Kenu

It has come to our attention that Linköping HC player @Patzlaf made an inappropriate comment on his personal stream last week, in a moment of insensitivity that he feels does not reflect his personal values. The stream was not related to NHLGamer’s leagues or tournaments, but rather in his free time. We have been in touch with the Linköping HC organization and they have approached this matter with the utmost seriousness, starting by suspending Patzlaf for Sunday’s games. Understanding his comment would be the source of both anger and disappointment, Patzlaf publicly accepted responsibility and apologized for his actions. We believe this lapse in judgement is not an accurate portrayal of his personal values and that he regrets his actions but we do not—and will not—tolerate discrimination of any form and we stand to promote diversity and inclusion for all our players. In addition to Patzlaf’s suspension of games, LHC has committed to providing their players with training about their values and how each and everyone of them are accountable for upholding them on and off the ice. We will review our rulesets upon the conclusion of the ECL 10 season to explore the option of covering scenarios like these in our rulebook.

NHLGamers, We're reminding you that tomorrow, April 23rd at 23:59:59 CET is the deadline for transfers in ECL Pro, Lite, and Neo. We previously had the 22nd as the last day for Pro but have decided to give Pro one more day for transfers in line with Lite and Neo. The ECL Elite transfer deadline is on Tuesday, April 28th. Please remember to make sure your trades are in line with the rulebook before making them and check with support if you aren't sure. Remember, only one transfer per player is allowed per season - unless the player has played 0 games (overall, for any team) the entire season, which is covered in rule 14.11. If you're a player still looking for a team or a team still looking to add to your roster, please head to the Free Agents section or the Clubs Looking For Players section on our forum. Please post any last-minute transfers in the comments section below so everyone can enjoy them.

The Rulebook for the ECL has been updated with several important points. Please always refer to the rulebook for the full ruleset - this news story is intended to highlight some of the additions and/or amendments to the rulebook. Without further ado, let's jump into the new rules. Betting While the ECL isn't officially associated with any betting company, some companies have started offering bets on ECL Elite games. This is an honor for us, as it means our games are appreciated at the same level of seriousness as we play and organize them with. In addition to the raised importance of reporting the games and potential reschedules in a precise and timely manner, the introduction of betting poses some potential risks involving integrity. In order to ensure the integrity, members of ECL Elite teams are hereby prohibited from betting on ECL Elite games or other ECL Elite related bets. ECL Elite Playoff Schedule Below you'll find the ECL Elite Playoff Schedule and the dates for the broadcasts (starting time 20:00 CEST). The goal is to cover two of the quarterfinals, both semifinals, and the finals. ECL Pro, Lite & Neo Playoff Schedule Below you'll find the playoff schedule for the rest of the divisions. Due to the overlap of the different division's playoffs, our goal is to cover all of the divisions' finals on our broadcasts. Rescheduling games into the future This is not a new rule, but something we ask teams to pay attention to. Games should never remain unplayed and unreported on a past date. If the games can't be played on the default date, discuss the new date with the opposing team's captains and use the rescheduling tool to update to the new date. This also applies to games played ahead of time - please reschedule them for the earlier date and time before playing and reporting. This is important for e.g.: Betting Fans following your games League staff making sure everything is running as planned End of the regular season Here you'll find the information on the last day to play your games. Any games left unplayed can end up being decided by the League Administration. Instigating a fight While we haven't been presented with any actual evidence about instigating a fight prior to a faceoff, we've been contacted by numerous teams worried about players instigating a fight before faceoffs. In order to save us all from the trouble of speculating about the topic - especially as instigating fights prior to faceoffs is generally speaking pointless - we have decided to ban this behavior. That being said, if you can properly prove that this actually gives you a boost, please send us the evidence, as we're sure EA Sports would appreciate it. Accidental fights Accidental fights rarely get started - in fact, not even once per season. However, it can happen, so we decided to add it to the rulebook to describe what to do under these circumstances and what the outcome could be if the League