(The news story in Finnish - Uutinen Suomeksi: https://nhlgamer.com/grail_finnish.php)

Good evening NHLGamers,

Today, on the day of the NHL 18 pre-release, we are truly proud to announce that NHLGamer and Grail Group have agreed on a partnership.

The agreement stipulates that NHLGamer will have the honor of organizing both the NHL 18 and FIFA 18 1vs1 Finnish Championships for Grail Group, which will culminate with a live final at Grail Quest in the Turku Gatorade Center on October 19th - 21st, 2017. The prize pool is 1200 € per game!

Not only will NHLGamer be producing the live event, we are also very proud to say that the online qualification stage will be held right here at NHLGamer.com. The online qualifications for NHL 18 will be played 25th of September - 4th of October and the online qualifications for FIFA 18 will take place between the 4th and the 14th of October, so be sure to be available around those dates. The qualifications will be played as a best-of-3 knockout tournament and the 16 best players for both NHL 18 and FIFA 18 will be making their way to the finals in Turku.*

The qualification stage is open to users on both Playstation 4 and Xbox One. The total amount of finalists from either console is yet to be determined but will be confirmed once the sign-up period has ended. The final tournament is played on the Playstation 4 console.

In order to sign up, check out the rest of this article and then head over to https://nhlgamer.com/grail-quest/.

*We reserve the right to make changes to the tournament structure, if necessary.

What is Grail Quest?

Grail Quest is an event in which every visitor has the opportunity to experience the whole spectrum of gaming during one amazing weekend, with different things to experience on each day of the event. The programme includes - among other things - presentations of the latest games and technologies, competitions, exhibition activities, stage shows and last but not least; the Finnish championships in eSports.

In short, the event is suitable for anyone and everyone interested in gaming and the gaming industry, regardless of age or gender.

As mentioned earlier, Grail Quest is hosted at the Gatorade Center (home arena to TPS in the Finnish Liiga) in Turku, 19th - 21st of October 2017.

The event opens on Thursday the 19th at 12:00 and closes on Saturday the 21st around midnight. You can read more about Grail Quest at http://www.grailquest.fi

Participating in the Finnish Championships - also known as eSM - is only possible for Finnish citizens. In order to participate in any of the tournaments, every participating player has to have the official "eSM-player license", which currently costs 10 euro. The license allows you to participate in several eSM-tournaments.

The license can be bought at http://www.esm.gg/.

About us

For those of you who don't know us all that well, NHLGamer continuously strives to offer the best experience for any and all gamers who have come to enjoy the competitiveness of playing the EA SPORTS series of NHL games. We made our biggest stride forward yet when we in late 2015 introduced the first ever European Championship League (ECL) - 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.

Today, over 2500 website members also visit NHLGamer for all the latest NHL and gaming related news and exclusive content such as developer interviews and early gameplay impressions of upcoming titles.

While proud of our achievements and the success we‘ve had in creating and maintaining such a great community of talented gamers, this is just the beginning. Our long-term goals include growing the community to host larger leagues with prize pools and working together with EA SPORTS and gaming-focused organizations, like Grail Group, to ultimately establish a platform for professional players at the cutting edge of Esports.

NHLGamer also features some of the very best 1 vs 1 players in Europe like Dominointi, Hansulinho and PleeMaker.

Ultimately, we believe that if you want to be one of the best players in the world - you practice, chat and play with the pros.

Grail Group

Grail Group is a Finnish start-up dedicated to providing gamers with those extra thrills for their online experience. One of the main objectives for Grail Group has been - and continues to be - building a bridge between the eSports community and various business partners by managing athletes, offering game training and organizing events such as Grail Quest.

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So there you have it Gamers - we're very excited about Grail Quest and the opportunity to crown the best FIFA 18 and NHL 18 players in Finland! I look forward to seeing you in Turku in October! And if you're not Finnish and are feeling left out - don't worry. We have other exciting projects coming up in the future.

On behalf of the NHLGamer staff

NHLGamers,

It's been one hell of a ride so far... and it ain't showing any signs of slowing down. Today we here at NHLGamer.com are happy to announce we've passed another milestone: 2500 Members!

For those of you who have been keeping track of our milestone announcements, 2017 has been a very exciting year with no less than three separate milestones reached since the turn of the new year. Let us take a quick look back, shall we?

1000 Members, April 25th 2016.
1500 Members, January 16th 2017.
2000 Members, April 21st 2017.
2500 Members, September 9th 2017.

While our biggest website growth yet took place between January - April earlier this year where we gained 500 members (1500 to 2000) in a span of just 3 months, we are still immensly proud to have almost matched that pace for members 2000-2500. Especially when you consider April-September is traditionally not a part of the calender year that people associate with hockey, virtual or other. 

What has happened since April?

• For starters NHLGamer.com held its annual Summer Cup. A tournament where we had more than 300 participants sign up - more than doubling last years totals. Not only that, we also had our first sponsor in website history when Webhallen joined up with NHLGamer to produce the Summer Cup.
• We opened an Instagram account.
• We gave away a signed Mike Green jersey on Facebook
• We started a Podcast
• We also anounced the arrival of Versus tournaments, something that we will be releasing more information about in the next few weeks.
• Finally, we held our first ever Xbox ECL that was just completed.

So... how are you celebrating?

Well, glad you asked! To celebrate this milestone we are doing an NHL 18 -live stream with giving away two NHLGamer t-shirts (S & M sizes) with our official logo on them AND a custom SCUF PS4 controller. The best thing? They are all autographed by NHL 18 Producer Clement Kwong and Senior Communications Manager Evan Dexter! The SCUF box is also signed by @Hansulinho, @Dominointi and @Kenu. How cool is that?! You can check out the signing part in our interview video by clicking here.

To enter this alarmingly awesome giveaway, go to https://twitter.com/NHLGamerCOM and check out our latest Tweet ("NHLGamer SCUF Giveaway!") for more info on how to win.

Because we are in a giving mood, we also added the instructions for you right here:

• Own a Twitter account. If you do not, you can always create one!
• Re-tweet the recent NHLGamer Giveaway tweet AND follow the NHLGamer Twitter account
• Also follow @Dominointi's Twitter account (the provider of the SCUF controller)
• A winner will be drawn among those members who re-tweeted the specific tweet and followed both accounts.
• Winner will be announced on the official NHL 18 release day: 15/9!

You can join the stream at https://www.twitch.tv/nhlgamertwitch now.
 

Thats cool! But whats coming up next?

We know we've been teasing for a while now that we got some cool stuff coming up... but we are going to keep you all in the dark for just a short while longer. 

As the saying goes; "Good things come to those who wait" 

See you on the stream!

Good day NHLGamers,

It’s been a busy few weeks for us here at NHLGamer, as is to be expected in the month leading up to the release of any new EA SPORTS NHL title. Amongst other things, we had the opportunity to visit the NHL 18 Producers Tour both in Stockholm and Helsinki all the while wrapping up our Summer Cup, Xbox ECL and planning for the launch of ECL 5.

These are truly exhilarating times to be a part of this project as the momentum we carry from one day to the next continues to propel us forward. However, as our ambitions for NHLGamer continue to grow, so does the workload. One of the things we continually receive feedback about from the community is the amount of “in-league” articles we produce and that you would appreciate seeing us do more analysis, deep dives and opinion pieces on NHL gaming in general.

Let the personality of NHLGamer show, as it were.

Bearing this feedback in mind and with the understanding that the coming months will give the current staff plenty of work (and challenges!) to go around, we here at NHLGamer are opening up the floor for any and all content contributors who are interested in helping out.

Where is this going?

