Search the Community

cHIIMERa – Northern Stars Today we have the privilege of interviewing Viktor “cHIIMERa” Ghamari from Northern Stars! Let’s have a chat with him! (((NOTE: Interview done BEFORE ECL!))) What’s up Viktor! Hey man! Not much, sitting here and waiting to get some sleep after a long day at school. How about you? Haha I'm fine, just busy with these interviews before ECL starts! Northern Stars and some of your players have an almost godlike reputation over Xbox. Tell us PlayStation -players why is that? Well thanks for setting the expectations extremely high for us SeRe Hm.. We managed to make a name for ourselves back in the earlier years of EASHL. We won some consecutive championship titles, and uhm.. We got lots of hype and I think that it kinda got stuck you know? Haha no problem! But are you actually that good? This will be great test for many teams to see what kind of team you really are, but have you noticed other teams while on PS4 that can compete with you and you know you will have hard time with against them? Hm.. Now that’s a question I definitely would like to think thru before answering. If I would have time that is. I’ll turn the question around a bit and say that the rest of the teams have caught up with us. We’re still performing on a high level but so are other teams also. There is at least 10 teams I’ll be going: ”Oh nice it’s them! Let’s step our game up boys” about It’s going to be an interesting ECL for sure! How would you describe Northern Stars and how was your team founded in first place? Are you guys all from Sweden and are you friends in real life? Northern Stars was created back in NHL 09 by Falkiniz who has retired. I joined the team on its birthday and have been playing here ever since. I guess it’s one of my qualities that I’m veeeeeeeery loyal Floor, ma0niii and OODAP joined in NHL 10. Rullstolskalas, Mullweiser, Robhaf and M4Gustafsson joined in NHL 13. And that has been our roster, until NHL 16 when Plee joined us. We’re all from Sweden except OODAP and Plee. They’re Finns. Me, ma0niii and Floor are good IRL-friends now. Just from getting to know eachother over NHL. I think that’s pretty cool. How I would describe us? In all honesty we’re just a bunch of merry misfit’s when it comes down to our parties on PSN. One weirder than the other. But We’re having fun. And thats all that matters Hmmm interesting! How about this next-gen EASHL hockey. It’s pretty different comparing to older gen. How do you like it and how your team has been able to adapt to this new hockey game? I would say that the game is bit slower and more defense oriented isn’t it? Harder to score as well. Of course as we’re a decent team offensively we’ve been a little frustrated with our inability to rack up goals as we managed to do before. But that’s how the game has evolved. With that said, we don’t mind playing ”defense first” either. Now the series tends to give us many tight and exciting games since we started playing NHL 16. Now just a simple question! Tell us about you, and how did you end up playing NHL at the 1st place? Easy enough I’m Viktor Ghamari, 29 years old swede playing for Northern Stars. I like Cats and… Haha I got you didn’t I? Pretty hard to tell other people about yourself without making it sound like a job interview... I’ve been hearing that I’m a pretty nice guy. I’ll just leave it like that. When I started playing NHL? This is going to sound a bit funny I think. It was a rainy autumn day back in 1993. I put NHL 93 into the SNES and picked up the controller. And that was all I needed, I was hooked. From there I pretty much enjoyed the series on a recreational level. I mean since then I have been familiar with the series but it wasn’t until I first tried NHL 08 on Xbox 360 I started playing on a more regular basis. So do you play anything besides NHL? Both yes and no. I tend to grab the big releases, play them through and then leave them into my drawer. So it’s not very lasting. I can go for months without playing anything. Then I’ll play 5-6 days a week for a month. It all comes down to what the new releases are. Right now Fallout 4 is a game I’ve been waiting forever. So I have been playing that like a crazy for a while. Witcher 3 was an awesome release in 2015 as well, waiting for the next DLC. Why did you guys decided to swap from Xbox to PlayStation? I actually think the Xbox 360 community came together pretty well trying to make most of us to choose the same console as the release of PS4 and Xbox ONE came closer. There was this poll on ConsoleHockey where people voted on which console you should grab and PS4 had a clear advantage. There was also this awesome blogger on 360 named Jesus (We miss you buddy!) that