Administration deems the "accident" intentional. Reporting game immediately after game As mentioned earlier in this article, there are more eyes on the ECL and more teams in the ECL than ever before. This is why it's crucial that games are reported at the very latest within 24 hours of the game. It is good practice to report the games by the end of the evening, though. ECL Elite games must be reported directly after the game. This improves the experience for betting and allows our articles and broadcasts to always work with the most up to date information. Our broadcasts actually get the up to date numbers immediately after reporting now. Winning team reports games This is not a new rule, but something many seem to have a misconception of due to memories of ECL seasons in the past. The winning team is responsible for reporting the games. The losing team is, however, also responsible for documenting the necessary data as a backup. ECL Neo Playoffs Due to the expansion of ECL Neo from 32 teams to 84 teams, we added more groups and more teams make the playoffs. Here's how it works: Transfer Deadlines We allow transfers in ECL. Transfers are like trades, but there isn't a requirement for teams to get anyone in return. Note: The transfer deadline is just around the corner. In order to leave a team or transfer, a player has to request that the captain drops them from the roster. This is to make sure the communication is there when leaving teams - in order to not leave the old team in trouble. How to get help I get messages (PM, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, PSN, email, etc) daily asking for help with a lot of ECL related questions. This applies to many other members of our staff as well. While we love to help you, when you get spammed with 30-50 messages on random platforms each day, it becomes an unmanageable task. In order to be able to help you in a structured way, we offer our support section. Support can be accessed through the Team Tools (for captains) and through the community. Consider bookmarking this link: https://nhlgamer.com/community/support/. Please keep in mind that while we try to reply as soon as we can, sometimes it will take a while for us to get back to you. The important part is that you report the issue and we'll help you out as soon as we can. Thank you for your patience. We hope you found these updated rules logical and reasonable. Please let us know if there are any questions and suggestions on how you would make the rulebook even better. UPDATE: 21.04.2020 Updated Lite playoff specifics (5.6) 22.04.2020 Tweaked Pro transfer deadline to be in line with Lite and Neo (14.1)

On Tuesday, April 14th an issue in the NACL was brought to our attention regarding an illegal player on the roster for the Phantom. As accustomed, we gathered information and gave those involved an opportunity to present their side of the story before making a ruling. The issue: Phantoms played games with player @G lR ii M x (from here on out 'Grim') on defense, who is not listed on their NACL roster. Gathering of information When asked about it, Grim responded that he had been on their team all season. The Phantoms captain @Groulxz responded that the website (NHLGamer.com) is bad and does not work. According to the captain, Grim paid his share of the entry fee to team member ‘Heroic Duck’ and reasoned that he should be allowed to play. First, we took a look at the claim that he had been on the roster all season. By looking at the Phantoms roster, you can tell that was not the case. We also checked the team’s original sign-up post where they listed all of their members. Grim was not on this list. This is an important detail, because a week or so ago, the same issue came with player @Mxtayer who was not on the Phantoms roster. At that time, we did, however, find him on the original sign-up post showing the intent of having him on the roster, and we found an expired invitation for him to the team that was never accepted. We chalked it up to a user error due to unfamiliarity with the website, making sure he was added to the roster correctly and let it slide. In a similar situation in the ECL in Europe, the captain would have received a two-game suspension for this mistake. Next, we checked within the team invite history to see if a team invite was ever sent to Grim's account. We also checked Grim's user history to see when he last logged onto his NHLGamer account, thinking maybe he received the invite but never accepted it. These were possibilities that needed to be checked. Upon our research we saw the list of all players that were invited to the Phantoms roster - Grim was not one of the invited players. After checking Grim’s history, we discovered that - aside from the night of the violation - he hadn't logged on since March 2019. The user not logging on for over a year does not align with the claims of an issue with the website. Additionally, had Groulxz sent an invite to Grim (which was already proven false), it is his responsibility as a captain to follow up and remind all