What will essentially happen is that we open up a virtual “Writers Room” for NHLGamer. If this is the first time you have ever heard the term, Wiktionary.org offers the following;

“The room in which the showrunner and the writers of a television series collaborate on the plot and develop the script.”

Now, NHLGamer is not running a television series by any stretch of the imagination but what we are running is one of the most exciting websites out there when it comes to competitive sports gaming. For a project that looks to have 100+ teams in its next league tournament and on top of that is involved in some other cool things coming up, we could sure use the help.

How would this work?

The writer’s room will consist of NHLGamer members who feel like they have something to contribute to the website. Whether that means a weekly column similar to the “Who’s hot and who’s not”-feature I developed over a year ago, or an in-depth exploration of what goes into the building of an EASHL franchise (or HUT team for that matter) doesnt matter – we want to see it all!

Basically, we are interested in any content that is related to sports gaming, be it specifically ECL or something completely different.

The members of the NHLGamer writer’s room will pitch their own ideas and articles to myself and @gzell60 (who have acted as NHLGamers “lead writers” over the past year and a half) to which we would give feedback and/or our edits before we release on the website.

If something interesting pops up that is related to NHLGamer and merits an article, we might throw out a feeler to see if anyone in the writers room would be interested to tackle it.

This does not mean you are put under any obligation to contribute a specific amount of articles per month or anything like that. We will ask you to estimate how much you are able to contribute though, so we know how to optimally allocate the tasks. It also doesn’t mean that the regular staff will completely stop writing articles.

The NHLGamer writer’s room is simply a way to produce more content, involve all of the community and together pull on the same rope to make NHLGamer.com as cool of an experience as possible.

If you have ever silently clenched your fist and gone “I could do that better” or if you’ve simply felt we weren’t doing enough in terms of content, this is your chance to be a part of the project and get your writing out there to an audience of thousands.

If you are interested, simply send a PM on the community side where you include me (@The_Alpha_Furyan) and Max (@gzell60).

Label it “Writers room” to make the messages easier to sort through.

We hope to hear from you soon.

Later skaters,

@The_Alpha_Furyan for NHLGamer.com

Hey NHL Gamers,

a while ago, Twitch introduced its new Communities feature which helps streamers connect to the most relevant audiences and helps viewers discover streams that fit their interests easier and faster than ever, using self-organizing, public groups centered around specific activities.

Starting today, we invite all of you content creators and EA SPORTS NHL fans to join the official NHLGamer community on Twitch!

Whether it's ECL games, HUT giveaways or just regular NHL 18 gameplay from some of our best players in the world: This is the place to be. NHLGamer followers will instantly be aware of all NHL-related broadcasts and be able to discover the community's upcoming shooting stars in an instant.

Use this opportunity - here's how it works:

1) Go to https://www.twitch.tv/communities/nhlgamer and click the "Follow" button in the top right corner!

2) Open up your personal channel and click the "Edit" button below the stream.

3) In the Broadcast Options menu, after having set your broadcast title and NHL 18, type "NHLGamer" in the Community field and choose the "nhlgamer" community from the dropdown menu. Last but not least, don't forget to save from the bottom right corner of the options menu!

4) If you did everything correctly, NHLGamer will now show up below your broadcast title. Now whenever you start to stream, everyone will be able to see it on the NHLGamer community page!

It's as simple as that. Let's start to build a streaming network for all EA SPORTS NHL enthusiasts!

@gzell60 for NHLGamer.com

Hey NHL Gamers,

welcome to our Gamescom Blog 2017, where we will update you on some of the things we saw, games we played and people we met during our visit to Europe's biggest gaming event. This part will be about our experiences from the exclusive trade visitor's and press day (Tuesday) as well as some of the events that took place on Wednesday.
 

Public show floor

Gamescom is divided into two main areas: The public show floor (halls 5-10) and the business area (halls 1-4). To avoid the extraordinarily long queues during the public days, we spent our entire Tuesday in the public area.

After starting to get up at around 5 a.m. in the morning and driving to the trade fair, we started our journey in hall 7 in the Sony PlayStation area, where we were greeted with a Detroit: Become Human booth. The successor to Heavy Rain, Quantic Dream's popular game from the PS3 era, offered a 15 minute demo showing off some of the gameplay and storytelling aspects. As a human-like android, we were called to a crime scene featuring a hostage-taking of a young girl that went out of control. Due to the heat of the moment, we had the option to go all in and negotiate directly with the kidnapper, or we could also investigate the scene to increase our success rate (which was a visible meter during the entire demo). As you would expect, we chose to investigate the area, which included minigame-like tasks that allowed us to reconstruct some of the events that had taken place earlier that night, and learn about the kidnapper's name, age and history. Every single piece of gathered information increased the success rate, however it was also decreasing every few seconds, which means we were forced to hurry up. After finishing our investigation, we went into a negotiation with the hostage-taker and were eventually able to rescue the kidnapped girl. While killing the kidnapper. And ourselves. Yeah, I know, things could have turned out better in the end (I assume). We pretty much messed it up in the end. Detroit surely was one of our highlights so far, however we are unsure in which ways the game will open up gameplay-wise in other chapters.
 

Other booths in the PlayStation area featured PlayStation VR and Gran Turismo Sport (which we already tried last year) as well as Call of Duty WWII and a large stage hosting several tournaments. All of us shared the same thought: "Let's get ECL up there in a few years!". The other half of hall 7 was filled with Activision titles, such as Overwatch, World of Warcraft: Legion and Hearthstone. Due to the fact that none of us are too invested with any of these games (no offense!), we decided to move on to hall 6.
 

Large signs, plenty of lights, a BMW M5, huge Tie Fighters and other spaceships hanging from the ceiling. Turns out we arrived at home within our first hour at Gamescom: The EA public area. We queued up for Star Wars Battlefront II and played the new Galactic Assault game mode, which is somewhat similar to Walker Assault in the first Battlefront game, which in turn is pretty similar to the Rush game mode known from Battlefield games. To keep it short: If you played the first Battlefront game, you will love this one. If you are a hardcore Star Wars fan, you will love this game. The fact they included all of the eras and their characters, as well as some more of the iconic locations adds a lot of depth to the experience. As for the gameplay, Battlefront II introduces classes, similar to Battlefield. While others might not like the comparison, it is difficult to deny plenty of similarities between the two series. More about Battlefront II will follow later on.
 

The remainder of hall 6 was occupied with Project Cars 2 (with some super fancy racing setups!), Ace Combat 7, PES 2018 and plenty of Ubisoft games such as Far Cry 5, South Park: The Fractured But Whole, and Assassin's Creed Origins. Let me be clear here: I played all of the previous Assassin's Creed games and enjoyed all of them, especially for their interconnected storyline. However during the past few years, I was losing some of my excitement: Combat elements got repetitive, stories got rather predictable, and overall I didn't get the feeling of playing a finished product - janky animations and weird design choices are just two examples of a long list of reasons. So, what about Origins? Of course, it's hard to tell from a single mission. However, considering the dev team paused for a year to polish the Assassin's Creed series, the result so far felt a little bit disappointing. The characters we got to see looked and acted bland, janky animations are still a big issue and we were seeing lots of performance issues. Of course, the version we got to play was a very early build and things might improve until the final product ships. However, compared to other games' early builds, this definitely was a letdown. And with earlier Assassin's Creed games in mind, we are not sure if things will change a lot.

