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NHLGamers, Here is the newest update to the ECL 12 rulebook. Generally speaking, most of the changes in this edition focus on the qualifiers and their structure (incorporating things you suggested earlier), as well as of course the usual miscellaneous tweaks that typically go on over the course of a season. The full changelog can be found in the rulebook, but for the changes since the last edition you can find them listed below: Added a clause which states that any additional spot(s) must be filled via the qualifier, as well as tweaked the seeding order so that relegated teams are placed above playoff teams (rules 5.10, 5.11) Added rule 5.13, expanded on the description of how the roster lock works in conjunction with the qualifier systems Updated section 7.6, expanded the numbers of staff members involved in LA Updated 7.7, included the most recent LA rulings Added rule 11.7.3, goalies are now allowed to wear non-standard ‘CHEL’ equipment without restriction Expanded upon rule 12.1.2, now includes a run-down on how to input stats from a game that had a disconnect part-way through Tweaked definition 15.17 regarding what counts as a starter Updated appendix 3 with details regarding empty spots both in and outside of the qualifier Added appendix 5, roster waiver form for ECL Pro teams What this means in practice is that instead of, for example, ECL Pro relegation teams being seeded behind ECL Lite playoff teams, they will now instead switch so that they are entitled to the higher seeds. Furthermore, in the event that a team from outside the qualifier drops out and creates an opening prior to, as well as during the qualifier, said spot will be filled via the qualifier. Meanwhile, if a spot opens up in the qualifier before it commences, we will fill it with a team from the following: ECL Pro relegated teams (29th – 32nd) ECL Lite teams who finished 10th – 16th Wildcard teams ranked 5th – 8th ECL Lite teams who finished 17th – 32nd ECL Core team who finished 5th – 8th  

A few weeks ago @sumskoy26 was displayed in an RCL tweet in which they were wearing a t-shirt that had an extensive amount of racist imagery on it. Prior to being notified of this by NHLGamer members, the image in question had been used in previous RCL broadcasts. Upon being called out for such a t-shirt publicly by other NHLGamer members, @sumskoy26 proceeded to act belligerently, going as far to call one member an “AFA clown”. LA has been in contact with @sumskoy26 in order to ascertain the motives behind the submission of such a photo to the RCL broadcast crew. In this conversation @sumskoy26 claimed that the t-shirt was worn for ‘satire’ purposes / as a joke – despite then conceding that they knew it would be taken more seriously in the ‘Western world’, as opposed to the Russian audience that, for the most part, the RCL broadcasts would be solely reaching. Without prompting, although closely following this conversation, @sumskoy26 apologised on Twitter for the picture in question and their actions, saying that they had regret regarding it. NHLGamer takes a strong stance against racism and discrimination of any form. We want to build a community that values people equally, regardless of their race or creed, and having images like the one in question be circulated puts a great stain on what we are trying to achieve. As such, we have decided to suspend @sumskoy26 from all events and tournaments on the NHLGamer platform for 90 days from the day that this statement was made, therefore the suspension will run from Tuesday, the 23rd of February, to Monday, the 24th of May, 2021. LA

Hey everyone, LA have concluded our investigation, finding one infraction – performed multiple times, however. The perpetrator of this infraction was rasite-_- / (aka hapee-_- and community user Leftinkarlssoni) who, over the course of a season, manipulated and doctored the stats of his own team, in order to put himself and his teammate nagneigel in a better light. Furthermore, when confronted with our suspicions that their team had engaged in illegal activities, rasite-_- / Leftinkarlssoni did not immediately come forward and confirm our suspicions, they did however when pressured in a follow-up message by LA. As such, these actions are in breach of rules: 4.2 (Rule circumvention): LAs time is stretched thin at the best of times, therefore if we come to you saying that we have suspicions that your team may have engaged in the breaking of rules, then replying, and playing coy, will be regarded at though you are purposefully obstructing our investigation. We do not exist to simply punish people, and would much rather deal with straightforward cases where people are open with us, as opposed to cases where we have to dedicate hours of our time to collate info on something that could have been finalised in a quick confirmatory opening message. 