players to accept invites and make sure they are on the roster. No signs to support the claim of the website malfunctioning could be found, hence we find the claim false in regards to this case. If something was genuinely wrong with the website invite system, it is the player's/captain's responsibility to inform NHLGamer staff so we can be of assistance and fix any issue as soon as possible. The ruling Based on this evidence we are using rules 4.2, 6.1, 8.1 and 16.5 to assist with our ruling: The ruling is as follows: Both Phantoms vs Vertigo games will be overturned as wins for Vertigo, due to illegal use of player The first game of Phantoms vs 6th Sense will be ruled as a win for 6th Sense, due to illegal use of player The second game of Phantoms vs 6th Sense will be played as soon as possible on a mutually agreed date Player ‘Grim’ is ineligible to play this season as it is past the transfer deadline Phantoms captain ‘Groulxz’ receives a 2 game suspension for neglecting his duties as a captain on more than one occasion. The suspension will be served in the first game against the next opponent + the remaining game against 6th Sense. Failure to complete the season will result in a 12-month captaincy ban for Groulxz Failing to finish the season may impact all team members’ eligibility to participate in future seasons Final word We do not like issuing forfeits as we would always prefer to have everything settled on the ice. That being said the rules regarding roster eligibility were broken and we did not see any effort from the Phantoms captain to get the so-called 'site issue' resolved. We ask that the community respect and learn our rulebook to avoid future issues. Being a captain is demanding and if you haven't been one before, you might not realize that it can be very taxing to build a team, communicate with the 6+ members, agree on game times with the opponents and so on. After all, this is often done in addition to our everyday life. We ask every community member to keep that in mind when your captain asks you for availability or other information; replying is easy - chasing 6+ people isn't always that. We also want to bring up the importance of sharing the workload between the captain and the two assistants. Delegating different tasks is the key to keep things running smoothly and keeping things fun. And even if you're not a captain - why not ask your captain if you could help out with something. The article has been edited: Corrected how the serving of the suspension will be handled in point 5 of the rulings.

NHLGamers, We know you've got that competitive itch and it's time to get the action started! The total of 196 teams signed up shows that we are growing at a rapid pace. The tenth iteration of our longest-running league will be bringing you that high-level competition you've been longing for, but this time we wanted to up the ante - in bringing you a historical 6s prize pool of 15 000 €! This is made possible because of the several steps forward that we've taken in the past few months, but first and foremost due to our cherished partners Ilta-Sanomat Esports & Prisma Gaming. We'll also be seeing an unprecedented number of professional teams present in our league, with the Elite division alone featuring a total of ten teams representing esports organizations as well as traditional sporting associations. Among the newest additions, we have recently welcomed JYP Jyväskylä, SJ Gaming, hREDS, and KOVA Esports, whereas teams such as HAVU Gaming and Farjestad BK have already been sporting their colors for an extended period of time (and done so in successful fashion!). These organizations joining in brings an added level of interest and some existing rivalries to the scene, where for example the Finnish organizations are battling between themselves and our Swedish eSHL teams surely want to be able to call themselves kings of the hill in their own neighborhood. Continuing the tradition that began in ECL 8 when NHLGamer introduced NHL 18 World Champion Erik "I_Eki_I" Tammenpää as the first-ever cover gamer in the NHL 6v6 scene, a torch that was carried further by HAVU Gaming's star goaltender Hannes "Hansulinho" Kettunen in ECL 9, we are proud to present our ECL 10 cover gamer. None other than two-time ECL Elite champion and Linköping HC goaltender, Casper "ICappeI" Lundgren! Meet the ECL 10 cover gamer - Casper @ICappeI Lundgren You're the third ECL cover gamer and in good company at that, what are your thoughts about your selection? I'm proud to have been selected obviously and it's even more special to be the first Swede having the honor. I have tremendous respect for both @Eki and @Hansulinho and think they are the embodiment of sportsmanship, being in this club with those guys feels humbling. Your team Linkoping HC had a rather perfect run over the winter months and you walked away with two trophies to stack your shelf with. How motivated are you to defend that top spot and how does it feel to be the team everyone is gunning for? Yeah, it seemed like everything clicked and we really