Moving back to hall 8, we were looking forward to getting a glimpse at Xbox One X and its games and their improved performance at the Microsoft booth. We faced our longest queue of the day there, around 45 minutes of waiting. Inside, we got to see a nice in-depth trailer about the new console, featuring Dolby Atmos sound. In case you don't know about Dolby Atmos yet, we suggest you read up on it. It sounds as amazing as it reads! After the trailer was over, we were directed to a small area with Xbox One X stations and several supported games, such a Rise of the Tomb Raider, F1 2017, Quantum Break and Assassin's Creed Origins and given 15 minutes of time to try as many as we'd like. In theory, at least. Practically, we were the last guys to enter the area and thus our choice was limited to some of the less popular games. Still, it was nice to see Xbox get on the 4K bandwagon as well, all of the games looked very clean. As a 4K TV owner since January it wasn't enough to surprise me, but if you're new to 4K gaming, the Xbox One X is a great choice to get started. To make up for the long queue, all visitors got a gift bag in the end, including a drink, some batteries, toys, sunglasses and shower sandals. Exactly. Xbox-branded shower sandals.

Furthermore, hall 8 also featured some of Wargaming's popular titles, such as World of Tanks and Total War Arena and other games like Gwent (we played that last year as well), Destiny 2 (the same mission that was already included in the beta a couple of weeks ago) and Farming Simulator. As well as Pure Farming. And if you didn't know yet (we did not either until today), there is also a third farming game called Real Farming Sim. This genre seems to be a thing in Germany... apparently?
 

Hall 9 did not cease to amaze either, welcoming us with a huge Nintendo Switch booth featuring plenty of titles. Thus, the queue was incredibly long, so we decided to skip that one. Instead, after moving past Final Fantasy Online, Shenmue III and similar titles, we decided to give F1 2017 with racing seats and actual Formula 1 wheels a shot. A shoutout to the crew: When they saw @Kenu and his crutches, they moved him all the way to the front of the line for instant access - nice service! My experience with the game: Overwhelming! Using actual racing equipment, manual transmission and no driving aids, it took me two entire laps to get used to the setup. After the third and final round, I obviously finished last, but the feeling was amazing. All of a sudden, it was very evident why people would spend hundreds or thousands of euros on this equipment.

At the end of the day, we checked in to the EA Game & Capture area (that's their official name for the business lounge) to get our EA press passes for the remaining days and already take a look at what it has to offer inside. More about it below.
 

EA Game & Capture lounge and a game called "Fe"

The EA Game & Capture lounge is filled with developers, marketing/communications/sales people and plenty of members from different EA-related communities such as NHLGamer. Essentially, it's the perfect place to get connected with previously unknown people and share ideas and thoughts with creators from other outlets - seriously awesome! At the same time, it offers smaller, more intimate booths with recording features for Star Wars Battlefront II, Battlefield 1, FIFA 18 and Need for Speed Payback and also some stations for NBA Live 18, Madden NFL 18, Sims 4 and a couple of mobile games. For Wednesday, we also got an appointment for a game called Fe which is developed by Zoink Games from Sweden. While we were not allowed to capture any footage for this, we are allowed to tell you about it in text form.

In Fe, you take control of a small squirrel-like character that is about to take on his exploration in the forests. Your main activity during the journey will be singing: You use it to interact with your surroundings, such as flowers, trees and animals. After a few initial tutorial popups, the game does not include any more tooltips, nor does it include a map, minimap or other UI elements. Instead, you will be met with a variety of ways to proceed, all about to be figured out by the player. By interacting with animals and other creatures as well as collecting shards that are scattered across the forest, you will unlock several new abilities such as climbing trees (the dev's replacement for a map) and flying in short bursts to reach previously unaccessible areas and to eventually proceed in the game. The Silent Ones however, larger beasts that have been invading the forests and capturing many of the friendly animals, will also try to capture the player. As there is no combat element in Fe, you won't be able to fight back - instead, you can either try to get away by looking for a hideout, or you can use aggressive animals like bears to your advantage by having these entities fight against each other. These Silent Ones will also be relevant for the storyline, however the devs did not explain any details so far. You might wonder: Why are we reporting about this indie after all? Well, the answer is simple: If a game manages to get me lost in it's world within just 20 minutes of time, it's doing stuff right. You will be met with excellent art design that features a very unique, polygon-like look with excellent use of colours and lights and a simply adorable main character. You will fall in love when you listen to it singing for the first time. Which leads us to sound design: Astonishing background themes, adorable character "voices" and high attention to detail when it comes to the many audio effects all let you dive into Fe within a heartbeat. This achievement of game becomes even more impressive when you take a look at the hard facts. The game has been in active development for the past two years, with around a dozen developers at Zoink working on it. Personally, I have to admit Fe was my personal highlight of this year's Gamescom so far. It will launch in early 2018 at an unknown price point, and will surely find its place on my to-do list.
 

Star Wars Battlefront II Gameplay

After spending some more time in the public area to talk to some of the many exhibitors, we met up with Mikko from SJK to get some lunch. Spring rolls for me, chicken and noodles for the other guys. Honestly, the latter was the better choice as I was still feeling pretty hungry, which ultimately made me queue up for some fries afterwards. Anyway, we decided to return to the EA business lounge, in time to get three free spots in the Star Wars Battlefront II booth. Awesome! This time, we were playing the Starfighter Assault mode which finally takes the Fighter Squadron game mode from Battlefront I into space. Aside of that, not a lot has changed, and it also didn't have to change. Fighter Squadron's controls already felt very intuitive and easy to take care of, so instead of revamping that solid base, the team at Criterion focused more on fine-tuning. The fact that a huge starship is the main area of focus for both attackers (they have to destroy shields other structures), and defenders (I don't have to explain... do I?) adds a lot of depth though. Opposed to Fighter Squadron, you can now evade attacks more effectively by using quick strides close to the starship to eventually get rid of other players hunting you down (in case you manage to not crash your Tie Fighter while doing so). With the starship in place, Starfighter Assault has gained a whole new strategic aspect which is very welcome. We also recorded some direct-feed gameplay from @gzell60 for you guys, enjoy!
 

Coming up: Gamescom Blog #2

In the second edition of our Gamescom blog, we will take a closer look at some of the other EA titles such as FIFA 18, Need for Speed Payback and Battlefield 1 and will also tell you about our stay at CD Projekt Red's business lounge where we will get to see Gwent: The Witcher Card Game. Stay tuned for that!

@gzell60 for NHLGamer.com

Hey NHL Gamers,

while a small group of the NHLGamer staff is currently at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany to follow the latest gaming related trends, we will have a great opportunity next week to talk to some of the EA SPORTS NHL producers. Like last year, we are aiming for another interview compiled from your feedback and specific questions about the NHL series.

This opportunity is truly a great way for everyone to voice their opinion and to keep our community and its members recognized as a valuable source of direct community feedback for the development team in Vancouver.

How do I submit the feedback/questions?

Easy in many ways!

1) Use the comment section below or
2) Write to us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram!

(Pro tip: Use all of the channels to increase your chance of making it to our list of questions!)

@gzell60 for NHLGamer.com

Hello NHLGamers,

As you may already have noticed, the first ever NHLGamer.com Xbox tournament has arrived!

Going by the name Xbox ECL (or ECL Xbox depending what your preference is), our first tournament on the Xbox One console will feature a total of 7 teams. Now, it may be a far cry from the 78 teams of ECL 4 but as the saying goes; you have got to start somewhere.

Expanding our popular ECL franchise to feature both consoles has always been in the back of our minds and taking this first step into the Xbox world should only serve to expand the NHLGamer community platform, elevate the ECL franchise and bring more people together than ever before. 