6.1 (General): Due to the failure to comply with rules 4.2, and 12.3. 12.3 (Stats Accuracy): Due to the inaccuracy of the game reports, and the systematic nature in which the captain of Goosebumps added points to himself, and nagneigel. Furthermore, an allegation was made by JOONAJOHIS that stated that a player from another team had played for GOOSEBUMPS on a second account in some capacity. If this was true, then the player in question would have been found to have broken rule 2.4 (as seen below). That said, we were unable to validate JOONAJOHIS's claim, and as such will not be penalising the player in question. Additionally, JOONAJOHIS has been warned about making jokes of this nature again. In conclusion, LA has decided to suspend rasite-_- / Leftinkarlssoni for the duration of this ECL season (i.e. the Neo Finals), as well as ECL 12. In addition to this, rasite-_- / Leftinkarlssoni will also receive a captaincy ban for ECL 12, and ECL 13. We would also like to take a moment to remind players that whilst we do allow the change of PSN account used in-game, it is strongly advised that you flag it up to LA before playing with the account, so that we are fully informed. Furthermore, we would like to reiterate the seriousness of rule 12.3. The accuracy of stats is singularly one of the most integral parts of our platform, and the integrity of the scene itself. As such, breaking this rule is one of the most heinous of infractions that one can commit on NHLGamer, and with it come extremely harsh penalties. Kind regards, LA

Hey NHLGamers, As I’m sure many of you have noticed, we have had a record number of teams sign up for the current season of ECL. Whilst growth is good, it certainly comes with some challenges, and our ECL division structure has certainly had to undergo some impromptu changes over the years to account for this exponential increase. Indeed, talk about adding a new division to reduce the strain placed on those that already exist has been a debate that has been raging for a while now, as such we hope that an update to the ECL structure, as well as the very system in which teams are promoted, will help satiate your desires as we embark into truly unchartered waters for NHL 6v6 esports. Please note that the changes to the promotions and relegations will be effective immediately. Hitting the ice for ECL 12 will be an all-new division which will be going by the name of ‘ECL Core’. This division will aim to take up most of the strain of the ECL structure by acting as the place in which the main bulk of teams will play. Position-wise, Core will be placed in between Lite and Neo, acting as the main starting off point for teams that want to try their hand at climbing the ECL ladder. In terms of raw numbers, we are looking for Core to field a division high 128 teams. This means that we can tighten up Lite above it, condensing the skill gap between teams competing there. What this means is that ECL will starting with season 12 host the following amount of teams in each division: Elite – 16 [16] Pro – 32 [48] Lite – 64 [112] Core – 128 [240] Neo – Open Square brackets [*] denote the aggregate number of teams within the ECL system. As always, Neo will remain open to all teams and will not have a cap imposed upon it due to the intention being that the division in question should be available at all times to teams that are new to the 6v6 game mode, and would otherwise feel discouraged from applying to enter the ‘more serious’ division in Core. As already outlined, Core will be placed between the divisions of Lite and Neo. One of the problems that this causes is that the number of teams playing in Lite will be greatly reduced, and with that brings up the question of how to fairly allocate teams. Therefore, with that in mind here is the solution we have arrived at: As Lite will (for ECL 12) have a cap of 64 teams playing within it, we have decided that the top-32 Lite playoff teams from the current season (i.e. teams that make it to the second round) will maintain their spot within Lite automatically – although with that said, it can still be viewed as a promotion all things considered. However, this still leaves 32 spots that need to be filled. To remedy this, we have decided to run a 64-team qualifier in which 32 teams will claim their spot in Lite for ECL 12. Teams that are invited to take part are as follows: Bottom-32 Lite playoff teams (i.e. those that lost in their first round matchup), the top-20 non-playoff Lite teams, the top-8 playoff Neo teams, as well as four ‘Wildcard’ spots. These 64 teams will then be placed into eight groups of eight teams based on the following seeding: Bottom-32 Lite playoff teams (#1-#32) Top-20 non-playoff Lite teams (#33-#52) Top-8 Neo playoff teams (#53-#60) Wildcard* teams (#61-#64) *In order to be