got our game going so there definitely was no stopping us. We're all competitive people and having established that winning culture makes us want to keep that momentum going, rest assured we will do everything in our power to keep that top spot. I know a lot of teams are out to get us and especially HAVU Gaming must be looking for a rematch after last season's finals. I also see hREDS as a prime candidate in the championship battle and Symphony has looked stronger than ever during the preseason. The COVID-19 pandemic has put the world on halt, but with the absence of traditional sports, that has opened up the opportunity for esports to shine. What are your thoughts on that and what do you think we can do to best utilize that opportunity? It's a shame to not have traditional sports, especially in a time where a majority of leagues would have been in the decisive times and the biggest games of the season would have been starting. With all of these esports orgs and traditional sports clubs joining, this is our chance to develop the NHL gaming scene and the interest around our league. I think the best we as players can do is to stay active on social media, get your Twitter, Twitch or Instagram going and support all the teams and people putting content out there! Check in on each other's broadcasts to get those viewer numbers up. It is up to us as a community to take care of this opportunity and growing the scene. Now is our chance to show all other sports fans how exciting esports really is! ECL Elite Finals and prize pool Due to the COVID-19 situation, the ECL 10 season is currently planned to be played online. The semifinals are played May 25th-28th and the finals on June 4th-5th. More details about the playoffs will be shared closer to the playoffs. The Elite division of the prize pool will be as follows: #1. ECL 10 Elite Champion: 10 000 € #2. ECL 10 Elite Runner-Up: 3 000 € #3.-4. ECL 10 Elite Semifinal losers: 1 000 € *Prizes are subject to tax as per Finnish law and the tax is withheld before payment. Prizes will be paid out within 90 days of the ECL 10 Finals. When? ECL 10 Elite kicks off on Wednesday, April 8th at 20:00 CEST. Our broadcast of the night features heated battles between Unlucky Boys vs JYP Jyväskylä, followed by JYP Jyväskylä and GHETTO FIREBIRDS. Where/how to follow? ECL 10 Elite will see a whole new level of coverage and with traditional sports out of the picture for the time being this is our time to shine. The top division will feature two weekly broadcasts on Mondays and Thursdays at 20:00 CEST with our very own Cody @Tougie24 Tougas and Paul @CynAnderson being the prevalent voices over the course of the season and for those of you that have tuned in for some of our NACL broadcasts, you know that we've been working on the production a lot over the last few months, so you can expect us to have a few tricks up our sleeve. All broadcasts can be seen live at our Twitch-channel, but due to our fresh partnership also now on IS TV and Ruutu.fi. To clarify - while our regular scheduled broadcasts are on Mondays and Thursdays, the season will kick off with a Wednesday broadcast tomorrow, on April 8th at 20:00 CEST! About our main partners Ilta-Sanomat Ilta-Sanomat is Finland's largest digital media measured by unique daily readers. The tabloid is distributed in traditional form, but thrives online, prevailing as one of the main daily news outlets for Finns alike. Prisma Gaming Prisma Gaming is a carefully picked assortment of consoles, computers, and other gaming gear. The selection has been built together with the professionals at HAVU Gaming and can be found in all Prisma locations and online at Prisma.fi. Prisma Gaming wants to support Finnish esports and through the ECL, now also supports esports internationally. About our partners HockeySverige.se Hockeysverige.se is the biggest independent hockey site in Sweden, covering everything from the NHL to women's hockey and E-sport

NHLGamers, Welcome to the tenth iteration of the European Championship League! It is with great pleasure we are once again able to open the registrations for the longest running and most prestigious competitive NHL league in Europe. The best players and the best teams gather to battle for the title that's long been reigned between the current champion Linköping HC and HAVU Gaming. There have been challengers before, but the rumour has it that this season we'll see something special with a great uprising of new talent in our community. The pinnacle of NHL gaming - our Elite division is running as smooth as ever and interestingly enough has received an influx of new teams through relegation matchups and will most likely also see an Elite Qualification Series. The Pro and Lite divisions are extremely well established too, and competition is ramping up through the introduction of ECL Neo that was done last season. The divisions framework will roll on in the same fashion and teams will further solidify their position at a suitable level of play. If you don't know what we're on about by now, here's