 though and went toe-to-to with Plee through the scores of 1-1 and 2-2. In the end, Plee was a man on a mission and despite a quality game from I_EKI_I, Plee was the ultimate - and well deserved - winner of the IS Cup.
Additional thoughts
As we approach the end of this article, NHLGamer would also like to give a shout-out to the members of our community we got to meet that weren't playing in the tournament. For me personally, it was a lot of fun putting faces to gamertags I had been playing against for years. Outside of our 9 members that were tournament contenders, we met at least 9 more around the event hall. I can't even remember everyone I shook hands with and talked to but off the top of my head @Joonas Paatiala, @nylanderi, @Hoiggaa, @Zande95, @FinKonna & @RutonMosse.
Remind me in the comment section who I missed out on mentioning!
On a final note, we here at NHLGamer.com would like to thank organizers SJK for being so incredibly hospitable towards us - offering us chances both to interview tournament host Mikko Jokipii and to be interviewed ourselves on the official Twitch livestream for the event, putting us in front of hundreds and hundreds of stream viewers wearing nothing but our NHLGamer shirts. Well, pants too.
We should have an edited version of the clip for you available in our upcoming video coverage of IS Cup, but if you want to check it out right now, go to the IS Cup Twitch feed and browse to the 3 hour, 42 minute mark. Look for the two guys wearing NHLGamer t-shirts 
Until we see you again in our video coverage post from IS Cup - later skaters,
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