eligible to compete as a wildcard team, your team must meet the following quotas: Have 3 former Elite and/or Pro starters Have the remainder of the team be former Lite starting players. A starter is defined as having played 16 or more games in the ECL 11 season, or 20 or more games in the ECL 10 season. It should be noted that the Wildcard spots can either be filled by solely special* teams, remaining non-playoff Lite teams, or a combination of the two – with that said however, the special* teams take priority and if there are four eligible for admission into the qualifier, then the non-playoff Lite teams that finished 21st, 22nd, 23rd, and 24th will not be selected. If more than four special* teams should be eligible for participation into the qualifier, NHLGamer staff will be making the final selections based on player history and perceived skill level. Note: Image has been updated March 17th - see bottom of article for more information. Once placed within these eight groups, each team will play all of their opponents twice in the usual (Home-Away) fashion, meaning that each team will finish the group stage portion of the qualifier with 14 games played. Teams finishing in the top-2 of each respective group will secure their spot in Lite for ECL 12, whilst teams finishing in the bottom-3 of each respective group will be eliminated from the second stage. As 12 more spots need to be filled at this point, a second stage will begin where the middle-3 teams from each group (i.e. those that finished 3rd, 4th, and 5th) will reseeded against each other using the tiebreakers mentioned in the rulebook, with each team being matched up against an opponent in which they will have to play a BO5. The teams victorious in this final stage will lock in their spot for Lite in ECL 12, whilst those that did not qualify will be placed in Core along with those that finished in the bottom-3 in the group stage element of the qualifier. In the spirit of including an all new division to the ECL structure we feel that updating the promotion logic between divisions would be advisable – not just from the perspective of refreshing the system, but to give you the players a more concrete setup, especially as the systems we have been using have been fairly varied and plastic. First up we have Pro and Lite. These two divisions mark the mid-way point of the climb into Elite and are the epicentre of where the game goes from just being a hobby or pastime, to something serious, in most cases. From this point on, prior to every ECL season there will be a 20-team qualifier. This qualifier will be used to decide which teams are relegated, and which teams are promoted into Pro. Before we go into detail regarding the structure of the qualifiers, it should be mentioned that Pro teams who finished 15th and 16th in their group will be relegated straight to Lite (i.e. they will not be invited to the qualifier). Additionally, the top-3 Lite teams (i.e. the champions, runners-up, and bronze medal victor) will be promoted directly into Pro. With that out of the way, let’s get into the nitty gritty of the all-new promotion structure. Making up the bulk of qualifier competitors will be the Pro teams that finished 12th, 13th and 14th from both groups, as well as the top-6 remaining teams from the Lite playoffs (i.e. 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th). Joining these twelve teams will be the top-4 teams from the Core playoffs (i.e. champion, runners-up, and semifinalists). Finally, to round out the competitors to an even 20 we have four ‘wildcard’ spots. These spots can then either be filled by solely special* teams, remaining Lite playoff teams, or a combination of the two – with that said however, the special* teams take priority and if there are four eligible for admission into the qualifier, then the Lite playoff teams that finished 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th will not be selected. *As ECLs only occur once a calendar year, and twice per each NHL year, we feel that a balance has to be struck between affording upper echelon teams (i.e. Elite and Pro) the ability to reform in a different setting under a different team banner, as well as being ‘fair’ for teams that have worked their way up through the ECL division structure – as such, under this system we feel that balance has been struck. Of course, we would love to hear your opinions regarding this. In order to qualify as a ‘special’ team you must hit one of these two quotas: Three former Elite starters Four former Pro starters A starter is defined as having played 16 or more games in the ECL 11 season, or 20 or more games in the ECL 10 season. With the ‘who’ out of the way so to speak, let’s get into ‘how’ the qualifiers will be conducted. The twenty teams will be split into four groups of five based on the following seeding: Lite playoff