preached it was time to move on. So for us as a team which doesn’t like to spend time in the dressing room, it really wasn’t the hardest choice. Are there any familiar teams or players at the tournament? Even though this will be our first tournament on the PlayStation side. We have been sharing ConsoleHockey for years. So some of the teams I’ve known before even playing against them. Carlsberg HC, The United Knights, Nordic Nosebleed and Nordic Blizzard are some of those teams. I have to be honest. I’ve seen lots of individual skill on the other teams as well. But I haven’t played long enough on PlayStation to remember the actual names of the players. I’m sure this upcoming tournament will give me lots of info for the future. You said this will be interesting ECL but will this be the best European league so far by skill and competition? I think so yeah. I mean the tournaments played over the years has mostly been like ”these are probably the 4 teams in the semifinals.” And most of the times those 4 teams were eventually the ones to reach that semifinal spot. This year on the other hand I’m completely clueless. It’s both exciting and intimidating at the same time. But we’re looking forward to get started! Would you agree that ECL is the biggest reason to play EASHL or even NHL itself? This is a no brainer for us. Yeah it is. The thrill of EASHL tends to fall off for us around November every year. After that it’s just sitting around and waiting for the tournament to start. Are there any rivalry teams or players contending in ECL? The truth? We don’t have any rivals, but obviously we try extra hard against the best teams. I mean we are sure to get some rivalries. In time.. But since this is our first tournament on PlayStation we just have to wait and see. I have to give Sjukstugan a mention though. They’ve been around for some years now. Coming over from the 360 side. They have a really solid defense and it is always a pleasure to play against them. I wish we could have a chance to play more against other teams but we have far too few games played against Carlsberg HC, The United Knights, Nordic Nosebleed, Mukimiehet, Nordic Stars etc. to consider them as rivals. But they’re good teams nevertheless! Who is the player opponent should keep eye on? Hm.. Now giving away that information wouldn’t be very bright would it? Jokes aside. We’re good at different things. It all depends on what aspect of the game we’re looking. Mullweiser can score plenty of goals in a game if you don’t defend properly against him on the one timers. Floor has always been superb at reading the game over the years and always tends to make the right calls on ice. Plee is lethal.. He can create a scoring chance out of nothing. Rullstolskalas is the best defender of the game in my book. And Robhaf dishes out the pain like no one else. OODAP is a great goaltender as well. When his internet works. Unfortunately for us it does work in 3% of the games we’re playing though Haha.. And me.. I’m our quarterback. Hahaha.. Woah! Thank you for giving us your time, it was nice to chat! Good luck for you guys to the upcoming tournament! The pleasure is all mine SeRe. Nice to chat with you indeed! I just gotta say. Keep on doing what you’re doing guys. Great job with the new webpage! And for the taking the time to help make our community better and interesting. I really like what I’ve seen of your work this far! I was supposed to sleep 1 hour ago. Time really flies.. Take care! --- I hope you enjoyed this one eventhough I wasn't able to post this before. I want to thank cHIIMERa one more time for this great interview! Be sure to leave a like/ comment and check out my social media! I hope to see you guys for the next post! See you later! www.youtube.com/FlNSeRe www.facebook.com/FINSeRe www.twitch.tv/FINSeRe

Jageksi – Dynasty This time we have Jaakko ‘’Jageksi’’ Iivonen from Dynasty with us! Let’s see what he has in mind! (((NOTE: Interview done before ECL!))) Hey Jageksi nice to have you! How are you doing? I’m doing fine thanks! I started at University of Tampere this year so I haven’t had much time to play, but I’m still very excited about the upcoming ECL! Who wouldn't? Anyways tell us little bit about yourself and how did you end up playing NHL at the first place? I’m 21 years old guy from Tampere, who is studying business in University. My NHL career started when I was a little baby and I played with my father (actually my dad played against AI, but I didn’t know that). I started to play more seriously maybe in 2009, when I played my first EASHL games and since then I just wanted to become a better player and learn more from the best players. So what kind of team is Dynasty exactly? I