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Hey NHLGamers, We've had a great journey together and we couldn't be more excited about where NHLGamer is headed in the new year! While we continue to grow and develop at a fast pace, it's important for us to take some time to reflect on what we've accomplished, to date, and how to improve moving forward. One of our community members is currently writing a thesis and is interested in writing it about NHLGamer, specifically our social media channels. This gives us an opportunity to both help them graduate and educate ourselves with some survey findings. We would love for you to answer an anonymous survey questionnaire. We promise it won't take more than 5 minutes of your time and it will help us understand what you value and where you would like us to improve when it comes to social media and content. The survey is available in English and Finnish and will close after the weekend. Edit: Survey has ended - thank you for all the wonderful replies! Thank you in advance for your time and have a great weekend!

NHLGamers, Today we’re extremely happy in announcing that Written In The Stars - our reigning ECL Champions and one of the most successful teams in the NHLGamer era has commenced a partnership together with HAVU Gaming - one of the most exciting organisations in Finnish esports. HAVU is one of the most well-established and active organisations in the Finnish esports scene and they have been announcing lots of convincing partnerships as of late. With the start of FCL today the timing is great to commence yet another tale of success. “HAVU has been looking for different options to expand into more games in competitive esports. Both the growth in popularity in different sporting games & the strong community and history around ice-hockey really made sense to go strongly into NHL esports. We had a great open discussion with the the team and our goals in the future were really similar. We want to show the world that Finnish NHL esports is going to stay in the absolute top also in the future. We are here to stay and to win titles.” - Lasse Salminen, CEO of HAVU Gaming "It is a great honor to welcome HAVU Gaming into NHL esports. HAVU has in only a couple years been able to make themselves an impressive powerhouse within esports and we know that anything they decide to dive into, they do it with focus and effort. NHL esports has taken some massive strides recently and a lot of the credit goes to organisations such as HAVU that possess the vision and courage to jump into uncharted territory, providing support to a very potential competitive NHL Gaming scene and bringing it to the eyes of an even bigger audience. Written In The Stars is the reigning ECL Champion and one of the most consistent performers in the NHLGamer era, I am confident these guys representing HAVU are destined to do great things in the future." -NHLGamer founder Kenneth @Kenu Lehtinen HAVU will from today onwards take the spot of Written In The Stars in ECL Elite. All team history will also be assumed by the new organisation. We had a short talk with the team captain Tuukka @FlyerKungen Kuha: HAVU has formed several interesting partnerships as of late and is making a convincing surge for the top of Finnish esports. What does it mean for you guys to represent HAVU? - We’re very excited and privileged to have this opportunity. HAVU has a great drive, an exciting brand and an organisation full of amazing people. We really got the feeling that HAVU wants to make a big push and invest in us, which surely adds to our excitement. How does it feel to turn a new page in the history of Written In The Stars? After all, you were one of the most consistent top-level performers in recent years at NHLGamer. - Personally I feel a bit sad, but all things must end someday and this new chapter will certainly be an interesting one. We’ve always wanted to lead the way and you’ll be seeing an even bigger push from us in the future tournaments. In the end, there’s nothing else but excitement about this new venture! Do you think the new organisation will effect your team in some way? What can we expect from HAVU’s NHL team going forward? - That’s a question you’ll have to ask again in a few months, but obviously the organisation having our backs will be a massive help to our team. We’ll have to take this chance in absorbing the positive energy and turning it into our asset moving forward. After all, we’re still playing the same game with the same guys, now only with more style! HAVU NHL Roster: Risto @Dominointi Järvi Ilmari @Buantso Lehkonen Topi @topikeranen Keränen Wille @willekunq Juntunen Hannes @Hansulinho Kettunen Vesa @VesKuLiNe Voutilainen Tuukka @FlyerKungen Kuha Kristian-Mikael @Nassustelija Katajisto (In order of appearence in photo, from left to right) About HAVU Gaming Having been established in April of 2017, HAVU Gaming has just over 2 years worth of history in the rearview. Despite a rather young age, the organisation has been making waves in the esports world and is currently one of the most followed Finnish organisations. The organisations most notable accomplishments include a Finnish Esports League Counter Strike-championship in 2018 and a second place finish in 2019. In addition to this, HAVU has an impressive variety of streamers on their roster. Partnerships with the wildly popular lifestyle clothing brand Billebeino, Finnish hypermarket giant Prisma and multinational tech company Lenovo in the last month speaks volumes about the impressive surge for the top HAVU is starting to make. About NHLGamer Since its inception, NHLGamer has continuously strived to offer the best possible experience for any and all gamers who have come to enjoy the competitiveness of playing the EA Sports series of NHL games. We made our biggest stride forward yet when we in late 2015 introduced the first ever European Championship League (ECL) - a league where all the best European NHL gamers create teams and compete against each other in the game mode EASHL (6vs6) for the title of best EASHL Team in Europe. Since then, NHLGamer has hosted a wide variety of leagues worldwide and live-events in both Finland and Sweden.