team (4th) Lite playoff team (5th) Lite playoff team (6th) Lite playoff team (7th) Lite playoff team (8th) Lite playoff team (9th) Pro relegation team (12th) Pro relegation team (12th) Pro relegation team (13th) Pro relegation team (13th) Pro relegation team (14th) Pro relegation team (14th) Core playoff team (1st) Core playoff team (2nd) Core playoff team (3rd) Core playoff team (4th) Wildcard Wildcard Wildcard Wildcard Once the groups have been decided, each team will then play each of their opponents in the usual (Home-Away) double matchup. Once this stage has been completed, the top-3 teams from each group will progress to the second stage, meanwhile the teams finishing 4th and 5th in each group will be eliminated. Progressing on to the second stage we have a bit of a reshuffle of sorts, as the four group of five will be combined into two groups of six. It will not be a ‘full’ reshuffle however, as teams will progress with the other two progressing teams from their group. Furthermore, each team’s record and points accumulated from their games against the advancing teams from their group will be carried forward into this stage. Teams will then be tasked with playing against three different opponents. Once this has been completed, the top-3 teams from each of the two groups will be promoted into Pro, meanwhile the teams that finished 4th in both groups will battle against each other in a BO5 for the final Pro spot. Once the BO5 has been played out, and the victor promoted, the pro / lite qualifiers will have concluded. ECL Pro 11 -> 12 Transition We do agree that the "sudden" immediate relegation for teams in 15th and 16th spot is too harsh at this stage in the season, so we put together a compromise for the transition between ECL 11 and 12 that allows for every team to have a chance to prove their worth. Lite playoff team (4th) Lite playoff team (5th) Lite playoff team (6th) Lite playoff team (7th) Lite playoff team (8th) Lite playoff team (9th) Pro relegation team (12th) Pro relegation team (12th) Pro relegation team (13th) Pro relegation team (13th) Pro relegation team (14th) Pro relegation team (14th) Pro relegation team (15th) Pro relegation team (15th) Pro relegation team (16th) Pro relegation team (16th) Wildcard Wildcard Wildcard Wildcard Seven (7) out of these twenty (20) teams participating in the ECL Pro Qualification tournament will play in ECL Pro 12. Like the promotion structure laid out for Pro / Lite, Lite / Core will be largely the same – albeit with some minor differences. Instead of the qualifiers consisting of 20 teams there will be 24 teams, all competing to gain entry into Lite. Now for the quick rundown of who this qualifier will not have an impact on. Lite teams that finished the season prior as the 15th or 16th ranked team in their group will be directly relegated to the Core division. Meanwhile, the top-3 teams from the Core playoffs (i.e. champion, runners-up, bronze game victor) will be instantly promoted into Lite. With the automatic relegations / promotions out of the way let’s get into the specifics of who you will see in the Lite / Core qualifier. As with the Pro / Lite system, the majority of the teams taking part will be sourced from the season prior’s Core playoff teams (4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th), as well as Lite teams who were ranked 13th, or 14th in their group (of which there are four). Specifically, this means that these two groups of teams will take up 16 spots of this 24-team qualifier. The next group of teams invited will be the four best Neo playoff teams (i.e. champion, runners-up, and semifinalists). Finally, the remaining four slots will be ‘wildcard’ teams. The process will be similar to the one already laid out for Pro / Lite, namely that these spots can either be filled by solely special* teams, remaining Core playoff teams, or a combination of the two – with that said however, the special* teams take priority and if there are four eligible for admission into the qualifier, then the Core playoff teams that finished 12th, 13th, 14th, and 15th will not be selected In order to qualify as a ‘special’ team you must hit one of these two quotas: Five former Lite starters A starter is defined as having played 16 or more games in the ECL 12 season, or 20 or more games in the ECL 11 season. Additionally, to prevent teams from taking advantage of the staggered divisional start time that we have instituted for ECL, specifically recruiting players to bolster your chances in the qualifier that have no intention of remaining in the team beyond that, we have decided to enforce a soft roster lock post qualifier play. What this means in practice is that if a former Elite player wants to participate in a qualifier for a Pro or Lite team, then they will be locked into that division for four weeks (starting from the