Without further ado, here are your participating teams for the inaugural Xbox ECL;
 

• CocaColaCompany
• Erols Nya TV
• Finnish Prospects
• OHO SORI
• Team Rocket DK
• The Black Jacks
• Wild Wild West

Game Reporting

As most, if not all, Xbox captains are already aware of - the reporting tool isn't working 100% when it comes to the Xbox league right now. That said, you are of course free to play your scheduled games this week but make sure you save the relevant screenshots for each game. We are hoping to have the reporting tool up and running properly by the end of the week but until then the game reports might look a little faulty. As long as you save the proper information, we can always report the games correctly afterwards.

This being NHLGamers first Xbox tournament there were bound to be a few kinks to work out, but once the reporting tool is up and running the league should run smoothly.

Good luck out there!

With regards,
NHLGamer.com

Article updated: start time is Sunday 2nd if July at 19:30 CEST (20:30 EEST). 

Good afternoon gamers,

You might remember a month ago when we showcased our very first edition of the NHLGamer Presents banner, in this post. That time the series in question was NHLGamer Presents: Goalie School, the arena was Youtube and you can check out the first two episodes here and here. More to come in that series!

Anyway, back then we did say there'd be more material coming and today we are here to deliver on that promise. Introducing... the second unique series to be featured in NHLGamer Presents: Staff Hangout.

NHLGamer Presents: Staff Hangout will, just like Goalie School, be a recurring feature only it will take place mainly on our NHLGamer Twitch channel instead of on Youtube. As the name suggets, Staff Hangout will simply be the NHLGamer staff hanging out, talking about a variety of topics, playing some games (mostly NHL) and above all taking your questions on everything related to NHLGamer, Summer Cup, ECL, Versus or anything else you can think of. One could say the series is not entirely unlike a Podcast in that sense, only with more Live interaction from anyone who is interested to comment.

Episode #1 of Staff Hangout will be streaming on NHLGamer Twitch this Sunday at 19:30 CEST (20:30 EEST) and featured will be:

• vSilenttio
• The_Alpha_Furyan
• KenuFHR
• janbonator (maybe)
• TBD

Topics will include (but not be limited to): Summer Cup, the Staff meeting in Finland, future of NHLGamer, Versus & ECL 5.

See you all there!

Good day NHLGamers,

As the title suggests, you guys are in for a treat as NHLGamer.com is doing its biggest giveaway yet!

But first of all I'd like to invite you all to take a trip down memory lane. Specifically, I'd like you to track back to the 2009-10 season when the Washington Capitals were the team of the future and Mike Green was the "next Bobby Orr" just coming into his own as an NHL superstar.

2010 is also the year when a very young, fresh faced @The_Alpha_Furyan visited Washington and through some clever scheming (I showed up at the Caps' practice rink) and questionable morals (I told Mike Greens father that I was leaving the country in a few hours and all I wanted was Mike Greens signature) got Mike Green to sign my newly purchased authentic Washington Capitals hockey jersey. Mike was also gracious enough to pose for a picture with me - the result of which you can see above.

Now, we at NHLGamer.com are giving you, the community, a chance to win this amazing piece of memorabilia and all you have to do in order to be eligible is the following;

• Go to https://www.facebook.com/NHLGamer/ and press "Like" on our Facebook page.
• Comment "Green52" on the pinned post at the very top of the page that says "GIVEAWAY TIME!"

Once the NHLGamer Facebook page reaches 1252 Likes (Green wore #52 for the Capitals) a winner will be randomly drawn amongst all who Liked our page and commented "Green52".

Be sure to share the Facebook page/post with anyone who could be interested in NHLGamer and/or this particular giveaway.

Good luck skaters,

PS. In addition to Facebook, NHLGamer is also active on the following social media:
Instagram: nhlgamerofficial
Twitter: nhlgamerCOM
Twitch: nhlgamertwitch
Youtube: NHLGamer Official

Hello NHLGamers,

I am hoping that what I am about to share will get the community buzzing and bring some serious excitement for what is to come. But first, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself. Some of you out there I already know and some of you are new to me.

My name is Kim Kallio but amongst gamers I am probably more known as “Hc”, or “Ho0Ceri”. While I have played the NHL series for almost 20 years, I first started creating leagues and tournaments for the NHL gaming community in 2011.

Many in the community might know me from the Facebook page I started back in February of 2014; NHL Suomi (currently NHL 17 Suomi). My goal then was – just like it is today – to make the online NHL scene bigger and better. After running my Facebook page for several years, including both HUT and Versus tournaments, I am happy to say I have gotten to know a lot of people and players who are all dedicated to the same objective I am: Improving the NHL gaming experience for all of the community.

Today, I am excited to announce I will bring my passion, knowledge, experience and dedication to NHLGamer.com where my main task will be to run 1vs1 tournaments of the same sort I have been running at NHL 17 Suomi, only on a larger scale.

I look forward to combining the full power of NHL 17 Suomi and NHLGamer.com to create the biggest and most competitive 1vs1 leagues in Europe.

I also look forward to interacting with all of you in the near future. Keep your eyes open for a 1vs1-tournament announcement in the near future, NHLGamers.

Good evening NHLGamers,

ECL 4 is behind us and it is time to once again direct our gaze forward - towards the future. Here is what's next for NHLGamer.com; 

• We will have ECL 4 season recaps coming up for Elite, Pro and Lite
• Our Xbox league is kicking off its inaugural season very soon. Xbox teams, make sure you sign up and practice hard! 
• Our second edition of the much appreciated Summer Cup is also set to begin shortly. Keep your eyes peeled for when registrations will open plus all other details on how the tournament will work this year!
• There will soon be a chance to win an autographed Washington Capitals hockey jersey (Mike Green) through our social media channels - don't miss your chance to win it!

All of this brings us to our final topic of the day and the reason I am writing this story: our new YouTube series called "NHLGamer Presents"!

In our on-going quest to provide the best website experience possible for NHL gamers everywhere, we are always looking into different ways to produce quality content. Our latest report from the IS Cup - a feature we called "NHLGamer On The Road" Part I & II which included text, photos and video - was a sign of things to come and today we are taking another step in the same direction.

NHLGamer Presents will be a recurring series featuring a variety of different content generators and Youtubers. The goal is to produce quality NHL-related content that is fun and relevant to the NHL community, but also to casual fans of the gaming series that might stumble upon them and find their way over here to our website.

The first video in the NHLGamer Presents-series comes from the editor responsible for putting together our IS Cup Video; @LastMandalorian. His segment is called "NHL 17 Goalie School" and will focus on a very tough position to play in EASHL, namely that of the goaltender. Enjoy!

(Be advised: This video contains strong language on a few occasions.) 

If you have an idea for future content, or if you feel like you've got what it takes to produce some videos under the NHLGamer banner yourself, contact the website admins and let us know! We love interacting with the community so all messages are welcome.


Until next time... later skaters,

@The_Alpha_Furyan for NHLGamer.com

Hey NHL Gamers,

We recently posted our first part from our visit to Seinäjoki to attend the IS Cup. I had the privilege of attending this event with the wonderful @The_Alpha_Furyan. You can read more about the tournament in that article, as this time around it's about the video recap we've put together from that weekend. To make sense of all the material we collected during this intense day (it was a lot), we enlisted the help of professional Viaplay video editor @LastMandalorian who did a fantastic job putting everything together. You can check out the end result below!

Hope you enjoy the video as much as we enjoyed being there! Can't wait to be a part of more of these events in the future!

As mentioned above, check out our written first part if you missed it previously:

Until next time,

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,

@The_Alpha_Furyan for NHLGamer.com

Hey NHLGamers,

It's with great pride that we cross yet another milestone and can announce that we reached the 2000 registered members mark a few days ago! 