Erik "@Eki" Tammenpää of FILADELPHIA is the cover gamer for ECL 8. The toughest, most prestigious EASHL 6v6 league in Europe is back – bigger than ever. Founder and owner Kenneth Lehtinen and the NHLGamer organization is proud to present, in association with Elisa, the 8th edition of the European Championship League – ECL 8, presented by Dr. Oetker Rustica. NHLGamer, Elisa Viihde and Dr. Oetker partner up to produce the 8th instalment in the popular and successful ECL franchise, expanding and enhancing the tournament in a number of ways. The collaboration between NHLGamer and Elisa Viihde will bring increased visibility to the tournament as it enables ECL games to be broadcast on the multimedia platform Elisa Viihde. This development will see the quality of our already-beloved ECL broadcasts make a tremendous leap forward. Starting the second week of January, Elisa Viihde will broadcast three games from the ECL top division, Elite, every week nationally in Finland. These broadcasts will feature Arttu Hämäläinen (of IS Cup fame) and NHLGamer’s very own Jani Hetta in the booth, calling the play and guiding the viewers through the most high-skill, high-pressure situations virtual ice hockey has to offer. ECL 8 Elite will be broadcasted in Finnish starting Wednesday, 9th of January through Elisa Viihde Sport or through the Elisa Viihde Twitch-channel. Broadcasts will also be available in English or without commentary at the NHLGamer Twitch-channel. Our new sponsorship agreement with German-based international food corporation Dr. Oetker will allow ECL 8 Elite to feature an unprecedented price pool of 10 000 EUR as it makes its grand return on January 7th. The prize pool of ECL 8 Elite will be divided as follows: #1. ECL 8 Elite Champion: 7 000 € #2. ECL 8 Elite Runner-up: 2 000 € #3.-4. ECL 8 Elite Semifinal losers: 500 € The ECL 8 Elite Finals will be played on Friday 1st of March at the LanTrek event in Tampere, Finland and can be enjoyed live at the venue or through the above mentioned broadcasts. We are proud to also announce that our cover gamer for ECL 8 is the multi-champion Erik "@Eki" Tammenpää. During 2018 Eki has won the NHL Gaming World Championship in 1vs1 NHL 18, the 2018 Finnish Championship in 6vs6 NHL 19, the 2018 Finnish Championship in 1vs1 NHL 19 and the 2018 European Championship in 6vs6 NHL 19 in the ECL 7 season. As such, we believe nothing to be as fitting as Eki and his team FILADELPHIA being featured in our ECL 8 art. NHLGamer For those of you who don't know us all that well, NHLGamer continuously strives to offer the best experience for any and all gamers who have come to enjoy the competitiveness of playing the EA SPORTS series of NHL games. Our greatest accomplishment, The European Championship League is a league where all the best European NHL gamers create teams and compete against each other in the game mode EASHL (EA SPORTS Hockey League - 6vs6) for the title of Best EASHL Team in Europe. Today, over 5000 website members also visit NHLGamer for all the latest NHL and gaming related news and exclusive content such as developer interviews and early gameplay impressions of upcoming titles. While proud of our achievements and the success we‘ve had in creating and maintaining such a great community of talented gamers, we're only getting started. Our long-term goals include growing the community to host even larger leagues with larger prize pools and working together with EA SPORTS and gaming-focused organizations, to ultimately establish a platform for professional players at the cutting edge of Esports. Ultimately, we believe that if you want to be one of the best players in the world - you practice, chat and play with the pros. Elisa Viihde Elisa Viihde is the leading online entertainment service in Finland. On Elisa Viihde you can find a wide selection of series, movies and a whole lot of exclusive sports for your viewing pleasure. The service also includes a range of TV-channels and a movie rental library. Dr. Oetker The massive international food corporation has been operating on the Finnish market for over 20 years now, being one of the major players in their business. Their most known products include the Rustica pizza, a wide variety of baking products and breakfast cereals.

Hey NHLGamers, We are proud to announce that in addition to NHLGamer now being a member of SEUL (Suomen elektronisen urheilun liitto / Finnish Esports Federation), we have also signed a contract that covers the NHL and FIFA eSM - the Finnish Championships - license for two additional years. NHLGamer hereby announces the following eSM tournaments for 2018: FIFA 18: 1 vs. 1 (Summer 2018) NHL 19: 1 vs. 1 (End of 2018) NHL 19: 6 vs. 6 (End of 2018) Yes, you read it correctly - in addition to battling out the 1 vs. 1 Finnish Champion in 2018, we will also be crowning the Finnish Champions in 6 vs. 6 NHL! We are working together with SJK eSports in creating the best live events. More details about participation, prerequisites and prize pools will be released after the negotiations are completed, so stay tuned! Extending this partnership is the next logical step towards establishing NHLGamer and its leagues and tournaments in the gaming landscape. Together with our allies, we will remain dedicated to bringing you - the players - the thrilling and meaningful gaming experiences you are looking for. About the Finnish Esports Federation The Finnish Esports Federation (SEUL) works as the umbrella organization for Finnish competitive electronic gaming. Their mission is to improve and promote electronic sports and the activities of their members. The federation was established in December 2010 to respond to the growing need for an organization to promote esports as a hobby and as a respectable sport. The activities performed by SEUL are divided into the development of esports, protection of player’s interests and communicational work. The development of esports is done partly by utilizing workgroups, which are based on the work of our volunteers. The board is responsible for the day to day operations in co-operation with employees. The federation co-operates with many national organizations such as VERKE, EHYT ry and KAVI, promoting a positive image of gamers and gaming in general. The federation’s participation in international field is strong, since we represent Finland in the International Esports Federation (IESF). SEUL is also on the receiving end of the yearly grants given out by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture for youth programs. eSM 2018 will feature the following games: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Overwatch, Hearthstone, StarCraft II, Dota 2, NHL, FIFA, League of Legends, Tekken 7 and iRacing. The official eSM website is available at eSM.gg. About SJK eSports SJK eSports is an organisation that functions under SJK, a football club in Seinäjoki, Finland. SJK eSports is mainly focused in bringing new business concepts into the Finnish gaming scene. SJK eSports is especially commited to the growth of the console gaming scene, and is happy to work alongside NHLGamer to achieve that. About NHLGamer NHLGamer.com first saw the light of day in the end of 2015 by launching the European Championship League („ECL“), a 6 vs. 6 virtual ice hockey league carried out on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The platform started off with immediate success, hosting 50 teams in its initial season, and has since grown exponentially into what is the largest community for EA SPORTS NHL gamers in Europe. NHLGamer continuously strives to offer the best experience for any and all gamers who have come to enjoy the competitiveness of playing the EA SPORTS series of NHL games. Today, over 4000 website members not only visit NHLGamer to step on the ice themselves. We also enable them to be on top of all the latest NHL and gaming related news, watch broadcasts of NHLGamer league games featuring the very best players in the world, and enjoy exclusive content such as developer interviews and early gameplay impressions of upcoming titles. While proud of our achievements and the success we‘ve had in creating and maintaining such a great community of talented gamers, this is just the beginning. Our long-term goals include further growth to host even larger leagues with prize pools, and working together with gaming oriented organizations to ultimately establish a platform for professional NHL players at the cutting edge of esports.