assume it's pretty new, but what is the creational story behind it? Yeah we started to play this year! The story behind the team is that we wanted to get a small group that is very motivated to improve our playing in every game. The second reason that made this team possible is that many Xbox players switched to PS4 this year. Now I have played with these guys about 3 months and I can honestly say that I have enjoyed every moment! So have you know these guys before or were they just complete random to you? I met Kellosuutari on my short visit at Xbox. Lukkolinho, jumalpeku, janbonator and gendlik I have met IRL. Snapu48 was a complete stranger to me, but when I heard he has played for Helsingin Tappara, I knew he was our "special one" for RD position. vSilenttio is one of the best defenders, but he is in the army now, so he hasn’t played much with us which is pity. As we know, this is the first next-gen EASHL. How does it feel comparing to previous NHL's and how much adaption you had to make from the old-gen? Well I had break from EASHL last year, but I could say that team playing is the number one thing this year, because you really need to cycle the puck really fast and there is not many opportunities for soloing this year. This has also affected my current playstyle since I have liked the puck in recent years So what kind of hockey does Dynasty play then? Our key words are: discipline, compact defense and simple attacking. If you want more information you just need to play against us Would you say that this is the best European wide EASHL tournament ever, since we are having all major Xbox and PS teams at the same tournament? Absolutely! The tournament winners can really call themselves "The Champion"! I’m also excited to play against former Xbox teams like Northern Stars, Synergy Hockey and Sjukstugan! Speaking of teams, which ones will be the top teams in this tournament in your opinion? Well my prediction for TOP-3 would be Northern Stars, THE UNITED KNIGHTS and Carlsberg HC, but there are still numerous teams that might make a surprise! Many captains I have interviewed told me that tournaments like this are the actual point to even buy NHL. How do you think? They are wise captains These tournaments are pure diamond because every team plays seriously and you really need to work hard to earn points! Are there any rivalry teams for you in this tournament? Our club is so new that we don’t have any specific teams, but I’m personally waiting to play against Northern Stars, THE UNITED KNIGHTS and Carlsberg HC. How do you see Dynasty succeeding in this tournament? I think we have a chance to really succeed in this tournament, but we don’t have any named goal And I’m saying this because, I think you are able to play your best when you don’t have any extra pressure! Can you name few players from EASHL scene who are truly superstars by pure talent? What kind of players they are and what would you like to learn from them? There are many great players around, but I’ll mention few. Urlauber61 is pure magic and I’m very grateful that I have had a chance to play with this "genius". Hansulinho has the best hands and it’s a nightmare to defend against him. And now that I have played against the mighty Viktor (cHIIMERa), I could say that he is the calmest player I have ever seen! How about your team, who would you name to be your teams MVP and why is that? Hard question because I think we all have our own duties and I think everyone fulfill it perfectly. Lukkolinho is our gatekeeper and Snapu48 is our leader as a captain. I’m here to score goals, gendlik is our puck handling master. jumalpeku is the guy you just want to have in your own team. Kellosuutari and janbonator are our two-way players and they both are very talented. vSilenttio is in the army and he joins us in March 2016. Well thank you for this interview! Would you like to say anything for the readers or anyone? You are welcome, it has been pleasure to talk with you! I’ll send my greetings to NHLGamer staff which made this tournament possible! And for the other teams I’ll say that let’s thank these guys by having a great and fair tournament where everyone supports each other even when you lose an important match! --- This was the second interview in this series, I hope you enjoyed reading this as I enjoyed doing it! I have to add special thanks to Jageksi one more time for this interview! Be sure to leave a like/ comment and check out my social media! I hope to see you guys for the next post! See you later! www.youtube.com/FlNSeRe www.facebook.com/FINSeRe www.twitch.tv/FINSeRe