It brings me great joy and pride to see our community both grow and develop. Bringing in the divisions for ECL Season 4 was the product of listening to a lot of community feedback and shaping it into the form our team thought would work best and it has been amazing to see how well the three divisions have been received. The fourth season of our ECL has been our biggest and most competitive season - I even dare say it's been our best season thus far. So, what's next?

As some of you may know, I've had to take a bit of a step back both when it comes to the action on ice and the amount of time available for running the league. I'm really happy to say that we have a very committed and active staff with tasks being distributed more evenly every day and freeing up some more time for the actual development of the site. Personally, I moved to Malta for career opportunities in November and while it was a great growing experience and gave me a lot, it also took away from my passion by making it harder for me to be involved in the community as much as I want to. This is why I have decided to return home to Finland and pursue my passion, which is NHLGamer - our community.

What we are planning for NHLGamer in the future will be discussed in more detail in the upcoming months, but here's a few short points on what you can expect from NHLGamer in the near future (in no specific order and not limited to):

• ECL Summer Cup 2 (PS4)
• XECL Season 1 (Xbox One - name TBC)
• 1vs1 Leagues
• Quality articles, videos and streams
• New website features

I can't begin to express how happy and excited we are that our community is blooming and things are moving in a great and positive direction! Thank you to everyone who is a part of this community and help make it as versatile place as it is today - let's continue our work and make sure our community is welcoming to every new member that wants to join!

We are continuously working on improving our social media and your support is important to us. By following one or many of our social media feeds, we know where you would like to see more content, so please follow and tell your fellow members and friends to follow us behind the below links:

https://www.facebook.com/NHLGamer/
https://www.twitter.com/nhlgamerCOM
https://www.youtube.com/nhlgamerofficial
https://www.twitch.tv/nhlgamertwitch/

On behalf of the NHLGamer Staff,

UPDATE: Please only report games which your team played at home for now. If you played away, do not report anything. Keep screenshots for game overview and individual stats as backup at any time!

Hey NHL Gamers,

If anyone of you was thinking we stopped working on the website after releasing it's new design, you were blatantly wrong

As always, our technical mastermind @Lurkins has been brewing fine stuff in the background, and today we are releasing some more of it to the public: Our EA SPORTS Stats API. We have been in contact with game developers about this some time ago, and I want to use this opportunity for a shoutout to them for their quick support in this matter.

What's an API?

What this new tool allows us to do is fetch stats of challenge games directly from EA's servers, and it will save you a great amount of work when reporting games. We will add most of the game's details including individual player stats automatically for you, however there is still some manual work involved as EA does not give us all the details at this stage.

What do I need to add manually?

We require you to enter time on attack, amount of penalties as well as all goal events (including times, scorers and assistants) and penalty events (including times, affected players and penalty reasons). Of course you still need to submit a press conference.

Important things to note

• MAKE SURE YOUR PROFILE CONTAINS THE CORRECT PSN ID. We can only match IDs that are available and correct, obviously.
• Matches need to be played via the "Challenge Club" feature. Drop in games or the recently added PIN matchmaking won't show up.
• HOME CAPTAIN reports the game for both teams. The away captain should not report anything. This means the home captain always needs to report all of the opponent's stats and events in addition to their own team.
• The other team's captain can use the tool to submit their press conference afterwards, everything else will already be there.
• This tool can currently only be used for games which were not disconnected! We are able to track those, and it won't allow you to report anything for these (this will be improved in the future).
• For disconnected games, you need to use the old tool, which will be highlighted noticeably on the API page like this:

Demonstration video by @gzell60

Can I still use the old tool to report games which ended without a disconnect?

Technically yes, however you won't be able to submit individual player stats. Do not use the old tool anymore, as it will be depleted as soon as we are able to take care of disconnected games in a good way.

Where do I access the API?

The new tool will be available from the main page via PS4 Team Tools -> Add match (EA API). The old tool will be linked on the next page in case you need to report a game which was disconnected.

Let's hear from your opinions after tonight's games - see you on the ice!

NHLGamer.com

Hey NHL Gamers,

The countdown is finally over and NHLGamer.com is back with a fresh and modern look, added features and other improvements to allow for easier navigation. @Lurkins has been hard at work for quite some time to achieve this, from what we think, amazing foundation for what is to come in future updates.

Here is a changelog:

• New design that allows us to serve content more efficiently and helps you in finding anything you need at first glance
• Heavily improved mobile view: Many of you like to browse NHLGamer.com on your smartphones, and you will notice great results which come hand in hand with the new design, that is geared directly towards mobile users
• Overhauled website navigation: Menus are debloated and a couple of new links were added to make navigation more intuitive
• ECL All time stats are available from Leagues -> ECL All time stats
• All time team records are available at the bottom of each team page
• Defensemen stats are available for each Division by selecting their corresponding page and choosing Stats -> Defensemen
• Points per game column added to the standings to easily compare teams with a highly different amount of games played
• Fixed player career stats view, which was not working as it was supposed to (especially for Goalies)
• You can now leave comments for any matches on the match page
• A search feature allows you to find various things on the website, such as players and teams
• Fixed various errors for the game stats reporting tool
• Added new tools for staff members to allow for easier and faster fixing of games which were reported incorrectly

If you are experiencing errors of some sort, or if you are seeing weird layout issues, please try one of the below methods in your browser to perform a hard refresh:

• Google Chrome: Hold CTRL and click Refresh
• Mozilla Firefox: Hold CTRL and press F5
• Microsoft Edge / Internet Explorer: Hold CTRL and press F5

In case your issue persists, please report this error with as many details as possible in the thread below:

As always, we listen closely to all the feedback you give us, so please use this opportunity and help us in improving the website even more. Currently, we are working on bringing more really exciting features to life, and we cannot wait to share these with you in due time.

Thank you.

NHLGamer.com

Introduction

Hey, some of you know me as a goalie since earlier. I'm currently with SKY this season, and I played with TUW, VSH, and XF during my 3 ECL seasons here, but only a few know that I enjoy creating highlight videos on YouTube as well. It all started about 2 years ago, and since then I have tried coming up with new ways to improve my editing technique, and now I'm ready to take it one step further. What probably separates my videos from a lot of other gameplay videos, is how I always try give them an authentic feeling, and I will try use that in this project as well. But enough about me - let's move on to the important stuff. 

After talking with the NHLGamer Staff, and going through all kinds of details, I'm happy to announce our new Top Plays project for this ECL Season. We will be uploading Top Plays videos on YouTube featuring the very best goals and saves from all our divisions.     

What type of replays?

The most common replay to capture when playing is obviously your live feed, but there is also an option to watch your highlights during the intermission, or after the game, and this replay will be just as important. The small replay screen will display the selected highlight from all kinds of camera angles (see image below). Once you have captured the best and most authentic camera angles, save the replay, and it will eventually come alive using screen capture. 

Goals

However the replay screen only captures about the last 4-5 seconds, meaning the build-up play to a goal might get lost. Thats why we want to combine the live feed of the goal, with the after game replay.

• Live feed
• Replay Screen

Saves

The save will most likely always be at the end of the highlight, so here we dont have the same problem. Therefore we will only use the replay screen to capture a save.

• Replay Screen

Below is a proof of concept video with some saves (please ignore the ugly overlay texts ):

How do I share my video? 

Of course there is the matter of uploading the highlight as well. The key here is to make the upload process available and simple for everyone. So after looking over the different sharing options, we have decided that YouTube is our best option. This will require a YouTube account, but its free, and simple enough to setup, if you don't already have one.