NHLGamers! As of today, the European online qualifiers for the NHL Gaming World Championship 2018 are over and we have very exciting news to share. All eight regional finalists are part of the NHLGamer community! Best wishes are going out to: @Hansulinho (Xbox Live: Hansulinho) - EU XBOX #1 bracket winner @plee999 (Xbox Live: PleeMaker) - EU XBOX #1 bracket runner-up @Erkki (PSN: I_Eki_I) - EU PS4 #1 bracket winner @FlyerKungen (PSN: FlyerKungen) - EU PS4 #1 bracket runner-up @Kane (Xbox Live: Kaneyh) - EU XBOX #2 bracket winner @Nieppii (Xbox Live: Nieppi) - EU XBOX #2 bracket runner-up @Darkic01 (PSN: Darkic01) - EU PS4 #2 bracket winner @Artuzio (PSN: Artuzio) - EU PS4 #2 bracket runner-up The European Region Finals will take place in Stockholm, Sweden at Viasat Studios on May 6th, from which the winner and runner-up will be invited to the World Finals in Las Vegas, Nevada on June 19th to compete against the best players from Canada and the USA, who will be represented by two players each as well. If you don't know what the NHL Gaming World Championship is about, read up on it in our previous news story! Good luck everyone - the entire NHLGamer community will be rooting for you!

Hello NHLGamers, It has been a pleasure for all to see the pace of expansion in the NHLGamer community. There’s well over 4000 of us here today. With the number of players, teams, leagues and tournaments and the organization thereof, NHLGamer – to us at least, fully qualifies as an esports organizer. Fortunately, that is also the perception outside of NHLGamer. To illustrate that point, NHLGamer was invited to organize two major NHL/FIFA events in Finland last year, broadcasted on TV, with responsibilities ranging from online qualifications to live commentary in said broadcasts. The events themselves were a great success, including the experience and the lessons learned from all the inevitable small bumps on the road. One of the goals of NHLGamer has been to bring together on one platform as much of the competitive EASHL userbase as possible, whether competitiveness meant having fun in the Summer Cup, or pursuing the toughest objective – winning the ECL Elite. The growth we have seen in just a few years is a delight to many, but it does not come without new challenges. The community had a fantastic response to the pronounced need for additional staff. Nothing but a heartful thank you will do service for that. It signals that you, the players, share our vision and goal. Though to avoid the pitfalls of complacency, we must recognize there is still a long road ahead. If you would also like to see NHL-gaming mature to its full potential as a legitimate and well-recognized esports, but don’t feel like a staff responsibility is really your thing, don’t worry. There are issues that must be confronted on a team-level if the objective in horizon is a (semi)professional esports league. It has been wonderful to see many teams starting up their social-media channels and beginning to create an identity, be it through writing, logos or just pure memery. It is an extremely important task, branding many would call it, because sponsorship is not charity. Companies do not hand out sponsorship to various places from their marketing budget based on whatever individual preferences. This is an important point; sponsorship deals come from the marketing budget. They always expect a return on investment, or ROI in short, for all marketing. Otherwise it is just a waste of money. In the case of sports teams and especially esports, the value of a team is mostly made of its visibility. There are various tools and methods for companies of numerating the visibility or the value of it, but those details are outside the scope of this article. What this means is that if you would like to see your team grow in status, or just help the community grow and be recognized, as a whole (preferably both!), you must create value. Big and medium-sized companies always have some kind of a brand identity, an image of the company that it tries to reinforce through various methods. Astronomical sums can be used for this purpose, for sometimes the brand is the only thing the company is valued of. Let’s take an example from a brand very known in sports: Nike. Unlike many would think, Nike does not produce a single shoe. It licenses the production to subcontractors and instead spends almost a billion dollars a year for marketing and reinforcing its brand, including the careful selection of athletes, teams and organizations it sponsors, those that are seen fitting for its brand image. Perhaps a plural should be used, because there can simultaneously be different images being portrayed to different audiences. Some avid readers might be worried of this corporate talk, reflecting on the dull-and-boring interviews of athletes we see nowadays. While those without a doubt stem from the wishes and requirements of financial backers, it is to be remembered that on the quest for the end of the rainbow, the road is painted in many colors. Last year the amount of Twitch users surpassed that of Netflix or any other on-demand streaming service. As of February 2018, Twitch had over 2 million monthly broadcasters and 15 million active daily users. The typical characteristics of a Twitch user is a male between 18 and 34 years of age. What it means for the esports community, NHLGamer included, is that a company is far more likely to see marketing value in an esports team, if it is trying to target a similar demographic for its products. That’s why an energy drink company is far more likely to sponsor an esports team than a spring water company would be. This of course reflects to the desired or sought-after images that potential sponsorship targets portray; Ninjas in Pyjamas works much better in esports than it would in horse polo. NHL-gaming has large untapped potential as an esports. While hockey is not a major global sport it still gives an enormous base of audience, who do not play the virtual game themselves, but are already completely familiar with the rules and various nuances of the game. Therefore, were the community to grow in quantity and professionality, it does not take a long leap of imagination to one day see ECL Finals on live television. One discussed topic around the community lately has been the concept of buy-in tournaments, where the teams pay a certain amount to enter a tournament in hopes to get their hands on a bigger prize pool. We will be talking a lot more about this in the near future, but for the time being, let us at least confirm to you today, that this concept is definitely on our road map and you will be able to participate in these kinds of tournaments right here at NHLGamer. “Why so serious?” – the big question of our generation. You don’t have to be serious to be successful. Sports is an entertainment business and it is very hard to entertain if you are not having fun. An image of a group of laid-back guys having a blast and left-handedly crushing their opposition is not a bad sales pitch at all. Keep developing your own brand of hockey. Do not hesitate in finding ways to increase the visibility of your brand and contacting potential sponsors or partners. There is simply nothing to lose. NHLGamer is an expanding canvas and everyone has been given a brush. You have the power to define the outlines of the picture that forms; every drop of paint is a step closer to our goal. Good luck and have fun! Yours truly, NHLGamer