Nephenzy – Synergy Hockey So today we have Peter ‘’Nephenzy’’ Andersson from Synergy Hockey over here for a brief interview. Let’s get into it! (((NOTE: Interview done before ECL!))) Peter what’s up, how are you doing! Hi SeRe! Everything is just great, I´m excited about the upcoming ECL! Nice to hear! So what kind of team is Synergy Hockey exactly? When was it founded? Well Synergy Hockey is a team built by random hockey gamers from Sweden, not many of us knew each other before NHL 09 except a few of us. Synergy Hockey was founded and emerged late NHL 11. Members of two teams BIF Blizzards and Blades of Swedes on PS3 started up this new team together. The main concept for us is to have a great team spirit and work together for better and worse. So has the roster been mainly the same over the years? We have had some changes and lots of different rosters throughout all of these years and there was this one year, NHL 13 where we changed to Xbox and we played in two different teams instead of Synergy. But we have a core that has been together since the very beginning and last few years we have had a pretty solid roster with a few minor changes. Last year we played a few other games since there was no EASHL on PS4, so the group feels pretty strong nowadays. Now something easier! Who are you and how did you end up playing NHL in the first place? Well I´m just an old hockey maniac living in Sweden. I have dedicated my life to all kinds of team play games which are my biggest passion. I have played all NHL games since the first one on SEGA called EA Hockey. Me and Isindar did some online leagues several years on PC but when EASHL was introduced on console, it was natural that we bought it and started to play together instead of against each other. This is the 1st next-gen NHL with EASHL and even better, it seems that every major Xbox team has transferred to PS4, so we are going to have truly great tournament. What are your thoughts of the game itself and what do you think about upcoming tournament, would you agree that it’s going to be the best European EASHL tournament ever thus far? Yeah I´m really excited about this upcoming tournament and the future of this community with the new NHLGamer. I´m a bit worried how this home captain lag will affect games and what problems it might bring. But I hope that honesty and good sportsmanship will be in a big part. And yeah there are so many good teams out there and this has the potential to be the best tournament ever. There are lots of teams known for something, like The United Knights for its defense or Northern Stars for its offense. What kind of team is Synergy Hockey? Hmmm I don´t know really.. We pass the puck a lot, maybe too much for our own good sometimes. We try to be solid and complete in both ends. The game is so tight nowadays so It´s all about being focused and trying to keep cool head even when things don’t go your way. Are you fully Swedish team? Do you think swedes are better in EASHL than other nationalities? Yeah our roster has swedes only. No I don’t really think swedes are any better. I don’t see that much Swedish teams as there was a few years back. There is a lot more Finnish teams and players, but i don’t think that nationality can determine whether you’re better in EASHL or not. It all comes down to the chemistry and the confidence of the team. Is this kind of tournaments the actual point to play EASHL or even NHL? Yeah I really think so. I feel that EASHL is all too friendly where everyone are changing teams and so on. These tournaments build all the feelings you can’t get from regular EASHL games; team spirit, rivalry and much more. I would still play NHL but not half as much if it wasn’t for these tournaments. So you guys have some special rivalries? Well I think we have many rivals, Laser HT has knocked us out in a few quarterfinals and then we had this one semifinal when we had a real beef, most of them are in Beatless now I think. But yeah you see lots of Finnish teams every night and you want to beat them... But it´s a bit special nowadays to meet a Swedish team when there is so few of them. What kind of beef you had with Laser HT? Well there was an incident with a player in their team who couldn´t get back into their roster due to the 12 hour ‘’club change’’ -block on NHL 14 I think. The result was that the game was delayed 45 minutes and TGMA called a WO for us. Something you really don’t want in a playoffs. Resulting in a major fight on the ConsoleHockey and a few suspensions. We got one win for that game, but they turned the table and won the series 4-3. They had some strong characters like Seppo and Hansulinho who were able to turn the series around. Also two of our Synergy players Pelle and Dunza played in Laser HT at that time but it's kind of history nowdays. Which teams do you see competing