In addition to sharing your single replay directly to YouTube, we also recommend using a program called SHAREfactory. It's free, and can be easily downloaded on your PS4. This allows you to add several clips into one video, edit and cut any irrelevant parts and then upload it to YouTube. Meaning you don't have to upload a new YouTube video for every highlight.

When uploading to YouTube the title should contain the following: "(Type_Gamertag_Year_Month_Day"). For example ("Save_Danielcadabra_2017-02-07") This way its simple to keep track of who did what, and when. 

Once your video is up on YouTube, send me a message here @Danielcadabra, preferably containing a link to the video, or the name of your channel. As soon as I have captured the video, I will send a confirmation, and then you can feel free to remove it. Alternatively, you can of course also send me a link to a higher quality file that you have uploded.

Vision

At this point I have no idea of what to expect exactly, but I'm excited to get the word out, and hopefully this project gets lots of hype from all of you in the community. Feel free to ask any questions and leave feedback.

Want to create and share your own videos?

If you want to create your own videos and share them with the community, don't be afraid to approach myself or @Kenu and we can look at getting more content up for the community and fans all over the world.

Take a look at this fantastic video created by @FIN_Potilas about his ECL Elite team Rynnäkköviikset:

We here at NHLGamer absolutely love this type of videos, so keep them coming! We will also be introducing a logo package that can be used by media and video makers, to make sure you get the best quality official images into these videos in the future.

That's all for now - let's make this happen!

Hey NHL Gamers,

First of all, congratulations to X Factor on winning ECL Season 3 in an amazing final effort against the Finnish Roosters! Tomorrow we will post a full season recap, so keep an eye on the news section.

Many of you have been asking for ECL Season 4 registrations to open already, and today is the day! We are opening the floodgates for our first ECL Season in the new Divisions format. Not only do we think this is the start of the most exciting chapter in NHL gaming history, we also believe it points towards a very bright future for this community. During the last few days we have received many interesting comments from long time community members, suggesting ECL is undoubtedly heading into the right direction.

At the same time, ECL is still as newcomer-friendly as ever - which will always be a top priority for us. Don't hesitate and spread the word on your own team channels, so we can mark another significant growth in participation with ECL Season 4. Many thanks for your continued support!

-----

'Divisions? Dude, what are you talking about?'

In case you were hibernating during the last few weeks (it's freaking cold outside, we understand!), please read the latest update on ECL Divisions.

-----

'I see! What else do I need to know?'

First of all, there are a few general rules that apply to our ECL branded tournaments:

• Regional restrictions: ECL is a European tournament format, however we do not necessarily exclude North American players. North American players are not allowed to host matches / be captain in the lineup, which means all games need to take place on European servers. The same rule applies for Russian players: Please evaluate your previous connection experience against some of the teams participating in the ECL, especially if you live in eastern parts of your country (which likely connects you to US West servers). In case of severe connection issues, we reserve the right to exclude teams or players.
   
• ECL is a 6 vs. 6 tournament building upon the EASHL mode in the latest EA SPORTS NHL iteration, NHL 17.
   
• Each player needs to sign up with NHLGamer.com and create his personal Player Card. You can find a tutorial video right here in case you experience issues.
   
• Teams need to have at least 8 players to sign up. The roster cap is 14 players.
   
• Default game days are Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.
   
• Registrations are open until 23:59 CET on February 10th / 00:59 EET on February 11th. The tournament will start approximately one week after registrations are closed.

-----

'What about the other tournament & gameplay rules?'

The final ruleset will be released shortly ahead of the tournament start.

-----

'How do I register my team?' (PS4 ONLY, see below for Xbox One)

If you qualified for ECL Elite during Season 3, please read the 'Signing up for ECL Elite' paragraph below.

If you are a new team or did not qualify for ECL Elite during Season 3, you need to decide whether you would like to join ECL Pro or ECL Lite. ECL Pro will accomodate 2x16 teams, while ECL Lite does not have a limit. In case we exceed ECL Pro capacities, we will look at each individual ECL Pro registration and determine, whether you qualify according to several criteria (Players on the team, team history, stats from previous seasons if available, EASHL 6vs6 ranking and stats) compared to the other teams. By signing up for ECL Pro you accept to be moved to ECL Lite in case it is required according to our decision. You are also allowed to sign up for ECL Lite right away.

If you wish to participate in ECL Pro, please read the 'Signing up for ECL Pro' paragraph below.

If you wish to participate in ECL Lite, please read the 'Signing up for ECL Lite' paragraph below.

-----

Signing up for ECL Elite

• Applies to the following teams only: Aapon Taikasauva, Dynasty, Fat Cats, Finnish Roosters, Laser HT, MUKIMIEHET, Nordic Lightning, Nordic Nightmare, Northern Ascedancy, Northern Stars, Refuse To Lose (to replace Nordic Blizzard), SIKA, Synergy Hockey, TIKI TALK, Written In The Stars, X FACTOR
• Go to the ECL Elite registration thread and use the registration template below to confirm your participation or withdrawal!
• Withdrawal posts are final - you immediately give us the permission to nominate another team from Season 3 to fill your spot.

Signing up for ECL Pro

• Go to the ECL Pro registration thread and use the registration template below to sign up.

Signing up for ECL Lite

• Go to the ECL Lite registration thread and use the registration template below to sign up.

-----

Registration template

Team name:

Team Abbreviation:

Team Captains (PSN IDs): Captain 1, Assistant Captain 1, Assistant Captain 2

Team Roster (PSN IDs):

• Player 1
• Player 2
• Player 3
• Player 4
• Player 5
• Player 6
• Player 7
• Player 8
• ...

(Optional: Add a team logo if this is the first time your team participates in a tournament on NHLGamer.com, or if you simply wish to change it.)

-----

'How do I participate with my Xbox One team?'

At this time, there will be no division format on Xbox for ECL Season 4.

However, Xbox players are very welcome to start their NHLGamer career in a regular tournament, and you can sign up in this thread. Please use the registration template above and add your Xbox Live IDs instead of PSN IDs.

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For now, that's all you need to know. Get those sign-ups in, and in case of any questions, please use the comments below!

NHLGamer.com

Hey NHL Gamers,

The last post on our transition to having divisions in our popular ECL tournament certainly created a buzz in the community. It is our most commented news story in the history of the website (108 comments!) and our second-most read story ever regarding ECL (second only to the ECL Summer Cup Draft review).

We'd like to start off by thanking the community for contributing such a wealth of knowledge and well thought-out suggestions in the comment section - we encourage you to keep doing that. The staff reads all the comments and consider the input we receive to be invaluable. Based on the community feedback and lenghty (which is an understatement) internal Staff discussions, we have decided to tweak a few aspects of ECL Divisions. Read on to see how it works:

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Q: How many divisions will there be?
During ECL 4, there will be up to 3 divisions. Division 1 is called "ECL Elite" and will consist of the following 16 teams:

Based on ECL Season 3 regular season:

• Northern Stars
• Written In The Stars
• X Factor
• Finnish Roosters
• Laser HT
• Aapon Taikasauva
• Synergy Hockey
• SIKA

Based on ECL Season 3 playoff wins:

• MUKIMIEHET
• TIKI TALK
• Dynasty
• Northern Ascedancy
• Nordic Nightmare
• Nordic Blizzard
• Fat Cats
• Nordic Lightning

In case one or more ECL Elite teams won't be able to participate in ECL 4, other teams will be nominated according to these tiebreakers:

1) Playoff wins

2) Regular season PPG average

More tiebreakers from the ECL ruleset can be used if necessary.