a briefing of what ECL is; ECL is a competitive EA Sports NHL League. Games are played in the EASHL game mode in a 6vs6 manner. Since ECL 4, we have implemented a division framework with Lite (and now also Neo) being entry-level, Pro being our mid-level and Elite holding the best 16 teams in Europe. A season in each division consists of a group stage/regular season and playoffs. Here is the planned divisions' structure for ECL 10: ECL Elite: 16 teams Sign up: ECL Elite eligible teams Gamedays: Monday, Wednesday & Thursday Regular season: One group Playoffs: 8 teams Best-of-7 7 days per round ECL Pro: 32 teams Sign up: ECL Pro eligible teams Gamedays: Monday, Tuesday & Thursday Regular season: Two groups Playoffs: 16 teams Best-of-7 8 days per round ECL Lite: 64 teams Sign up: Anyone can apply for ECL Lite Teams will be decided by Franchise history, Roster composition, and EASHL record ECL Lite registrants are also allowed to apply for a spot in ECL Pro Teams signing up for ECL Lite that don't make it into ECL Pro or ECL Lite will be automatically placed in ECL Neo Gamedays: Tuesday, Wednesday & Sunday Regular season: Four groups Playoffs: 32 teams Best-of-7 8 days per round ECL Neo: 32+ teams Sign up: Without restrictions Gamedays: Wednesday & Sunday Regular season: Four groups Playoffs: 16 teams Best-of-5 7 days per round Basic information/requirements of ECL: Regional restrictions: ECL is a European tournament format, however, we do not necessarily exclude North American or Russian 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. This also applies to 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. 6v6 tournament: ECL is played 6 vs. 6 only, using the EASHL Challenge Club game mode in NHL 20. Individual requirements: Each player needs to have an account at NHLGamer.com and create their personal player card. Roster requirements: Teams in ECL Elite need to have at least 7 players to sign up. Teams in ECL Pro, ECL Lite and ECL Neo need to have at least 8 players to sign up. The roster cap is 14 players. ECL Elite license: Teams in ECL Elite will be required to pay for an ECL Elite license in order to play (more details to follow). Rules: The ECL 10 ruleset will follow the same foundation as in season 9. Broadcasts ECL 10 Elite will be regularly broadcasted on the NHLGamer Twitch channel. Broadcasts will feature our favorite casters @Tougie24 and @Cyn, but also other familiar faces throughout the season. Be sure to follow our channel at twitch.tv/NHLGamer. ECL Elite Finals and prize pool The ECL Elite Finals information and prize pool will be confirmed close to season start. NHLGamer will continue to follow the COVID-19 situation and regulations and talk to the teams before making final decisions on how the ECL Elite finals will be played. When? ECL Elite is planned to kick off first, while the other divisions will have some more time to sign up for this season: ECL 10 Elite will kick off on Monday, 6th of April, signups end on Thursday 19th of March 23:59 CET ECL 10 Pro will kick off on Monday, 6th of April, signups end on Thursday 2nd of April 23:59 CET Pro teams that play for potentially open Elite spots will need to be signed up by Thursday 19th of March. ECL 10 Lite will kick off on Tuesday, 7th of April, signups end on Thursday 2nd of April 23:59 CET ECL 10 Neo will kick off on Wednesday, 8th of April, signups end Thursday on 2nd of April 23:59 CET Elite Qualification Series If all 16 Elite teams don't sign up for the ECL 10 season, we will have an Elite Qualification Series among the teams that are qualified to take part. In this case the teams eligible for a possible Elite Qualification Series are: TIKI TALK (Elite Relegate #13) Almost Famous (Elite Relegate #14) BRAYCE Phantoms(Elite Relegate #15) Leksands IF (Elite Relegate #16) Vaxjo Lakers (Pro Quarterfinalist #5) Reality Check (Pro Quarterfinalis #6) Kaupallinen Yhteistyo (Pro Quarterfinalis #7) Black Horse (Pro Quarterfinalis #8) The Elite Qualification Series exact format will be determined based on the available spots and the teams that want to play for the spot in Elite, but the dates for the games are 22nd-26th of March, with potential gamedays on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday in order to ensure a fair competition for the spot. More details will be given to the eligible teams on Friday, March 20th. Where to sign up? Sign up for ECL 10 Elite here Sign up for ECL 10 Pro here Sign up for ECL 10 Lite here Sign up for ECL 10 Neo here Please note: If you are currently in negotiations with an organization and have plans to change your team name, but are uncertain if you will make it until the start of the season, please contact @Kenu with this information as soon as possible. If you are a free agent looking to be picked up, please head over here. If you are representing a team looking for players, please head over here. Support While it's totally ok to ask for help on Discord and you might get a quicker reply from fellow community members to some of the simpler questions, when you actually