in the top of the standings in the next tournament? There is so many good teams now but I think Northern Stars, Dynasty, Carlsberg HC and Infinity will surely be in the top. Who would you like to highlight from your team, who will be a pain on the ass for opponents? I really dont like to highlight anyone in that way, the team is bigger than any player but anyway I think many EASHL players know that Supremski is a world class defefender on both offense and defense. But we really have to make it as a team. Woah! Thank you for giving us your time, it was nice to chat! Good luck for you guys to the upcoming tournament! Thank you as well for this interview and all the great work for the community. keep it up and good luck to everyone participating in ECL, see you on the ice. Cheers! --- I want to thank Nephenzy one more time for this interview, hopefully you readers also enjoyed! Be sure to leave a like/ comment and check out my social media! Cheers! See you later! www.youtube.com/FlNSeRe www.facebook.com/FINSeRe www.twitch.tv/FINSeRe

This is something I've been mulling over for quite some time, ever since EA introduced "locked" player classes where you couldn't change attributes. For those of you who've been around for the entirety of NHL 16 EASHL, odds are you've seen the player type "Powerforward" being used in EASHL (and ECL) games. In fact, you might have wondered why 90% of forwards out there use this player type. I know I have. Then you play against the PWF and it becomes quite obvious. They seemingly have the best puck control, the best hitting, the size and strength combined with a curious case of good dangles, passing and shooting. Now, I know the people playing the PWF are usually highly skilled individuals who take the physical attributes of the PWF and combine that with their individual skill so it's not "ALL EA's FAULT" (as some would say ) and I'm not trying to take anything away from the numerous of insanely skilled players who use this class to their advantage. However, my topics for discussion are these; - Is the PWF overpowered in terms of it being the only class you can remain competitive with in the EASHL/ECL-community? - What player type do you use, and why? - When was the last time you saw a Sniper/Playmaker/Dangler at the ECL level? And if you haven't seen any, why do you think that is? - Do you feel the different types are balanced as they are? If not, should EA strive towards improving the classes to create more balance and encourage players to play different types? Maybe my bias is shining through a bit here so as you may have guessed, I feel the PWF is ever so slightly overpowered compared to other classes. I'm curious to hear your thoughts!

ECL Final preview ECL Finals will start Tuesday 20 CET and here is a preview for this great grand finale of the season. There will be 2 games on Tuesday and I have interviewed Pazlaf (Carlsberg HC) and hooneli (Nordic Blizzard). They will answer to few questions regarding to the season behind of us and add some comments of the upcoming final. They both will also rate each other starting rosters as if they would be real players in NHL 16 with few comments also on these players! There will be also poll, about who you think will win first ECL! I hope you enjoy, let’s start! Well hello guys and congratulations for reaching the ECL Finals! Pazlaf: Thank you SeRe! We achieved our goal. hooneli: Thank you! We are so hyped up about Tuesday! Do you think that this is the righteous final tandem? Pazlaf: In my opinion yes. Nordic Blizzard has been impressive this season and they deserve spot on finals. hooneli: Absolutely. Both of the teams have been travelling long road to this point and have won numerous of best of 7 series so it’s not a coincidence that these teams are in the final. Tournament has been surely most competitive tournament ever and it’s nice to see 2 PlayStation teams to reach finals. But I have to add to this that we got world class players from Xbox; without them we probably wouldn’t be in finals. Which are the teams you had hardest time this season? Pazlaf: Dynasty, Northern Stars and specially Sjukstugan. Sjukstugan gave us extremely tough challenge and they even could have gone to finals themselves. hooneli: THE UNITED KNIGHTS absolutely. Even though we won 4-0 it didn’t tell anything about the series. Games were tight and winning was extremely hard. How will you proceed to the finals? Pazlaf: We have to have puck control if we want to win. Defense has always been struggle for us but in this season it has been extremely good. hooneli: We are not going to change anything. Our game is working perfectly in both ends and we are still going to play with our strengths which