Division 2 is called "ECL Pro" and will be split up into two conferences to accommodate 16 teams each (to match the schedule of ECL Elite), meaning a total of 32 teams in the Pro division. ECL Pro will be open to new teams (teams which did not participate in ECL 3) as well as all ECL 3 participants which did not make the cut to ECL Elite. If there are significantly more than 48 registrations for ECL Season 4, we will introduce "ECL Lite" (read more below). 

-----

Q: How many games will teams play during the regular season?
The amount of games will, as per usual, be 2 games against each opponent – meaning 30 games (15 opponents) each season for ECL Elite and ECL Pro, which consists of two 16 team conferences.

Regular season will be done in approximately 5 weeks, by playing 3 opponents (6 games) per week.

-----

Q: How will promotion/relegation and playoffs work?
First off, we will have promotions and relegations. Having closed divisions is not something we are considering at the moment and we are going with the European hockey model where teams can be both promoted and relegated in the different divisions.

For ECL Elite:

• 8 out of 16 teams will make the ECL Elite Playoffs where the Top 8 teams start off in quarterfinals, then proceed to semi-finals and finally the ECL Elite Finals where the league winner will be crowned
• The teams that finish #15 and #16 in ECL Elite will instantly be relegated and play in ECL Pro the following season. Teams that finish #13 and #14 will each play one ECL Pro semi-final loser in a direct competition to determine which teams will play in ECL Elite during the next season
• Teams that finish in places 9-12 will not play in the playoffs nor be subject to relegation
• In summary, this means a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 4 teams are relegated each season. It also means 12 out of 16 teams will see some form of post-season play and ensure that every team will be fighting all season, either to make the playoffs or avoid relegation

For ECL Pro:

• Out of each conference of 16 teams, the first 8 teams will make the ECL Pro Playoffs, where both conferences will be cross-seeded like in ECL 3 according to our tiebreakers. In the ECL Pro Finals, the ECL Pro Champion will be crowned, and both finalists will also be promoted to ECL Elite
• The two semi-final losers will each face one ECL Elite team in a direct competition to determine, which teams will play in ECL Elite during the next season
• The teams that finish #13 - #16 in both ECL Pro conferences will play a cross-seeded pre-playoffs style series, where all losers (4 teams total) will be relegated to ECL Lite for the next season
• Teams that finish in places 9-12 will not play in the playoffs nor be subject to relegation
• In summary, this means 4 teams are relegated each season. It also means 24 out of 32 teams will see some form of post-season play and ensure that every team will be fighting all season, either to make the playoffs or avoid relegation

-----

Q: How is ECL Lite going to work?

ECL Lite will be the entry point for less experienced teams and provides a great platform for new players to get accustomed to the ECL in a slightly less competitive environment. The exact shape and size of ECL Lite will depend on the amount of teams signing up for ECL Season 4, but the plan is to have conferences of smaller sizes (2x8 example below, will always be adjusted so all registrations can participate) than ECL Elite and ECL Pro. Each ECL Lite team will be able to make the ECL Lite Playoffs and have the chance to go to ECL Pro.

For ECL Lite:

• After the regular season, all teams will participate in cross-seeded ECL Lite Playoffs. While all semi-finalists will immediately be promoted to ECL Pro, the two finalists will also face each other for the ECL Lite Champions title
• The exact ECL Lite Playoffs format will be slightly different every season, depending on the amount of teams, and will be disclosed once final registration numbers are available

-----

Q: Can an ECL Elite or ECL Pro team pause/be inactive for a season?

Inactive teams will be relegated.

Example: An ECL Elite team decides to skip a season. This means they will play in ECL Pro for their next season.

-----

Q: What if teams split up? Who keeps the divisional spot?

The staff will look at each individual case but, as a rule of thumb, the captain is considered the owner of the team.

If a team has disagreements where the captain has lost the faith of his teammates, he will have to explain this case to the staff.

If both assistant captains and at least 3 other members, who played for the team the season before, apply ownership of the team, they will have a strong case to claim the team with all of it's history and current divisional spot - aside of the team name, which remains the captain's property (unless agreed otherwise). 

If a team is completely dismantled so the requirement described above cannot be fulfilled (e.g. the Captain and both Assistant Captains each decide to leave for different teams), nobody will be able to claim ownership. In that case, the team will be removed from ECL Divisions.

-----

Q: What about newly created teams that consist of established ECL players from several different teams? Where do they start?

Upon signing up for ECL Season 4, teams are expected to express their wishes for their placement. If your team wants to start in the Lite division, simply state so in your registration. It is not possible to register for ECL Elite.

While we will do our best to honour the wishes, whether a new team participates in Pro or Lite will be determined by the NHLGamer Staff based on
the following criteria (in no particular order):

• Players on the team
• Team history
• Stats from previous seasons (if available)
• EASHL 6vs6 ranking and stats

We admit there is always a risk for subjectivity, but feel like this is the best approach. Obviously this is only necessary when exceeding 48 registrations, but based on the amount of new teams we're hearing about, we expect this to be the case.

Remember, ECL Divisions is all about longevity and building Franchises - consistency and good roster management are key to qualifying as one of the best professional teams on the planet.

-----

Q: Is this concept final?

Yes and no.

For ECL 4, this post outlines the final structure: ECL Elite with 16 teams, and ECL Pro with 32 teams divided into two conferences. This structure includes promotions and relegations in both of the divisions. ECL Lite will be introduced if there is a demand for it in the form of amount of teams and will also be connected to the other divisions via promotions.

-----

Q: Will there be an ECL Season 5? Will it be played during NHL 17? When will the leagues start for NHL 18?

NHL 17:

• ECL Season 3 ends by 31.1.2017
• ECL Season 4 preliminarily starts 20.2.2017 and ends 16.4.2017
• Summer Cup specifics to be determined, but season start jotted in around the start of May. (This is a draft-type league)

NHL 18:  Releases 14.9.2017 (estimate)

• ECL Season 5 starts 16.10.2017 and ends 17.12.2017
• ECL Season 6 starts 8.1.2018 and ends 11.3.2018
• ECL Season 7 starts 2.4.2018 and ends 3.6.2018
• Summer Cup specifics to be determined. (This is a draft-type league)

-----

Q: I got you! When will registrations open up?

This week. Stay tuned for another update!

-----

For questions or any other kind of valuable input, please refer to the comments below!

NHLGamer.com

Listen up NHL Gamers,

you crazy bunch just hit another impressive milestone: 1500 members on NHLGamer.com!

First of all, a huge thank you to everyone out there - you are the ones that make this journey such an exciting ride. Keep being as passionate, ambitious and inspirational as in 2016, this is the kind of culture that drives this project as a whole.

We want to keep striving for improvements, and have set the course for an interesting 2017: We are paving the way for a true eSports experience by setting up a divisional system for our popular ECL tournament, which goes hand in hand with recent news of Hansulinho signing an actual contract with one of Finland's biggest eSports teams, ENCE, to expand to the NHL series. This is a strong signal, and we want to take this opportunity to keep growing rapidly together with the great support and collaboration from the very best NHL players in Europe.

Recently, we also added a couple of new staff members (a shoutout to @vSilenttio and @OxtreeLAT, who created the news art), which is ultimately necessary to make all of our plans come to life in the future.

As always, every single one of you enables us to do great things, and we will keep listening to all of the creative feedback we receive from you.  We can't wait to share some of the things we are working on in the future.

NHLGamer.com

Hey NHL Gamers,

Season 3 has started and the community side is already in full tournament mode - lots of things being discussed in the chatbox as well as on the forums and in PMs. As you can imagine, it is hard to keep track of all things with so many members being active at the same time.