first game played in Elite that season). If a former Pro player wishes to do the same, then they will be locked into the division for 2 weeks (starting from the first game played in Pro that season). Finally, if there happens to be more open spots than anticipated (e.g. from teams disbanding which would have been invited to play in the qualifier, or owned a spot to the division in question), we will award the next highest ranked playoff team each spot, whilst the next highest ranked potential qualifier eligible team will replace them in the qualifier. This procedure will be carried out for each and every extra unforeseen spot. Now onto the method in which the Lite / Core qualifiers will be conducted. The twenty-four teams will be split into four groups of six based on the following seeding: Core playoff team (4th) Core playoff team (5th) Core playoff team (6th) Core playoff team (7th) Core playoff team (8th) Core playoff team (9th) Core playoff team (10th) Core playoff team (11th) Lite relegation team (13th) Lite relegation team (13th) Lite relegation team (13th) Lite relegation team (13th) Lite relegation team (14th) Lite relegation team (14th) Lite relegation team (14th) Lite relegation team (14th) Neo playoff team (1st) Neo playoff team (2nd) Neo playoff team (3rd) Neo playoff team (4th) Wildcard Wildcard Wildcard Wildcard Once the groups have been decided, each team will then play each of their opponents in the usual (Home-Away) double matchup. Once this stage has been completed, the top-2 teams from each group will be promoted directly into Lite, whilst the bottom-2 teams will be eliminated from further contention. Of course, this leaves 5 spots still open, so, like in the Pro / Lite structure described earlier, we will have a second stage following largely the same procedure. The remaining teams from the four groups of six (i.e. teams that finished 3rd and 4th) will be combined into two groups of four. Teams will progress with the other progressing team from their group. Furthermore, each team’s record and points accumulated from their games against the advancing team from their group will be carried forward into this stage. Teams will then be tasked with playing against two different opponents. Once this has been completed, the top-2 teams from each of the two groups will be promoted into Lite, meanwhile the teams that finished 3rd in both groups will battle against each other in a BO5 for the final Lite spot. We realize that this article is very detailed and can be tough to digest in one sitting. Please send your questions in the comment below. EDIT: Added section "ECL Pro 11 -> 12 Transition" EDIT March 17th: During the preparation of the new ECL 12 season, we noticed that the transition qualifier that we previously introduced for the ECL 12 Lite season had a small error. We failed to take the Wildcard teams into consideration in our math for the qualifiers which would have lead to an 68 team Lite division. We will still use the previously announced system we mentioned in our structure article, but we will be making a small adjustment: The playoff line will be moved from above the 7th seed to above the 6th seed. This means that the top 5 teams out of each qualifying group has a chance to continue to play for the ECL Lite promotion, while the 6th-8th ranked teams in each group will solidify their spot in the Core division. We apologize for the miscalculation while creating the new system, but we still believe that having a chance to fight for the ECL Lite promotion as a 5th ranked team in your individual group still gives you a very fair chance to make it.

Hey NHLGamers, It would be safe to say that the 1.1 patch released just over two weeks ago was heavily expedited due to the broken defensive skill stick, which allowed people to poke / knock the puck loose without tripping the puck carrier. As such, we are now in the general time-frame in which EA would drop their first 'major' patch of the year and, right on cue, we have just that - releasing sometime today on the 5th of November 2020. Making up the bulk of the changes in the 1.2 patch are fixes / improvements that look to strengthen the gameplay, reducing the likelihood of weird events occurring. One such example of this would be 'fixing' cases where a player would drop the puck when blending in and out of animations. Additionally, for all the goalies out there, EA is also supposed to have packaged an improvement in human goalie save selection within this patch. Generally speaking though, most of the changes contained within this patch look to fix niggling issues more than anything so one would wager that the gameplay should remain largely similar to how it was pre-patch. The full changelog can be viewed below (press expand to view the full list): What does everyone think of these changes? Anything that stands out to you?