are defending with 5 players and teamwork. We will continue with hard working diarrhea hockey. MVP’s of your team this season? Pazlaf: Whole team has played well all season but joukki13, vatalisti and vepe- have been playing better as the season has proceeded. hooneli: Very hard question. Our team doesn’t have any weak links since that is the main point of our game. Result comes with working together. Despite of this I have to mention our center from Xbox who you know as Dominointi (Seppo). He doesn’t have any weaknesses and is extremely sangfroid when we need someone to step up. I also have to mention our defenders since without them we wouldn’t be here. DieCutterMC (Ulla) and esajorma have been this teams backbone throughout the playoffs. Wingers have been just circling rounds on the rink when defenders and center have been carrying this team. Also our goalie FINSeRe has been playing well. Some regards to the ECL Community? Pazlaf: Enjoy the finals. Hopefully we can have unforgettable series. I also want to thank admins and all the people who have been able to make this tournament happen. hooneli: I want to thank everyone who have been in this tournament and have made this most competitive EASHL tournament possible. I also want to send warm regards to those who write on the chatbox, they are super fun to read and they offer better entertainment than TV-shows nowadays. Hopefully finals will interest this EASHL-scene and we would have lots of viewers on the stream. Thank you and hopefully we see lots of old teams in the next tournament! ______________________________ Starting roster of Calrsberg HC (Rated by hooneli) joukki13 – Pazlaf (C) – plee999 vatalisti – F-B-I__A-N-D-Y__ vepe- joukki13 LW, 90 overall 43 games: 88+59=147 +103, (3,42 PPG) 46 PIM 8 GWG ‘’He has great stats but he is still little bit unknown for me. Despite of this he has shown what kind of threat he has been. We saw that on semifinals where joukki13 was great against Northern Stars, he had around 2 goals per game. Unluckily for him he is going to play on my wing so he will be pointless in finals ’’ Pazlaf C, 92 overall 34 games: 32+57=89 +87, (2,62 PPG) 35 PIM 9 GWG 52,8% FOW% ‘’Backbone of Carlsberg HC. Great passer who plays nicely in both ends and knows also how to settle the game when needed. I won my first EHL championship with him, so I know him very well.’’ plee999 RW, 90 overall 25 games: 32+42=74 +56, (2,96 PPG) 24 PIM 4 GWG ‘’Pretty new name on EASHL-scene but he has lots of skill and potential. He is able to do surprising moves on the rink and is very lethal in offensive zone.’’ vatalisti LD, 85 overall 41 games: 8+55=63 +101 41 PIM 113 HITS ‘’(Don’t know enough of him)’’ F-B-I__A-N-D-Y__ RD, 85 overall 17 games: 15+25=40 +45 20 PIM 59 HITS ‘’(Don’t know enough of him)’’ vepe- G, 90 overall 42 games: 35 wins, (83,3% WIN%) 76,06%, 1,73 GAA 8 SO 0+2 ‘’Great old ‘’Pig Harri’’ has played in our team years ago and I know him to be elite goalie unless he has holes on his old pads.’’ Starting roster of Nordic Blizzard (Rated by Pazlaf) Hansulinho – Dominointi – hooneli (C) Selarit – esajorma FINSeRe Hansulinho LW, 91 overall 21 games: 34+48=82 +50, (3,9 PPG) 4 PIM 7 GWG ‘’One of the most dangerous attackers in EASHL. He has point per game average nearly 4 in this season. Hopefully our defenders won’t have hard time with him.’’ Dominointi C, 94 overall 31 games: 48+57=105 +62, (3,39 PPG) 16 PIM 11 GWG 61,9% FOW% ‘’Most unknown player for me from Nordic Blizzard roster but what I have seen is just dominating. He is really clever player in both ends of the rink. My most important job is to keep him shadowed in the finals. Keep your head up!’’ hooneli RW, 90 overall 33 games: 39+49=88 +67 (2,67 PPG) 30 PIM 7 GWG ‘’Captain of the team, great player about which I have only good memories from my time in Nordic Blizzard. Dangerous goal scorer who also has the hands to pass the puck.’’ Selarit LD, 87 overall 19 games: 5+14=19 +35 24 PIM 51 HITS ‘’Gift of Rauma to the hockey world. Backbone of the defense.’’ esajorma RD, 88 overall 20 games: 5+28=33 +48 16 PIM 19 HITS ‘’One of the best offensive minded defenders in EASHL. If we give him too much time on the blueline we are going to have trouble.’’ FINSeRe G, 91 overall 39 games: 34 wins, (87,2% WIN%) 77,18%, 2,20 GAA 4 SO 0+2=2 ‘’This guy can be the one who denies our championship. Experienced elite goalie who rarely has bad days. Number 1 candidate for Vezina?’’ _____________________________ Everything is ready for the finals ! Hope you are as hyped as I am and be sure to check out streams (I'm streaming at least for sure) and cheer your team to victory ! Hope you liked this post and show your support by liking/ commenting and checking my social media ! See you later! www.youtube.com/FlNSeRe www.facebook.com/FINSeRe www.twitch.tv/FINSeRe