want to get help with an issue from our staff, please contact support. While sending PM's to staff members may be tempting, using our ticketing system is the best way to go. Discord You can join the NHLGamer Discord server by clicking here. In the NHLGamer Discord, add the appropriate ECL role as well as the role for your team to help with league communication. This can be done in the #role-commands-entry channel (see #role-commands-guide for instructions). What can I do to help out? If you feel like you want to do more for the project, head over to this article for some examples of what sort of staff we are looking for and where to get in touch. As for the small things everyone can do, follow our different channels and spread the positive word of our community and your fellow players and teams - together we can make a difference! NHLGamer on Facebook NHLGamer on Twitch NHLGamer on Instagram NHLGamer on Twitter NHLGamer on Discord Hopefully, that covers most of the questions you might have. Without further ado: Welcome to the ECL! Finally, a short word about COVID-19 As mentioned above, we will continue to monitor the situation with COVID-19 (also known as the coronavirus) when determining whether or not to have a live on-location element to the ECL 10 Elite season or not. We at NHLGamer love to get together with the community and celebrate the game and the players, but we must also be responsible in stopping the spread of the virus. We will communicate with the Elite teams internally about this before the start of the season. In addition to the considerations of a live event, we must of course keep the health and safety of our community in mind and reserve the right to pause or cancel the season, in addition to altering the details of it. If you've somehow managed to miss what the COVID-19 is all about and what actions you should take, we definitely recommend you read about it. UPDATE: We have made the call to postpone the start of ECL 10 Elite by one week, until Wednesday the 8th of April. There are several underlying reasons and without going into great detail we want to ensure the best quality output possible.

Welcome to the North American Championship League - NACL! The North American Championship league is making its long-awaited return and It's time to find out who's the best 6v6 team in North America. There is plenty of reason to get excited for this season of NACL as the same principles seem to apply with NACL as on our European endeavors - great broadcasts, prize pools and the fiercest of competition! We are also excited about our new playoff format, which was well received by the community. Below you will find all the information you need before the tournament. Game mode: 6v6 Console: Xbox One Rules: Download here NACL License: In order to play, the team must purchase the NACL License at $200. Buy the NACL license here. Prize pool: The NACL prize pool will amount to a minimum of $4000*. 1. $2,400 2. $1,200 3-4. $200 *Prize pool is guaranteed at 10+ registered NACL license owners. With the exception of PayPal fees, all of the NACL license costs will be going towards the prize pool. NHLGamer does not take a cut. Schedule & Gamedays: Our schedule will consist of Tuesday and Sunday evenings with our main times being 9-11 pm, however, the "Featured Games" for casting purposes will be from 8-10 pm. Teams will also have the freedom to reschedule games within reason. Every team will face each other in a two-game series alternating home and away. Weekly Broadcasts: One thing NHLGamer takes pride in is our top-notch broadcasts and we aim to have the same standards in the NACL as we do in our European casts. We are looking forward to working with the players to make this possible. The NACL will have a featured stream each week, cast by @Tougie24 and @Cyn. More information to follow. Meet our staff: @APsychicTaco (Support) @DirtyJerrz (Support) @HowtoChel (Support) @Kenu (Admin) @MartindalexC (Writer) @Oohwayy (Support) @TheCreasePolice (League Lead) @WingelsDGC (Writer, Support) *roles are simplified for convenience and aren't limited to the above title Support: While it's totally ok to ask for help on Discord and you might get a quicker reply from fellow community members to some of the simpler questions, when you actually want to get help with an issue from our staff, please contact support. While sending PM's to staff members may be tempting, using our ticketing system is the best way to go. The tentative schedule for what's coming: The sign-ups for the NACL will kick off now and end on March 3rd. The sign-ups are followed by a media week, where everything is set up and we look forward to learning about your team. The season starts on March 10th. The regular season is estimated at 4-6 weeks, followed by BO7 playoffs. The NACL season will begin on March 10th and registrations kick off effective immediately, so please CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP RIGHT NOW! Discord: Our communication with the teams is done through articles on the website and through our Discord