Hey NHLGamers, In what can only be described as the fastest patch on record for an NHL iteration, EA are going to release the 1.1 patch in just over one hour from now (19cet) on the 20th of October, 2020. To the surprise of no-one who has had the fortune of playing the game recently, the hallmark change in this patch is the improvement in the logic dicatating whether a defensive skill stick poke would trip someone or not. As this patch appears to be expedited due to complaints from the aforementioned issue, there are little to no other changes that are of major note. Of course, there are still some 'miscellaneous' changes, ranging from skating preview animations being fixed to general UI stability improvements. What's your experience with the game so far? Was this an anticipated patch? Anything else you'd like fixed? Let us know in the comments below.

Hey NHLGamers, NHL 21 is finally upon us, albeit with the caveat that you'll need an EA Play subscription*, but nevertheless, it is here and so let's get straight down to business looking at what has changed! As you may remember EA was rather tight-lipped about gameplay details regarding NHL 21 from the technical test a while back and asked for people to submit their opinions of the game in order to gain an understanding of what needed to be changed or tweaked. Well, they have seemingly read through a lot of responses and one of the bigger change-logs seen for a while in the NHL series. Below you will find a general rundown of the 'main' changes (subjective of course) impacting 6v6. After that, the full change-log will be presented. Enjoy. Firstly, it appears that goalies are the ones to receive the most changes which is probably to be expected, thanks to goalies facing one of the biggest overhauls for NHL 21. In this, we see that animation tweaks and fixes make up the lion's share of entries, with there even being new save animations included. Outside of goalie changes however there are not that many 'major' changes, instead most entries look to make small-scale tweaks to existing systems. For instance, EA has apparently stopped players randomly launching the puck after picking it up and attempting a pass or shot, indeed the collision system as a whole will supposedly have fewer "phantom" collisions. *In order to attain an EA Play subscription, you will need to install the "EA Play Hub" app through the PSN store, from there NHL 21 should be visible as the banner screen. Once you've have clicked on "view game" for NHL 21, you should be prompted to download it assuming you already have a subscription, or asked to subscribe. EA Play is a monthly renewing subscription and as such, if you do not plan on making use of it beyond playing NHL 21, then please remember to cancel this subscription. In addition to the early access, EA Play will also grant you an automatically applied discount of 10% on any preorder of an EA game in the PSN store. What does everyone think about these changes? Are there any changes you think that have run under the radar? Let us know below!

NHLGamers, After a gruelling Friday night we're able to present to you the new SCL 1vs1 Champion Henrik @Eken45jr Eklund! Let's take a look back at @Eken45jr's road to the championship: Group stage record: Invited straight to the finals stage Finals group stage record: 6-0-0 Quarterfinals vs @Rubituss 2-0 SemiFinals vs @JoeeelOD 2-0 Finals vs @SebbeLarsen86 2-0 The top 3 of SCL 1vs1 are: 1. Henrik Eklund @Eken45jr 2. Sebastian Larsen @SebbeLarsen86 3. Anton Svensander @antoniomannen004 NHLGamer would like to congratulate Eken on a tremendous tournament and the championship! If you wish to relive the broadcast, you can do so here:

Anyone keeping tabs on NHL 21 news recently will no doubt have spotted a link to the “Technical Test” that has circulated around a little recently. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can find the link here. While not being referred to by EA as a Beta (open or closed), as well as not being posted on any of their official social media accounts, we nevertheless believe that this will be the beta for NHL 21. As such, we recommend that everyone sign up to it as soon as they can due to the potential that there may be a limited number of codes available. The above is a screenshot, click here to sign up for the NHL 21 Beta As for what we know (or more accurately, what we don’t know). We do not currently know what game mode(s) will be included in the supposed beta, but if previous iterations are anything to go off then expect to see a slimmed down EASHL and HUT. Of course, given the cloak-and-dagger approach that EA are taking I personally would not be surprised if this coming beta is extremely lacking in content. Additionally, we also do not know who the cover athlete will be - something that was typically revealed alongside the ‘main reveal’ of the game that took place at the NHL draft. What we do know however are the release dates. As usual there will be a Standard, Deluxe, and an Ultimate edition on both consoles, with the Deluxe and Ultimate editions letting players download and play the game 3 days prior to the Standard release date. Furthermore, just like years past, EA Access will allow members to play NHL 21 a week before the Standard release date. Of course, this comes with the caveat that you will only be able to play the game for 10hrs over that time period. Therefore, NHL 21s release schedule will look something like this: EA Early Access - 9th of October 2020 (TBC) Deluxe & Ultimate Editions - 13th of October 2020 Standard - 16th of October 2020 As always EA are offering unique pre-order bonuses for each of the three editions on offer: Standard - 1 Hockey Bag Deluxe - HUT Cover Athlete Choice Pack (Choice 1 of 6); 2 Hockey Bags Ultimate - HUT Cover Athlete Choice Pack (Choice 1 of 6); 5 Hockey Bags What are your hopes for the beta - which mode(s) would you like to see included? And who do you think will be named as the cover athlete? Let us know in the comments.