Inside ECL Hello everyone! This is the opening post of ’Inside ECL’ which will be posting all kind of interesting stuff; interviews, previews, week recaps and so on. Later on I’ll try to add up some videos also and personally I think it would be cool to make ‘’TOP-5 goals’’- or ‘’TOP-5 saves’’ of the week but it really is up to few things: do I have the time and also do I get material from you guys to make those happen. I have to think how to proceed from here since league is approximately at middle point now. Time will show. I was supposed to publish this before starting of the league but since the site was unfinished it was impossible before this. I feel sorry for the guys I interviewed since I pretty much promised to publish these interviews like month ago but as I noticed, it was unrealistic. Better later than never though. So this means I’ll publish interviews throughout this week and maybe next week also, keep tuned. But however in this first post I’ll be introducing myself! You might know me beforehand or you might remember me from ConsoleHockey where I published ‘EHL Insider’’ -blog. I think most of the readers enjoyed everything I posted so now my goal is to be more active than I was there and do similar kind of stuff over here, of course I will try to do even better and deeper posts this time! I will be doing this post as I would be interviewing myself, hopefully it doesn’t seem too weird! Let’s get started! Who am I? Yeah hi! I’m known as FINSeRe (just call me SeRe) and as I previously mentioned you might have heard of me before. I’m a 23 years old and I live in Helsinki, Finland (as you might have guessed). I currently play floorball, but I’ve also played football, basketball, tennis etc. I also like to write songs, since writing has always been my strength (as you might have guessed again). My goal is to actually try what happens if I’d do one proper song in the future. At the moment I’m working but I will start my studies later on January. When did I start to play hockey games? I played quite much NHL 05 and NHL 07 on PS2. I truly started to play NHL when I got PS3 and NHL 08. I can’t even understand how much I played that game, it was probably around 500-600 hours and I got it on Christmas. I’ve played every NHL since that. Best hockey game? For me it’s NHL 2k10. I like to play offline and compared to EA Sports NHL’s it was much more realistic even though graphics weren’t the best. Only problem throughout the years was that I had to pretty much create every team and player to keep squads in date. I just wish there was a proper offline hockey which would be realistic and challenging to play unlike NHL series which is too unrealistic to play on offline. So if you guys want to try realistic ice hockey game in offline, get 2k10. How did I start playing NHL semi-professionally? Well the thing what I’m actually known for, is playing NHL around Finland and world for money. I assume it all started in NHL 10 when I was introduced to this one forum where people played NHL tournaments on online for fun. I participated and noticed that I’m actually pretty good at this game. I started my own league later on where my goal was to get the best Finnish PS3 players into same league where I could truly test my skill level and improve as a NHL player. I managed this league for few years. When NHL 12 came there was Finnish Championship tournament held where I lived. I just wanted to try out and test how I will perform there. As it turned out I won silver (thanks for the rape Hansulinho) and after that I decided to play NHL more seriously. Other games I play? I also like to play few other games like Fallout 4 and League of Legends at the moment (just finished Until Dawn). I was part of League of Legends eSports team year ago, but it all fell apart because I wasn’t just skilled enough back then. I could try once again later, but not sure yet if I really have the time to play as much as needed when I need to study and work and also playing NHL like you guys. Also writing these kinds of articles isn’t very fast thing to do! Why do I do these kinds of articles? It’s just simply because I enjoy writing and doing stuff that people can read. Even though I know my English isn’t perfect I like to do my own part for the community as I believe EASHL will be in eSports one day and when that day comes I would love to be part of it as I see myself vanguard of NHL eSports on my own way. Funny fact is that when I was ‘EHL Insider’ on ConsoleHockey, I used those interviews as a demonstration of skill to get a new job. The job was PR-man for the biggest basketball