NHLGamer is happy to announce that starting mid-March we will host another online league on our website. The German GEL - which just finished its first season with a complete new staff - will join NHLGamer. This means that NHLGamer besides the European-wide ECL and the Russian RCL, now also offers a third 6vs6 league. While joining NHLGamer, the GEL will be renamed to GCL, which stands for the German Championship League. The GCL is targeted at ambitious teams from the German speaking area (typically Germany, Austria and Switzerland) which want to gather a first experience in a 6vs6 league. This operation mode shall also be kept, meaning the league will be restricted to teams which have at least German speaking captains. Several teams which played last years' initial GEL season also play in the ECL. The most well-known team is probably Inter Iceland, followed by teams such as Deadly Phantoms, Clowns on Ice and Rising Phantoms. Besides those, a few new teams that got their very first 6vs6 experience in the GEL decided to also join ECL 6. The GEL Staff from the will continue to operate the league and move over to NHLGamer. Besides the current GCL Staff, the team is still looking for new people willing to join. Anybody interested should contact @typolino79, @Capitano_82, @Bille123 or @Hennisch. We are very proud to have the GCL as a part of NHLGamer and welcome the GCL Staff, teams and players with open arms! On behalf of NHLGamer

Hey NHLGamers, Finland’s largest news media Ilta-sanomat, Playstation Plus, SJK eSports, Kamppi Center, NHLGamer and SEAMK collaborate in creating the event in Kamppi Shopping Center on 17th to 18th of November. The sixteen best players compete for the prize pool on the most popular console platform in the country - Sony Playstation 4. The IS Cup 2 final event is currently being played on the fourth floor of the Kamppi Center. You are welcomed to join in and spectate the event live or follow the stream on www.is.fi/esports. The 6000€ prize pool will be distributed as follows: 1. 2000 € 2. 1000 € 3.-4. 500 € 5.-8. 250 € 9.-16. 125 € Short facts: You can watch the stream here (audio in Finnish): https://www.twitch.tv/streamcorner Finns can follow the action here in Finnish: https://www.is.fi/iscup Group stage schedule and scores: https://nhlgamer.com/iscup/schedule.php?leagueID=4&lang=en Group stage standings: https://nhlgamer.com/iscup/standings.php?leagueID=4&lang=en Top 8 go to the knockout rounds (best-of-3) and you can eventually find the playoff tree here: https://nhlgamer.com/iscup/schedule.php?leagueID=4&lang=en

Hello NHLGamers, I am hoping that what I am about to share will get the community buzzing and bring some serious excitement for what is to come. But first, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself. Some of you out there I already know and some of you are new to me. My name is Kim Kallio but amongst gamers I am probably more known as “Hc”, or “Ho0Ceri”. While I have played the NHL series for almost 20 years, I first started creating leagues and tournaments for the NHL gaming community in 2011. Many in the community might know me from the Facebook page I started back in February of 2014; NHL Suomi (currently NHL 17 Suomi). My goal then was – just like it is today – to make the online NHL scene bigger and better. After running my Facebook page for several years, including both HUT and Versus tournaments, I am happy to say I have gotten to know a lot of people and players who are all dedicated to the same objective I am: Improving the NHL gaming experience for all of the community. Today, I am excited to announce I will bring my passion, knowledge, experience and dedication to NHLGamer.com where my main task will be to run 1vs1 tournaments of the same sort I have been running at NHL 17 Suomi, only on a larger scale. I look forward to combining the full power of NHL 17 Suomi and NHLGamer.com to create the biggest and most competitive 1vs1 leagues in Europe. I also look forward to interacting with all of you in the near future. Keep your eyes open for a 1vs1-tournament announcement in the near future, NHLGamers.