This is why we would like to remind you of two general things, which make it easier for us to hear your voice and help you get your issues fixed more quickly:

Reporting errors

If you made a mistake when reporting a game, please do not reach out to us via PM. There is a dedicated thread for this kind of issue which can be found here:

Please write as much as necessary, and as little as needed - it saves us time and does not require us to follow up

General feedback

There is a user account called @Feedback which is administrated by us. Simply create a new private message, use the PM title to add a category, and send it to @Feedback. Choose one of the 3 categories:

- ECL: All suggestions regarding the ECL tournament (e.g. format, rules…)
- Website: All suggestions regarding the NHLGamer.com website (e.g. layout, features…)
- Community: All suggestions regarding the community (e.g. staff, community interaction)

Make your point, but keep it brief! Do not cover multiple topics in one message. Feel free to write as much as you want and as many messages as needed, but stick to one topic per message.

We hope this resolves some of your questions and we are looking forward to the coming weeks!

On behalf of the NHL Gamer Staff,

Hey NHL Gamers,

4 more days until NHL 17 officially drops in Europe, and guess what that means: We are kicking off the hype train right now!

Our popular European Championship League is about to hit Season 3, and because we know "all good things come in threes", we want to get it started in all it's greatness together with everyone out there - bigger and better than ever before.
 

Awesome! What do I need to know?

First of all, there are a few general rules that apply to our ECL branded tournaments:

• European teams & players only - to provide a great tournament experience, it is essential to have this restriction in place as cross-continental games are usually hit by high levels of connection issues
• ECL is a 6 vs. 6 tournament building upon the EASHL mode in the latest EA SPORTS NHL iteration (this time: NHL 17)
• Each player needs to sign up with NHLGamer.com and create his personal Player Card
• Teams need to have at least 8 players to successfully sign up
• Default game days are Monday, Wednesday and Thursday

Registrations are open until 23:59 CEST on September 29th / 00:59 EEST on September 30th. The tournament will start shortly after registrations are over.
 

What about the rules, tournament format etc.?

As usual, the rules and the tournament format will be adjusted to the amount of registrations. At this time, we are still looking for your input to determine the best possible outcome for all participants. To give us your feedback on ECL Season 3, follow this thread:

Where do I register my team?

To register your team, please follow the respective forum - one is for PS4 sign-ups, the other one for Xbox One sign-ups. In this forum you need to create a new topic according to the format below:

PS4 Registrations

Xbox One Registrations

TOPIC TITLE: ECL Registration - [Team Name]

_________________________________________

Team name:

Team Abbreviation:

Team Captains (PSN / Xbox Live IDs): Captain 1, Assistant Captain 1, Assistant Captain 2

Team Roster (PSN / Xbox Live IDs):

• Player 1
• Player 2
• Player 3
• Player 4
• Player 5
• Player 6
• Player 7
• Player 8
• ...

(Optional: Add a team logo if this is the first time your team participates in an NHLGamer.com tournament)

That's it! Tell your friends and let's get this party started!

On behalf of the NHL Gamer Staff,

Hey NHL Gamers,

it's been one week since Gamescom 2016 closed it's doors, and what I can spoil you with right now is: It was one hell of a ride. There will be a seperate news story about our visit at the world's largest gaming event, with a couple of background infos and pictures, later this week.

Thanks to Electronic Arts, which invited us to their Business Lounge, we were able to meet Clement Kwong (Associate Producer @ Electronic Arts) and Evan Dexter (Sr. Communications Manager @ Electronic Arts). Clement was very happy to join @gzell60 for an interview session compiled from your input.

We hope you enjoy the 15 minute video below - let us know what you think in the comments!

As mentioned in the video, Clement is not involved in the technical side of things (like gameplay and animations), that is why he did not want to answer these questions live on camera. However, he made it possible for us to send all of your feedback directly to the development team - pretty cool, eh?

Stay tuned for our Gamescom 2016 summary!

On behalf of the NHL Gamer Staff,

Hey NHL Gamers,

You might have noticed that our website was unavailable for a few days. As an administrator of a website even an unexpected downtime of a few minutes is one of the worst feelings in the world - let alone when it goes on for days.

We've had our technical hick-ups here and there during the development of the site and a lot of the time we've been responsible for messing things up. This time around that wasn't the case and we could only watch things unfold in the passenger seat.

We're still waiting for a detailed report from our internet service provider (ISP) on what went wrong. What we do know, is that something went wrong with their scheduled maintenance work of their servers, which caused them to need to move all of their different servers' data over to new hard drives and reroute the traffic. The maintenance work was done in order to increase the capacity and bandwidth of their servers.

While we're not happy about the downtime, we know the people over at our ISP worked as hard as they could to get the systems up and running again and thank them for their efforts.

We are looking at our options going forward, in order to avoid similar situations in the future.

I would like to thank everyone for their patience during the downtime and welcome you back to NHLGamer.com. Please post any problems you might find over in this thread:

Also, if you're playing in the Summer Cup, please check the below post:

On behalf of the NHL Gamer staff,

Hey NHL Gamers,

I am very pleased to announce that Electronic Arts invited us to visit their Games Village in the EA Business Center at Gamescom 2016 in Cologne, Germany!

What this means is we will have access to EA's lounge in the Business Area at Gamescom, which is only accessible by qualified visitors and press, and will probably get a chance to talk to and maybe even interview producers / developers which are in charge of our beloved EA NHL series. To prepare for this exciting opportunity, we would like to get you on board and give you the chance to send in your questions to EA!
 

How?

Please use the below comment section to ask as many questions as you like. We will pick the best ones and fit them into an agenda.
As it is our first time to participate at Gamescom, we do not know how it will turn out - it could be an interview, a live stream, or another news article!

Am I allowed to ask questions about other EA titles as well?

Yes, you are! According to our information, these titles will be present: Battlefield 1, Titanfall 2, FIFA 17, Madden NFL 17 and Star Wars Battlefront.
However, please keep in mind, that our main focus will be on EA NHL and we might not be able to go into detail on other titles.

I will be at Gamescom, too! Can we meet up?

Most likely, yes. As it stands, I (@gzell60) will be attending Gamescom from August 17 to August 19. If you are interested in meeting up, please tell us in the comments (including preferred day/time!) so we can give you more information about meeting times soon!

On behalf of the NHL Gamer staff,

Hey NHL Gamers,

April 25th marks a very special day for everyone of us, as we just passed an astonishing milestone: 1000 members!
1000 members, not even half a year after we launched our first European Championship League on PlayStation 4. It's a pleasure to see such massive support from our community.

No time for celebrations though, as we want to keep moving forward with the website and it's offerings (Xbox gamers, we are looking at you!).

Do you remember our interview with Dean Richards, General Manager of the EA NHL series, which we held last September ahead of the NHL 16 launch?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmxTYoIQ7RY

Not only do we want to provide you with great NHL leagues and tournaments, but with in-depth coverage of everything NHL and exclusive content like above. At this time, we are forging plans for the coming months ahead of the NHL 17 launch - and you can help us making it happen by subscribing to our official social media channels:

https://www.facebook.com/NHLGamer/
https://www.twitter.com/nhlgamerCOM
https://www.youtube.com/nhlgamerofficial
https://www.twitch.tv/nhlgamertwitch/

Every single 'Like' or subscription helps us grow and get more attention to reach our ambitious goals. We are very dedicated to this project, and we really appreciate the daily input we receive from you guys.
Let's see what the future holds in store for us - we are definitely looking forward to it!

As a side-note: If you think you've got what it takes to produce content for us, whether it be in the form of text, video or art, please get in touch with me and we'll get in touch.

On behalf of the NHLGamer staff,