team of Finland which played Eurocup back then. I was able to get that job (for a while) even though I had no experience of that kind of work. Oh, it was total blast while it lasted. Accomplishments on eSports? I will keep this one short, since this sounds like I would be bragging since I’m ‘’interviewing myself’’. I have few Finnish Championship medals and few tournament Championship wins over here in Finland. I’m a member of official Finnish National team (Sweden got their asses kicked last year ;)). Accomplishments I’m most proud of are these two tournaments. First one was World Championship tournament in New York where I was 17th of 128. Next year the tournament was held in Las Vegas where I finally was 5th of 128. Those both tournaments had whooping prize pool of 200 000$. I’ve also made quite a lot of money by playing this game for money on online. Also by playing NHL I’ve had chances to get publicity on Finnish media which I never ‘’dreamed of’’. Even though it’s not hard to find out what my real name is, it’s the actual reason why I’m just being ‘FINSeRe’ here. At the moment I’m retired for a while since I don’t have too much motivation to play this game, because the limited amount of tournaments. Also these tournaments contain pretty bad prizes, so personally I think they aren’t worth of my time. Meanwhile I just enjoy EASHL (when it’s not lagging like hell)! What I want from this blog? First of all I want you to enjoy everything I write. There is no point to write unless there are people to read it. And if I want people to read my articles, it means I have to do good job with these and do quality writings. I just hope I can deliver. So as I told previously, I will be interviewing people. I want community to really know each other and this is one way to do it. I was supposed to do preview of the season before ECL started but since it wasn’t happening I’ll try to do this before play-offs, we’ll see. One thing I will be trying to do is ‘Week recaps’’ where I’m going to choose 3 stars of the week (or something similar). Not sure yet if it will contain anything else and when I’m going to start this, maybe after next week or next season? Also doing ‘Season recap’ after the season would be nice where someone would choose the best players of the season. Maybe doing this with the Captains? Also doing TOP-5 videos of this tournament could be nice (weekly/ monthly?), but as I told it won’t be up to me. I’m also not the best video editor even though I have one YouTube video myself (go check it out ;)). But this is definitely something I want to do, so hopefully we can start discussion on this! Anyways you are free to suggest what kind of material you want to see! Also if you are interested to help me out with this blog, be free to message me. What kind of future is there for EASHL? EA has been saying that they are trying to bring EASHL into eSports. And in my opinion honestly, I believe that they can succeed. Tournaments like ECL are just first step and we as a community are the vanguards. Actually we had Finnish Championship tournament few days ago in Finland which was broadcasted in national TV with studios and commentaries etc. I have to say that it was pretty cool and showed me that this game has potential to be part of eSports in the future. People also enjoyed this as I was checking twitter for the reactions. There is actually one thing. I’ve been fantasizing about National teams over here. It would be super cool and probably the next step for these tournaments. Having National tournaments on the offseason and seeing how players battle to get into the team. There would be something to achieve for the players. Only real problem is that do we actually have enough nationalities for this and what kind of skill cap there would be. Also how they teams would be chosen? And I don’t even have to mention about the connections. Maybe this is something for the NHL 17? I’m sure this will happen some day for sure but just not today --- I think this is what I wanted to say. It’s not easy to talk about myself when no-one is interviewing. I’m just going to say big thanks to Kenneth and Samuli. They have done great job with this site and are truly pushing EASHL community boundaries to a whole new level. And guys! Remember to keep up the discussion! It’s what I want and it’s what this community needs! Just be active so we can grow together! Now I’m just going to thank everyone who had the time to read this opening post. I hope you guys are interested to read what I write now and in the future. I would actually be very pleased if you guys wanted to follow me in social media! See you later! www.youtube.com/FlNSeRe www.facebook.com/FINSeRe www.twitch.tv/FINSeRe