Hi NHLGamers, Finally, the time has come for NHL 18 and we have begun the preparations for a new fascinating season of gaming. The first games have been played, the first goals have been scored and the first goalkeeper saves have been made. Hundreds of pages on gamer forums around the whole world are already filled with discussions on how good or bad this new part of the hockey franchise from EA Sports is. But for us, just having the game in our hands wasn’t enough. We had something else in our sights! We’ve worked hard on it and have spent many sleepless nights full of discussions and work. For a long time we thought about how to unite hundreds of people who are thousands of kilometers away with several hours of time difference between them. After we were done thinking, we started working. We started a project to make sure that a geographically very large nation to the east could fully be a part of our big NHLGamer community. We have overcome many difficulties along the way. Not everyone we asked were ready to join the new project, but the general response we received from the majority of people has made it clear that we are on the right track. People need this project and people follow us. The RCL In Russia many of us can’t play in the ECL, for a number of reasons. For example, when most of the ECL teams are warming up before the games, many of us have already woken up and gone to work, university or school. Furthermore, a lot of us have certain problems with the quality of connection in EASHL games due to the closest EA SPORTS servers being a few thousand kilometers away. Some also experience difficulties with language communication. But are these reasons worth thinking that these people can’t be part of our community? We say: of course not! Today is a big day for those of us who have been involved with this project. Today we declare that the Russian Championship League (RCL) is opened: the new official league of Russian teams on the PS4 console. We’d like to describe it as the beginning of a new journey for the Russian NHL community. This news story is our way of saying: “Hi, NHLGamer Community!”. The registration starts today, the 26th of September, and ends on the 15th of October. The RCL season will kick off on the 23rd of October. Details We have gathered over 15 Russian EASHL teams from our old platform and we are working constantly on getting even more teams to join. We have also been working with NHLGamer leader @Kenu on making the website NHLGamer.com more comfortable for Russian users, so the players who have never been on this great website before didn’t experience any difficulties, language or otherwise. There is still some work to be done, but the first phase has been adding the Russian language to the community forums. There is a new section for the purposes of the RCL, and you can find it here: https://nhlgamer.com/community/forum/38-russian-championship-league/ Finally, we would like to express our huge gratitude to the administration of NHLGamer for the immense help which they have provided us and will continue to provide in the future. We hope that all players of our NHLGamer community will also accept us, even though we might not be as strong English speakers as you. We understand what a heavy responsibility we have undertaken. But we are full of energy, we are full of ideas and we say “Hi” to the world of NHLGamer and competitive gaming. Let’s play hockey. Yours faithfully, Russian Championship League Administration @MAYZIIX, @Denisovl17l, @Khemnos, @s_w1ld_rus. (Article editor: @The_Alpha_Furyan) Facebook (NHLGamer)Twitter (NHLGamerCOM)YouTube (NHLGamer Official) Instagram (NHLGamerOfficial) Twitch (NHLGamerTwitch)

