l-Furyan-l

Hi Gamers, Another ECL Elite season has passed which means another worthy champion has been crowned. Once again, a hearty round of applause from the community for ECL 5 Elite champions, Aapon Taikasauva. Now that the season is over, teams have been relegated, promoted, folded and re-made almost from the bottom up. Nevertheless, all the spectacle and activity that surrounds the Elite divison just goes to show one thing: there truly is no better place to be than the top tier of European EASHL hockey. The regular season In his preview ahead of the season, @janbonator mentioned SJK eSports, Written In The Stars, Carlsberg HC and MUKIMIEHET as his main "Contenders" to win the title. A suggestion that would prove quite wise as two of his picks ended up among the final four of the playoffs. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. We begin by taking a look at the regular season. Northern Stars started the season like shot out of a cannon and remained at the top of the standings for most of the regular season. Part of this was their already strong roster featuring players like @cHIIMEERa, @Floor17 and @Rullstolskalas being bolstered by star players like @tbnantti and @plee999, but part of it was also the pace in which NOS played their games. Hungry from their dissapointing finish last season, captain cHIIMEERa had his team at the very top of the "games played" column for almost the full season. A wise strategy it would turn out as the team won enough games to make the playoffs. While janbonator put Aapon Taikasauva at the very top of his "challengers"-list in the Elite preview, he wasn't entirely sure if they would have time to find team chemistry before ECL 5 with all the transfers that had been made since last season. Aapon quickly put those doubts to rest by dominating just about every opponent for the duration of the regular season. They ended up finishing at the very top of the regular season standings ahead of the playoffs. Locked in a tight battle for 2nd place were Finnish behemoth franchises SJK eSports (winner of ECL 4 Elite), Written In The Stars, Carlsberg HC (winner of ECL 4 Pro) and Dynasty (finalist in ECL 4 Elite). Propelled forward by strong leadership from captains @Dominointi, @FlyerKungen, @Joonas Paatiala and @Snapster - all four teams delivered solid regular seasons marked by high-skill plays and solid team defense. In the case of Carlsberg and Written, geared a bit more towards offensive creativity while Dynasty and SJK have long been known as two of the sturdiest defending teams. Further down we find Northern Ascendancy who featured two of the top three scorers of the regular season, @MartindalexC and @Foppatofflan. It can be argued that no team is more difficult to defend against than NOR, at least when attacking on the rush. Creative offence was the hallmark of another solid regular season from this storied team. Rounding out the teams who made the playoffs were the previously mentioned Northern Stars and surprise team Rusty Blades. Led defensively by superb goaltender @Supreex and hard-hitting defender (and captain) @Tanski87, the Blades got some timely scoring from @Lamsa and crew to just nab the 8th and final playoff spot ahead of MUKIMIEHET. Of course, finishing 8th meant getting matched up against #1 seed Aapon Taikasauva. Of the teams who ended up in "No Mans Land", perhaps none were more suprising than MUKIMIEHET. However, their failure to make the playoffs arrived on the heels of reports saying there was unrest among the roster which in turn led to high-profile players @Erkki and @Aze leaving the team just before the trade deadline. It remains to be seen if captain MuKiMaisteri can keep the team together for ECL 6. Of the rest of the teams who ended up just outside the playoffs but avoided relegation - Sjukstugan, Kattiautomaatti and Silver Sword Griffins - all three were transplants from ECL Pro last season and perhaps needed a season of Elite tempo to get their legs under them before next season. At the bottom of the standings, Swedish teams Synergy Hockey and Nordic Lightning were both relegated after battling valiantly but failing to live up to their own standards. TIKI TALK and Nordic Nightmare ended up in Elite/Pro relegation where NN decided to fold which meant TIKI took on the lower seed of the Pro playoffs. The playoffs As the playoffs began, we were treated to four sets of superb playoff series between Aapon Taikasauva - Rusty Blades, Carlsberg HC - Northern Stars, SJK eSports - Northern Ascendancy and Written In The Stars - Dynasty. Carlsbergs series with Northern Stars ended up being quite the page-turner as both teams refused to give an inch. The series came down to game 7 where NOS finally emerged victorious. SJK eSports managed to shut down the offense of Northern Ascendancy while Written In The Stars charged at Dynasty like hungry rhinos and ended up sweeping the series. The final four ended up being Aapon Taikasauva, Northern Stars, SJK eSports and Written In The Stars. Sadly the series between SJK and Written had to be decided by walkovers due to rule violations, which meant SJK advanced to the finals. As for the playoff run of championship team Aapon Taikasauva, I'll let goaltender @Casper take it away: Thank you indeed. For next season, Elite will be joined by Pro promotees Evolution (champions), Unlucky Boys HC, Falun Coal Miners and Pata Hellalla. For NHLGamer.com, @The_Alpha_Furyan