server. You can join the NHLGamer Discord server by clicking here. In the NHLGamer Discord, add the NACL Elite role as well as the role for your team to help with league communication. This can be done in the #role-commands-entry channel (see #role-commands-guide for instructions). Last but not least, a very warm welcome to the community! About NHLGamer NHLGamer.com first saw the light of day over a decade ago, somewhere around 2004. What started as a website platform for friends to arrange NHL leagues against each other has since grown exponentially into what is today the largest community for NHL gamers in Europe. In late 2015, NHLGamer launched a new platform for a larger audience by introducing 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 (6vs6) for the title of Best EASHL Team in Europe. We took another big step forward by launching the NACL and welcoming North American teams into a league hosted on our site. This launch was also a monumental step in bringing together all the best NHL gamers on one platform. Our new found venture into the North American NHL gaming scene is looking to follow in the footsteps of what we have done with the ECL. While proud of our achievements and the success we've had in creating and maintaining such a great community of talented gamers, we are not done yet. Our long-term goals include growing the community, hosting larger leagues with larger prize pools and working together with organizations at the cutting edge of gaming and esports. Remember to stay up to speed with all our leagues by following our Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. You can find our broadcasts on our Twitch channel.

Hey NHLGamers, In an announcement two weeks ago, we presented the long-awaited return of our North American Championship League. NHLGamer has achieved tremendous success in Europe and we hope to bring the same level of excitement and success for NHL esports to North America. We've been getting a ton of questions about the new season of the NACL. In this article, we aim to answer some of those questions short and sweet. Here we go! Game mode: 6v6 Console: Xbox One Prize Pool: The final prize pool is still under consideration but at this point, we can say it will be at least $4000. The plan is to reward the top 4 teams. NACL License: In order to play, the team must purchase the NACL License at $200. Schedule & Gamedays: Our schedule will consist of Tuesday and Sunday evenings with our main times being 9-11 pm, however, the "Featured Games" for casting purposes will be from 8-10 pm. Teams will also have the freedom to reschedule games within reason. Every team will face each other in a two-game series alternating home and away. The tentative schedule for what's coming: The sign-ups for the NACL will kick off on February 19th and end on March 3rd. The sign-ups are followed by a media week, where everything is set up and we look forward to learning about your team. The season starts March 10th. The regular season is estimated at 4-6 weeks, followed by BO7 playoffs. Expect more information closer to sign-ups. About NHLGamer NHLGamer.com first saw the light of day over a decade ago, somewhere around 2004. What started as a website platform for friends to arrange NHL leagues against each other has since grown exponentially into what is today the largest community for NHL gamers in Europe. In late 2015, NHLGamer launched a new platform for a larger audience by introducing 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 (6vs6) for the title of Best EASHL Team in Europe. We took another big step forward by launching the NACL and welcoming North American teams into a league hosted on our site. This launch was also a monumental step in bringing together all the best NHL gamers on one platform. Our new found venture into the North American NHL gaming scene is looking to follow in the footsteps of what we have done with the ECL. While proud of our achievements and the success we've had in creating and maintaining such a great community of talented gamers, we are not done yet. Our long-term goals include growing the community, hosting larger leagues with larger prize pools and working together with organizations at the cutting edge of gaming and esports. Remember to stay up to speed with all our leagues by following our Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. You can find our broadcasts on our Twitch channel.

Hey NHLGamers! We hope you've had the chance to wind down with some nice holidays among family and friends - perhaps even briefly shifting to some other games outside of NHL! We have heard your feedback around the ECL schedule being a bit hectic, especially now around the holidays. Thus, we have agreed to add some time to finish the current rounds as follows: ECL Neo: January 7th 23:59 CET ECL Lite: January 7th 23:59 CET ECL Pro: Playoffs - January 7th 23:59 CET Relegation Battles - January 9th 23:59 CET ECL Elite: January 6th 23:59 CET There will be a one day administrative day before the following round. Good luck to all teams!