Hey NHL Gamers! On Monday, the 28th of August, EA SPORTS hosted a press event in Stockholm ahead of the release of NHL 18. NHLGamer was invited to this event and this time I got the opportunity to keep you guys updated on everything that happened. Regular staff member @The_Alpha_Furyan also attended the event, however this time in his role as eSports ambassador for the Swedish Hockey League (SHL). Among the guests we also saw other NHLGamer members, such as "Synergy Hockey" defenseman @Supremski, "Unknown" defensemen @Pontus T (aka "Terasniska") and "Lavetten" forward and captain @Zalaz as well as many other top players from the Swedish community and plenty of journalists. The day started off with an introduction to new game features by EA SPORTS NHL producers Clement Kwong and Evan Dexter, before it was time to get some hands-on experience ourselves. What we got to see was an impressive gaming lounge setup with a total of 12 PlayStation 4 consoles, six on each side, all running a final build of NHL 18. Imagine playing the 6 vs. 6 ECL Elite finals in here? That honestly sounds like a dream come true. One of my personal highlights of the day was playing the new THREES game mode, when Clement and Evan also decided to jump in on the action - it was so much fun! We also used the opportunity to talk to Clement Kwong and Evan Dexter for a short interview, addressing some of the questions and feedback that were submitted to NHLGamer via the website and social media channels. We will also release a second interview from the event which took place in Helsinki the day after shortly, so make sure you stay tuned for that as well! Here's what we have been talking about: Q: You have lowered the overall player ratings in Versus for NHL18. What about Hockey Ultimate Team? Towards the end of a game's life cycle, we usually got a lot of players with a 99 rating. Will we see a similar result at the end of NHL 18, or will the best players be rated lower there as well? A: We haven't released all of the HUT ratings yet, only a few ones. In terms of player items and ratings it will work pretty much similar to last year's game from launch onwards, e.g. when it comes to valuable card types like Movember and Team Of The Year. Though we do understand that people think there are too many 99 rated player items in the game, the reality is there aren't that many. They are meant for the elite tier of players that can either buy them from the auction house or obtain them from playing plenty of games, so not a lot of players can actually get their hands on a card like that. When you take a step back and look at the impact of lowering some of the overall ratings, you will find greater separation between low-tier and mid-tier players. Compared to this, higher tier players do not make as much of a difference. Q: A controversial topic for us NHLGamers lately has been spamming the L1 button instead of using poke checks or hits to create takeaways. Are you aware of this technique and are you planning to do anything about it? A: That is where the defensive skillstick is a big gamechanger, because you can start angling people off and extend your stick or sweep it to cover passing and shooting lanes. Hopefully what that will do is add another toolset to properly defend instead of spamming shotblock (L1). One of the biggest reasons that you see this spam is the limited defensive toolset in previous games: You could poke check, shotblock or dive shotblock. The goal with the defensive skillstick is to be able to have independent control of your stick from your lower and upper body separation, so if you have stronger fidelity in terms of being able to guide an attacker in one direction while also not leaving an open lane because now you can actually control your stick, then I think you probably will see less of the shotblock spam just because the toolset now is wider. That is the goal at least. Q: Did you consider adding additional counter-measures to this technique, such as a one second cooldown for the L1 animation? A: We have not considered it at this time but we will see if there is any community-based feedback in this matter when we launch the game. I think it will be too heavy-handed to make all shot block attempts having a one second cooldown. Point being, we will take a look at all gameplay feedback we can get. (Don't worry, we still talked to them about the L1-spam in Helsinki the day after.) Q: Personally, I have been affected quite a bit by players "de-syncing", also known as "looping" Hockey Ultimate Team games, so they are quit without showing up on any leaderboards. Are you aware of this issue and how does the team deal with these cheaters? A: One of the things we even have done this year is really ramp up the security effort. Obviously having game live service is very important for us, and as a part of that we have been monitoring Competitive Seasons cheating. We actually have a team that has been enforcing measures like sending reminders and handing out temporary bans, just to name a few examples. I think it has provided a healthier Competitive Seasons experience for all our players, and in NHL 18 that will continue to be our focus. Q: You added a couple new leagues to NHL 18. How does the process of adding European leagues generally work? Does the dev team usually take the first steps, or is it the league's representatives that are looking for ways to be part of the game? A: Every year we are looking into new partners and new leagues to add to the game. A big part of it is obviously the authenticity of the sport, as there are many hockey leagues in the world, not only the ones in North America. Staying authentic to the sport is a very important consideration for us. We are also listening to what content our core fans want and what leagues they want to see in the game. It's more of a partnership with us and the league than them coming to us or we coming to them. Good example of that is Champions Hockey League this year. We are very exited to have all the licenses for all these team ready, in order for us to support a new tournament that people are watching across Europe. Having CHL in the game is a big opportunity for us. There are a lot of community requests that we have to evaluate in terms of what our fans want the most and in terms of which opportunities for new partnerships we have. We try to add new experiences and new leagues to play with every year. Luckily this time we got HockeyAllsvenskan and Champions Hockey League. Q: How did you come up with the idea of adding a 3 vs. 3 arcade mode with NHL THREES? A: One of the things we looked at early on was research of what our players want. Not only what they think about our game, but also what they think about hockey as a sport in general. When we asked our players about their most memorable video game experiences, they talked about things like NHL 94, NFL Street or NBA Jam. Those types of games were easy to pick up and to play with your friends. Those are the kind of experiences that people still talk about. Some of the guys in our development team still play games like the ones I just mentioned. Combining our goal of bringing new experiences as well as understanding how our players approach sports video games is the way we came up with adding NHL THREES. Q: Can you talk about the new HUT Challenges feature in Hockey Ultimate Team? Will they be an integral part of the game mode's experience? A: I believe the challenges will be a big thing in HUT this year. In NHL 17, we started to introduce post launch features, and combining that with sets everything is now themed from a week to week basis. HUT challenges just adds another layer and dimension to that so a lot of the rewards you will see coming out of the challenges will help you to complete sets. HUT as it is right now is very geared towards online competition, so having challenges come in gives fans that like to play HUT but don't necessarily want to play in an online competitive arena more ways to engange with that mode and allows them to be able to enjoy the dynamic content throughout the year outside of a competitive environment. Q: A lot of fans playing the game want to see the return of GM Connected. What is the reason it did not make its way into NHL 18? A: We get that question a lot. It's funny, because when we had that mode in the game it was not a very commonly played mode. Since it got removed from the game we have had lots of requests of bringing it back into the game so it's something we talk about pretty heavily every year. It has never been off our table completely. We still look at it, but we always want to prioritize what we think is best for the development of the game. We will take it sort of year by year to continue looking at it. For NHL 18, our focus was on 3 vs. 3 and to bring more of the new NHL into the game. Talking to different fans, obviously one part is managing a virtual league with your teams. But another big part is actually the social piece like we have in EASHL. So this year we were adding to that with all the 3 vs. 3 modes across the game. In terms of taking the best pieces of GM Connected and what people appreciate, that's where we need to spend more time with research. Q: What is the EA SPORTS NHL team doing in terms of trying to make the game more attractive as an eSport? A: FIFA has sort of gone first in terms of what EA wants to achieve in competitive gaming. I think they are trying out really interesting things that our fans are into, like FUT Champions for example. It has been really successful and the fans are really enjoying it, so I think from our perspective we are trying to learn from FIFA as in how to apply it to NHL in a way that fits the product. There are different directions that we could take. We could look into it as an EASHL team based experience or 1 vs. 1 HUT based experience, and I think we need to figure out which direction is right for this franchise. We need to evaluate how FIFA and other franchises are doing before we pick a direction. Q: After FIFA, Madden NFL has been adopting the Frostbite engine this year. Why has NHL not made the switch yet? A: The answer to that question is very similar to the eSport question. Frostbite is something that we will look at in FIFA and Madden to learn from, also keeping community feedback in mind. We will continue to evaluate the engine and when it makes sense we will figure out what it actually would mean to the NHL franchise. Is it just better graphics? Or is it enabling us to make brand new experiences in both offline and online modes? We need to figure out where we want to take it. Q: What is the reason you allow players to lock their position in 1 vs. 1 modes such as Hockey Ultimate Team? A: We want players to be able to play the game the way they want, and a lot of people do enjoy the player locked experience. In terms of the way it affects the overall balance of competitive gaming: For more casual games it's OK to position lock, but not for Competitive Season games - that is where we have seen feedback indicating it's not the best solution. It's something the team and I have started to talk about and we will look at it this year. That's it, we hope you enjoyed it! Stay tuned for the second interview which will be released on our YouTube channel. @esdor for NHLGamer.com Follow us on social media! Facebook (NHLGamer) Twitter (NHLGamerCOM) YouTube (NHLGamer Official) Instagram (NHLGamerOfficial) Twitch (NHLGamerTwitch)