NHLGamers, We have reached the semifinals phase of the ECL 5 Pro Playoffs and here are the playoff pairings and framework: FRAMEWORK Each pairing must be finished within 7 days from today, meaning last evening to play games is December 12th. Don't expect any extensions! All pairings are to be played in a best-of-7 series (teams on the left side below play home first) PRO PLAYOFFS Here is how last round ended: #1 Unlucky Boys HC vs. #8 THE UNITED KNIGHTS [4-0] #2 Nordic Stars vs. #7 Falun Coal Miners [3-4] #3 Gotham Knights vs. #6 Pata Hellalla [3-4] #4 Inter Iceland vs. #5 Evolution [2-4] This gives us the following pairings for the semifinals: #1 Unlucky Boys HC vs. #7 Falun Coal Miners #5 Evolution vs. #6 Pata Hellalla We offer our congratulations to Unlucky Boys HC, Falun Coal Miners, Evolution and Pata Hellalla for making the "final four" of ECL 5 Pro. All four teams will - at the very least - have the opportunity to play for a spot in Elite for ECL 6. An announcement from the LA department regarding the SJK-SKY case and the ECL finals will be released shortly. @The_Alpha_Furyan for NHLGamer.com

NHLGamers, Here are the playoff pairings and framework for Round 2 of the ECL 5 playoffs for Pro & Elite: FRAMEWORK Each pairing, Elite or Pro, must be finished within 7 days from today, meaning last evening to play games is December 5th. Don't expect any extensions! All pairings are to be played in a best-of-7 series (teams on the left side below play home first) PRO PLAYOFFS After the cross-seeding of the first round between Group 1 and Group 2, we now return to our usual points per game seeding for the rest of the playoffs. Here is how last round ended: Gotham Knights vs. J P T J [2-1, final two games WO from J P T J due to no players available in the alloted time] SIKA vs. THE UNITED KNIGHTS [3-4] Inter Iceland vs. EN HUND [4-2] Lavetten vs. Pata Hellalla [2-4] Unlucky Boys HC vs. Alliance HT [4-2] Shameful Knights vs. Falun Coal Miners [1-4] Nordic Stars vs. White Trash [4-2] Baltic Sea Eagles vs. Evolution [3-4] This gives us the following pairings for Round 2 (new seeds based on points per game relative to each other in regular season): #1 Unlucky Boys HC vs. #8 THE UNITED KNIGHTS #2 Nordic Stars vs. #7 Falun Coal Miners #3 Gotham Knights vs. #6 Pata Hellalla #4 Inter Iceland vs. #5 Evolution ELITE PLAYOFFS For Elite, these were the results of Round 1. Aapon Taikasauva vs. Rusty Blades [4-2] Carlsberg HC vs. Northern Stars [3-4] SJK eSports vs. Northern Ascendancy [4-2] Written In The Stars vs. Dynasty [4-0] This gives us the following pairings for Round 2 (seeds remain unchanged = sorted by points per game in regular season): #1 Aapon Taikasauva vs. #7 Northern Stars #3 SJK eSports vs. #4 Written In The Stars Good luck to all teams and see you for Round 3! ECL Lite announcement regarding Round 3 will be out tomorrow. @The_Alpha_Furyan for NHLGamer.com