NHLGamers, As the world slowly starts to work itself out of the various COVID-19 measures that were put in place, EA have now announced what was unofficially stated in an economic report / forecast released a month or two ago, namely that the next NHL (21) is indeed coming - albeit with the caveat that it will be an October-based release. In the press release that will be provided below, EA note how whilst the impact of COVID-19 has been far reaching, in turn prompting the application of "major adjustments", the end-result has been remarkably similar to what they set out to achieve originally. Regarding information that is specifically pertinent for prospective players, the game will not be coming to next-gen consoles as a dedicated entry, instead it will be playable on the Xbox Series X and PS5 through forwards compatibility. Surely a disappointment to anyone that has been keeping up with the news (or lack thereof) as of late, as well as equally speculating, especially considering NHL 15 was a year late to next-gen consoles and was wholly feature devoid. Nevertheless, EA states that they will be releasing additional information regarding NHL 21 later this year ~ late August. Whether this takes on the form of a 'deep dive' that they have released in the run-up to previous iterations or as an online beta remains to be seen. Furthermore, players signing into the game should now find some complementary HUT packs waiting for them in the shop, additionally, EASHL players should look forward to finding some WOC bags too! EA: NHL 21 Update How do people feel about this news? Were you expecting more of a push towards the next-gen consoles for example?

On the 29th of April League Administration was notified that during a disconnect in a quarterfinal game between the teams Entourage, and Composure, a player had changed build and therefore violated rule 11.11. The Ruling We have decided that the game played between these two teams must be replayed. As the score was 0-0 at the time of the disconnect, we are allowing the teams in question to start the game afresh if they so choose, rather than replicating the time in which the disconnect occurred and playing from there. If there is a disagreement between the two captains regarding the point in which to 'start' from, then the game will proceed from the moment of the disconnect. Whether or not the game is decided to be continued from the time of disconnect or to be restarted, the player builds cannot be changed from what they were when the original game was started. In Response Over the course of this case, LA have discussed ways to tweak this rule as currently there are some issues that we feel need to be addressed. Namely, we do not want to get into a situation where the players themselves have to ‘police’ the matchup and consequently have to be on the lookout for any violations like this. Alternatively, we also do not want to be too lenient and offer up ‘warnings’ in place of strict punishment, as this could potentially lead to a loophole within the rules. Therefore, going forward we have decided that if a player is found to have changed their build when returning to a disconnected game in which their team ended up benefiting (i.e. lost in OT or won in reg/OT), the game in question will be rolled back and replayed from the moment of the disconnect, providing that LA is made known of the infraction no later than 24hrs after the game has been completed.

Hey NHLGamers, Yesterday EA SPORTS released the fifth update for NHL 20. The biggest tweak as far as 6s goes appears to be the way in which goalies react to passes on net, hopefully meaning they will no longer get locked into a save animation whenever a pass goes near them now. Most of the other fixes will be more noticeable in the 1v1 modes but are indeed very important, such as how the CPU defensemen react to the so-called self-sauce and how the CPU defenseman reacts to odd-man rushes. For the full changelog, please see below. What are your thoughts on the update? Have you had the chance to test it - does it deliver? Let us know in the comments below!