Hey NHL Gamers, we hope you are enjoying the NHL 18 Beta to the fullest by now! If not, be sure to check out our Beta Code Giveaway below: As you probably know, a beta of a game is more than just a demo for the consumers. Sure, it can be used as a marketing tool to get people excited for a game and I believe in the case of the NHL series it doubles as a demo, but it also usually serves a bigger purpose, such as: Getting general feedback from the customers before the game release. Introducing the beta to a bigger amount of people will certainly bring out some technical issues that hasn't been noted before and it can then be fixed before putting the game on disc (or at the very latest in the form of a day one patch). Testing the online server capabilities. Collecting data about customer behavior within the game for multiple purposes. We here at NHLGamer are playing the NHL 18 beta at least as much as the next guy and are very passionate about discussing our findings as well. We created a discussion thread for this purpose and we will also be sharing our key points with EA SPORTS as well (we're also pretty sure they are lurking around the forums this time a year to read about what us gamers have to say ). So please, join us in the discussion and vote on our poll by going to this forum thread: EA is also looking for direct feedback from all us, in the form of "General discussion and feedback", "Technical issues" and "Bug reporting". You can read more and participate in their official discussion by following this link. That's all for now folks, I'll let you get back to your beta gaming! On behalf of the NHLGamer staff,

Hey NHL gamers, We hope you are already enjoying the NHL 18 Beta! Our staff is committed to streaming the beta almost non-stop, so why don't you stop by for a chat. Our first stream is already underway and the first host is @vSilenttio, who is playing with his team SIKA. He is talking to his team in Finnish, so someone please go and tell him "English please". Other confirmed hosts include @OxtreeLAT, @gzell60 and @Dominointi. Without further adieu, please jump in: https://www.twitch.tv/nhlgamertwitch On behalf of the NHLGamer staff,

Good evening, Gamers! It's now time for the Summer Cup Semifinals as we only have four teams remaining in the competition. It seems like all the big dogs (the top 4 of the regular season) have already been eliminated from the playoffs! However, the whole Summer Cup has been pretty even from start to this point, so I'm not sure if there are any underdogs in this competition. Anyways, here are the results of Round 2: NG Club Kannunkulma vs. NG Cheap Shot: 1-3NG Parolan Visa vs. NG International Army: 2-3NG Nighthawks vs. NG Trashers: 3-0NG 50 Shades of Blades vs. NG Alcohology: 3-0 The remaining two match-ups are very interesting to follow as both pairs have one clear favorite team (NG Nighthawks & NG 50 Shades of Blades) to get the chance to win those free copies of NHL18, while both less favored teams (NG Cheap Shot & NG International Army) fought for their playoff spots pretty much until the very last days of the regular season. However, they both have a great playoff-run behind them and we're pretty sure that they are not ready to give up just because their opponents might have had stronger seasons so far - at least on paper. The match-ups for the semifinals are: NG Nighthawks (5) - NG Cheap Shot (15) NG 50 Shades of Blades (6) - NG International Army (14) Stay tuned for one more cool thing before the Beta arrives - I can promise that it's something that people have been asking us to do. But before that - good luck everyone and have a nice week! @vSilenttio for NHLGamer.com

Hey NHL Gamers, We recently posted our first part from our visit to Seinäjoki to attend the IS Cup. I had the privilege of attending this event with the wonderful @The_Alpha_Furyan. You can read more about the tournament in that article, as this time around it's about the video recap we've put together from that weekend. To make sense of all the material we collected during this intense day (it was a lot), we enlisted the help of professional Viaplay video editor @LastMandalorian who did a fantastic job putting everything together. You can check out the end result below! Hope you enjoy the video as much as we enjoyed being there! Can't wait to be a part of more of these events in the future! As mentioned above, check out our written first part if you missed it previously: Until next time,

Hey NHLGamers, It's with great pride that we cross yet another milestone and can announce that we reached the 2000 registered members mark a few days ago! It brings me great joy and pride to see our community both grow and develop. Bringing in the divisions for ECL Season 4 was the product of listening to a lot of community feedback and shaping it into the form our team thought would work best and it has been amazing to see how well the three divisions have been received. The fourth season of our ECL has been our biggest and most competitive season - I even dare say it's been our best season thus far. So, what's next? As some of you may know, I've had to take a bit of a step back both when it comes to the action on ice and the amount of time available for running the league. I'm really happy to say that we have a very committed and active staff with tasks being distributed more evenly every day and freeing up some more time for the actual development of the site. Personally, I moved to Malta for career opportunities in November and while it was a great growing experience and gave me a lot, it also took away from my passion by making it harder for me to be involved in the community as much as I want to. This is why I have decided to return home to Finland and pursue my passion, which is NHLGamer - our community. What we are planning for NHLGamer in the future will be discussed in more detail in the upcoming months, but here's a few short points on what you can expect from NHLGamer in the near future (in no specific order and not limited to): ECL Summer Cup 2 (PS4) XECL Season 1 (Xbox One - name TBC) 1vs1 Leagues Quality articles, videos and streams New website features I can't begin to express how happy and excited we are that our community is blooming and things are moving in a great and positive direction! Thank you to everyone who is a part of this community and help make it as versatile place as it is today - let's continue our work and make sure our community is welcoming to every new member that wants to join! We are continuously working on improving our social media and your support is important to us. By following one or many of our social media feeds, we know where you would like to see more content, so please follow and tell your fellow members and friends to follow us behind the below links: https://www.facebook.com/NHLGamer/https://www.twitter.com/nhlgamerCOMhttps://www.youtube.com/nhlgamerofficialhttps://www.twitch.tv/nhlgamertwitch/ On behalf of the NHLGamer Staff,

Introduction Hey, some of you know me as a goalie since earlier. I'm currently with SKY this season, and I played with TUW, VSH, and XF during my 3 ECL seasons here, but only a few know that I enjoy creating highlight videos on YouTube as well. It all started about 2 years ago, and since then I have tried coming up with new ways to improve my editing technique, and now I'm ready to take it one step further. What probably separates my videos from a lot of other gameplay videos, is how I always try give them an authentic feeling, and I will try use that in this project as well. But enough about me - let's move on to the important stuff. After talking with the NHLGamer Staff, and going through all kinds of details, I'm happy to announce our new Top Plays project for this ECL Season. We will be uploading Top Plays videos on YouTube featuring the very best goals and saves from all our divisions. What type of replays? The most common replay to capture when playing is obviously your live feed, but there is also an option to watch your highlights during the intermission, or after the game, and this replay will be just as important. The small replay screen will display the selected highlight from all kinds of camera angles (see image below). Once you have captured the best and most authentic camera angles, save the replay, and it will eventually come alive using screen capture. Goals However the replay screen only captures about the last 4-5 seconds, meaning the build-up play to a goal might get lost. Thats why we want to combine the live feed of the goal, with the after game replay. Live feed Replay Screen Saves The save will most likely always be at the end of the highlight, so here we dont have the same problem. Therefore we will only use the replay screen to capture a save. Replay Screen Below is a proof of concept video with some saves (please ignore the ugly overlay texts ): How do I share my video? Of course there is the matter of uploading the highlight as well. The key here is to make the upload process available and simple for everyone. So after looking over the different sharing options, we have decided that YouTube is our best option. This will require a YouTube account, but its free, and simple enough to setup, if you don't already have one. In addition to sharing your single replay directly to YouTube, we also recommend using a program called SHAREfactory. It's free, and can be easily downloaded on your PS4. This allows you to add several clips into one video, edit and cut any irrelevant parts and then upload it to YouTube. Meaning you don't have to upload a new YouTube video for every highlight. When uploading to YouTube the title should contain the following: "(Type_Gamertag_Year_Month_Day"). For example ("Save_Danielcadabra_2017-02-07") This way its simple to keep track of who did what, and when. Once your video is up on YouTube, send me a message here @Danielcadabra, preferably containing a link to the video, or the name of your channel. As soon as I have captured the video, I will send a confirmation, and then you can feel free to remove it. Alternatively, you can of course also send me a link to a higher quality file that you have uploded. Vision At this point I have no idea of what to expect exactly, but I'm excited to get the word out, and hopefully this project gets lots of hype from all of you in the community. Feel free to ask any questions and leave feedback. Want to create and share your own videos? If you want to create your own videos and share them with the community, don't be afraid to approach myself or @Kenu and we can look at getting more content up for the community and fans all over the world. Take a look at this fantastic video created by @FIN_Potilas about his ECL Elite team Rynnäkköviikset: We here at NHLGamer absolutely love this type of videos, so keep them coming! We will also be introducing a logo package that can be used by media and video makers, to make sure you get the best quality official images into these videos in the future. That's all for now - let's make this happen!