NHLGamers, Your inaugural eSHL champions have been crowned! Twelve eSHL teams entered, eight progressed to the playoffs, and eventually, we were left with a somewhat familiar-looking matchup in Linköping HC vs. Malmö Redhawks. Both teams are no strangers to winning, with LHC featuring their exact same roster from their most recent ECL Elite victory, and Malmö boasting two players from HAVU as well as four from the Vesa Pompa HC team who won the SCL last Spring. Despite the final series resulting in a BO5 sweep, two of the three games were decided by one goal, and each game felt like it was on a knife's edge. Once the dust had settled LHC emerged as your eSHL champions, continuing their impressive form over the past few tournaments they have competed in. Your new eSHL Champions - Linköping HC / Photo credit: Elias Gammelgård Linköping HC 🏆 Group stage record: 21-1-0 (1st) Round 1: vs HV71 (8) 3-0 Semifinals: vs Leksands IF (4) 3-1 Finals: vs Malmö Redhawks (2) 3-0 GOALIES #72 C. Lundgren @ICappeI DEFENSEMEN #27 A. Loimuvirta @loimmu #40 J. Torro @jtorro1233 #88 J. Virta @SUPERVIRTA FORWARDS #23 N. Tukiainen @NikkeDangles #25 E. Tammenpaa @Eki #44 P. Arontie @PleeMaker #86 J. Paatiala @Juunas After the games were played and Linköping HC had emerged as the champions, our editor-in-chief @jahajaha93 had a chance to talk to @Eki and asked him some questions: You've now managed to secure two titles within a short span of time, what do you have to say about your run as of late? "Obviously a championship always feels great, Cappe did an amazing job setting this up for us so it feels especially great to be able to play for him." Malmo was your expected final opponent for quite some time, did you prepare for that ahead of time? "We expected to meet Malmö in an eventual final. They have a very strong roster and we know their players well, so we didn't actually prepare too much per se since we've obviously met them before and had time to think things over." The eSHL differs quite heavily in character from the ECL for example, what did you think were the biggest differences? "Well, there's quite many but especially the heavily varying level of competition is different. Some clubs went with local talent and it's respectable, but they didn't fare too well in the end. It's obviously a bit of a different mindset going into the game when you're meeting a contender like Malmo versus when you're going up against a team you know you will beat with ease." Finally, how did you like representing Linköping HC in this tournament and what does the future hold for you? "It's been absolutely awesome and the support has been second to none. Linköping is a first-class organization that has really taken care of us players and seen to it that we can perform at our highest level. About the future - our contract term is for the remainder of NHL 20, no talks about extensions have been had yet so that's something that remains to be seen." Eki and all of Linköping HC were all smiles all weekend / Photo credit: Elias Gammelgård NHLGamer would like to congratulate Linköping HC for their championship and thank all of the teams, players and organizations for an amazing first season of the eSHL! Stay tuned for a more detailed season recap later this week.

NHLGamers, The next championship to be crowned in the 9th iteration of ECL is the most prestigious of them all - Elite. Two teams entered. And once the dust had settled, only one was left standing. We present to you the ECL 9 Elite champions in Linkoping HC. This marks the third title for this franchise, and the second in three seasons - no doubt solidifying them as one of Europe's finest. Linkoping HC 🏆 Group stage record: 27-2-1 (1st) Round 1: vs Symphony (8) 4-2 Semifinals: vs Lulea Hockey (5) 4-0 Finals: vs HAVU Gaming (2) 4-3 GOALIES #72 C. Lundgren @ICappeI DEFENSEMEN #27 A. Loimuvirta @loimmu #40 J. Torro @jtorro1233 #88 J. Virta @SUPERVIRTA FORWARDS #25 E. Tammenpaa @Eki #44 P. Arontie @PleeMaker #86 J. Paatiala @Juunas The finals between HAVU Gaming and Linkoping were 7 incredible games, that no doubt treated the viewers to what NHL EASHL 6s looks like at the highest level. All games were broadcast on the NHLGamer Twitch-channel. @Tougie24 and @Cyn once again blessed us with their presence and put forth a great effort in the commentator booth. If you missed that action, you can watch it again here: Games 1-3: Games 4-7: