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Hello NHLGamers, For this season of NACL Pro (PS4) we are rolling out a recurring segment that has been a feature of our ECL Elite coverage for the past two seasons. To put it simply, this weekly article looks to detail the ‘hottest’, ‘coldest’ and… ‘mildest’? teams in Pro over the past week. Each article in this series will be released on Mondays and will thusly be based on the days in between each power ranking iteration. In addition to this it should be noted that each ranking will invariably be in some way biased as it is, at the end of the day, a subjective list. Note: Each article will be based off of results starting from the Monday, all the way up to (& including) Friday. Ergo, any games played over the weekend will generally end up being a week 'late' so to speak. The logic behind the ranking is admittedly a sort of internal subjective ranking that weighs up results, opposition 'strength' as well as thoughts on the general play during some games. As such a ranking is not 100% quantifiable in nature there will be some bias that creeps in. One thing I would like to make abundantly clear however is that points are not the be all and end all within these rankings; for instance, just because 3 teams have the same record does not mean they won't be ranked wildly differently, as the context behind said results are of great importance and simply cannot be understated. Previous rankings: Season preview Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 - 1. No Limits (5-0-0) [+1] 2. Barbajous (5-1-0) [+1] 3. Prestige Worldwide (2-4-0) [+4] 4. Best 4 Business (1-3-0) [+1] 5. RAG RATS (1-0-0) [-4] 6. Gr8ness Awaits (0-3-0) [+3] 7. Expect Many Errors (0-2-0) [+1] 8. Cross Crease (0-3-0) [-4] 9. Br0 Unit (0-0-0) [-3] Standings timeline That's our power rankings after the third week of action in PS4 NACL Pro! We're looking forward to see which teams can keep their form running and who might be crashing. As always, if you want to see yourself at the top - keep working hard, win some games and check out the standings again next Monday! Until next time, @MartindalexC

Hello NHLGamers, For this season of NACL Pro (XB1) we are rolling out a recurring segment that has been a feature of our ECL Elite coverage for the past two seasons. To put it simply, this weekly article looks to detail the ‘hottest’, ‘coldest’ and… ‘mildest’? teams in Pro over the past week. Each article in this series will be released on Mondays and will thusly be based on the days in between each power ranking iteration. In addition to this it should be noted that each ranking will invariably be in some way biased as it is, at the end of the day, a subjective list. Note: Each article will be based off of results starting from the Monday, all the way up to (& including) Friday. Ergo, any games played over the weekend will generally end up being a week 'late' so to speak. The logic behind the ranking is admittedly a sort of internal subjective ranking that weighs up results, opposition 'strength' as well as thoughts on the general play during some games. As such a ranking is not 100% quantifiable in nature there will be some bias that creeps in. One thing I would like to make abundantly clear however is that points are not the be all and end all within these rankings; for instance, just because 3 teams have the same record does not mean they won't be ranked wildly differently, as the context behind said results are of great importance and simply cannot be understated. Previous rankings: Season preview Week 1 Week 2 - 1. RAG RATS (7-1-0) [+4] 2. No Limits (3-0-1) [=] 3. Barbajous (4-2-0) [+4] 4. Cross Crease (2-1-0) [-1] 5. Best 4 Business (2-3-1) [=] 6. Br0 Unit (2-3-0) [+2] 7. Prestige Worldwide (2-4-0) [-1] 8. Expect Many Errors (2-3-1) [=] 9. Gr8ness Awaits (0-2-2) [+2] Standings timeline* Due to a bunch of games being deleted and re-uploaded due to stat errors the timeline of the standings will be postponed until next week's article. Until next time! @MartindalexC

Hello NHLGamers, For this season of PS4 NACL Pro we are rolling out a recurring segment that has been a feature of our ECL Elite coverage for the past two seasons. To put it simply, this weekly article looks to detail the ‘hottest’, ‘coldest’ and… ‘mildest’? teams in Pro over the past week. Each article in this series will be released on Mondays and will thusly be based on the days in between each power ranking iteration. In addition to this it should be noted that each ranking will invariably be in some way biased as it is, at the end of the day, a subjective list. Note: Each article will be based off of results starting from the Monday, all the way up to (& including) Friday. Ergo, any games played over the weekend will generally end up being a week 'late' so to speak. The logic behind the ranking is admittedly a sort of internal subjective ranking that weighs up results, opposition 'strength' as well as thoughts on the general play during some games. As such a ranking is not 100% quantifiable in nature there will be some bias that creeps in. One thing I would like to make abundantly clear however is that points are not the be all and end all within these rankings; for instance, just because 3 teams have the same record does not mean they won't be ranked wildly differently, as the context behind said results are of great importance and simply cannot be understated. Previous rankings: Season preview Week 1 - 1. Best 4 Business (8-0-0) [+1] 2. No Limits (7-0-0) [+2] 3. Cross Crease (5-1-2) [+2] 4. Smell My Cup (3-0-0) [-1] 5. RAG RATS (4-2-0) [+1] 6. Prestige Worldwide (4-2-0) [+1] 7. Barbajous (3-3-0) [-6] 8. Br0 Unit (2-5-0) [=] 9. Elegant Elgins (0-4-0) [+1] 10. Expect Many Errors (0-6-1) [-1] 11. Gr8ness Awaits (0-10-0) [=] Standings timeline That's our power rankings after the first week of action in PS4 NACL Pro! We're looking forward to see which teams can keep their form running and who might be crashing. As always, if you want to see yourself at the top - keep working hard, win some games and check out the standings again next Monday! Until next time, @MartindalexC

NHLGamers, Welcome one and all to the opening season of NACL on PS4! Almost a month has passed since we first announced the NACL league structure as a whole, and thanks to the interest of the 11 teams below, we were able to extend the NACL to PS4, as well as the XB1. As NHLGamer up to this point has been almost entirely EU based, we were somewhat at a loss in regards as to what to say about the players and teams taking part in this league. As such, prior to this season starting we asked all teams to submit a prediction of how the table will shape up, once all the games have been played in the regular season. So, without further ado, here is your NACL PS4 season prediction: 1. Barbajous 2. Best 4 Business 3. Smell my cup 4. No limits 5. Cross Crease 6. RAG RATS 7. Prestige Worldwide 8. Br0 Unit 9. Expect Many Errors 10. Elegant Elgins 11. Gr8ness Awaits Of course, these type of predictions tend to fall into irrelevancy as the season goes on, with many teams going on hot streaks, and many falling by the wayside in the attempt to win it all. Despite this, we hope that this rather brief breakdown of NACL PS4 gives you a good enough idea of who the favourites are going into the season! As always, we wish all teams the best of luck and we hope to provide the high quality league experience that NHLGamer is associated with. Anyway, now that the formalities and boring stuff are out of the way we can get down to the important stuff - so in other words, let the games begin! NACL Writer, @MartindalexC

Good day NHLGamers, Hope you enjoyed our ECL 5 trailer - it has been in the works for quite some time. Be sure to share it and spread the word if you liked it. We can tell you that a lot of effort went into making it and while a great many people have been involved in its execution from start to finish (including of course our featured talent @Bjono, @pnordetun, @cHIIMEERa, @Hansulinho & @Dominointi who couldn't have been more professional during the shoots), no one more so than @LastMandalorian. From developing the concept months ago, to setting up the film shoots, to traveling around Sweden and Finland to actually film it - all the way through editing the material and picking the right music. Hats off to you, sir - a job well done. Hockey returns 133. That is the exact amount of days since the European Championship League was last in action. 133 days (or more than 3000+ hours) of waiting for this next shot at virtual ice hockey glory. It is true that while this years Summer Cup did satiate some of the community need for competitive gaming, there is nothing quite like ECL hockey. The fourth ECL season was a season of change for many reasons. A new system featuring divisions was implemented. Instead of one lone winner, three champions were to be crowned. As a result more teams than ever before chose to sign up; a trend we hope (and expect) to continue as the ECL continues to expand its reach. When the dust settled and the smoke had cleared after ECL 4, the NHLGamer "Hall of Champions" that already featured Nordic Blizzard (ECL 1), MUKIMIEHET (ECL 2) and X Factor (ECL 3) had been expanded to include Laser HT, Carlsberg HC and J P T J who managed to bring home the titles for Elite, Pro and Lite respectively. Furthermore, we got to see the first ever Xbox ECL with OHO SORI winning the title in 5 games against The Black Jacks. We think it was a good start and would like to support this community initiative of bringing more competitive tournaments to the NHL landscape on Microsoft's console. That is why we will also give you the opportunity to sign up for Xbox ECL 2! ECL 5 - PS4 While ECL 5 will be bigger and hopefully more competitive than ECL 4 it will not feature the same amount of change to our structure, something we hope will offer a welcome sense of continuity with regards to how much things changed last season. In short, this means the rulebook, the divisions and most of the things that worked really well in ECL 4 will continue to be implemented in ECL 5 as well. This also means that, while we did find the ongoing discussion and community vote concerning the ECL point system - mostly a debate between the merits of employing a 3-point system versus a 2-point system - interesting and balanced, we will not change from the current 2-point format at this time. We welcome continuous discussion on this topic as the ECL continues to evolve. Furthermore, we are sure that one of the biggest questions for some teams and members at this stage is "where will we play this season?" as the poll concerning if you should be able to apply for Pro or not turned out to be quite divisive. This has perhaps been the biggest question faced by the staff ahead of this season. The baseline we are working from is this: if you earned your place in either the Pro or Elite divisions last season, you still have the right to it. We will not be employing any type of forced demotion in either of these two divisions. In a vacuum, this means we already have our 16 Elite teams and 32 Pro teams ready to go. Outside of this "vacuum", the truth is that many of these Elite and Pro teams have experienced significant changes during the off-season between ECL 4 and 5. Therefore, if you are either a Pro or Elite team (based on how ECL 4 ended) - you need to confirm your participation in the division you ended up in last season. If you do not confirm your spot before the last sign-up date, that spot will need to be filled by the Staff. Read on to find out how to sign up for ECL 5 and how to apply for these open spots. Framework Regional restrictions: ECL is a European tournament format, however we do not necessarily exclude North American or Russian players. North American players are not allowed to host matches / be captain in the lineup, which means all games need to take place on European servers. This also applies to Russian players - please evaluate your previous connection experience against some of the teams participating in the ECL, especially if you live in eastern parts of your country (which likely connects you to US West servers). In case of severe connection issues, we reserve the right to exclude teams or players. 6 vs. 6 tournament: ECL is played 6 vs. 6 only, using the EASHL challenge game mode in NHL 18. Individual requirements: Each player needs to create an account at NHLGamer.com and create his personal player card. Roster requirements: Teams need to have at least 8 players to sign up. The roster cap is 14 players. Sign-up period: Teams can register until October 13, 23:59 CEST. ECL 5 Kick-off: ECL 5 is set to start on October 16. Rules: TBA Sign-up procedures There will be different ways of signing up to ECL 5 this time - the procedures are explained in detail in the section below. Generally speaking: New teams that did not participate in ECL 4 at all or teams that were relegated from ECL 4 Pro: Please read the "ECL Lite" paragraph below. Teams that were able to stay in ECL Pro, were relegated from ECL Elite or were promoted from ECL Lite during ECL 4: Please read the "ECL Pro" paragraph below. Teams that were able to stay in ECL Elite or were promoted from ECL Pro during ECL 4: Please read the "ECL Elite" paragraph below. ECL Lite ECL Lite welcomes any and all teams that did not participate in ECL 4 as well as the teams that were relegated from ECL Pro during ECL 4. As last season, there will be no limit to the amount of registrations! We will flexibly adjust group sizes to accomodate all teams that are looking to participate. To sign up your team for ECL Lite, we ask the main captain (C) only to go to the ECL Lite registration thread: ECL 5 Lite Registration You will find in-depth instructions on the procedure, including all the necessary details you need to provide - such as team name, abbreviation, EA SPORTS team page and possible name changes. Due to the fact that only 31 teams are ECL Pro qualified at this time - and other teams may be folding - we also offer teams the opportunity to apply for ECL Pro during the sign up process. However, ECL Lite quarter-finalists from ECL 4 will take first priority when filling up spots in the Pro division, which means only a few or no spots at all might be available for completely new teams. When looking at Pro applications, we will choose applicants depending on their player strength and other factors such as in-game 6 vs. 6 leaderboard results. Below is the list of prioritized teams: ECL Pro ECL Pro is our 2nd division and will consist of all the teams that were able to stay in ECL Pro, were relegated from ECL Elite or were promoted from ECL Lite during ECL 4. ECL Pro has a fixed size of 32 teams, divided into two groups. All the qualified teams are listed below: To sign up your team for ECL Pro, we ask the team's ECL 4 main captain (C) only to go to the ECL Pro registration thread: ECL 5 Pro Registration You will find in-depth instructions on the procedure, including all the necessary details you need to provide - such as team name, abbreviation, EA SPORTS team page and possible name changes. In case ECL Elite teams are folding, we will automatically ask the best ECL Pro qualifiers from ECL 4 to fill these spots, according to their playoffs progress (criteria #1) and regular season PPG average (criteria #2). You are not required to apply for these spots. However, you are required to confirm your attendance for ECL Pro to be considered for selection. ECL Elite ECL Elite is our 1st division, housing the very best 16 European teams in a single group. It will consist of all the teams that were able to stay in ECL Elite or were promoted from ECL Pro during ECL 4. All the qualified teams are listed below: To sign up your team for ECL Elite, we ask the team's ECL 4 main captain (C) only to go to the ECL Elite registration thread: ECL 5 Elite Registration You will find in-depth instructions on the procedure, including all the necessary details you need to provide - such as team name, abbreviation, EA SPORTS team page and possible name changes. Xbox ECL 2 To help in building a larger competitive Xbox community, we will host the second edition of Xbox ECL. The first season was based on a community initiative that started off with few individuals asking for a NHLGamer branded tournament taking place on Xbox One. Thanks to these members who contacted other teams on their platform of choice to spread the word, interest was starting to pick up, and the first season ended with a total of 5 teams. While this is undoubtedly a small number compared to the amount of teams on PS4, we know that plenty of players joined NHLGamer during recent months. And thanks to the dedicated players that were doing their best to set up the first season, we expect participation to grow in the long run. Xbox ECL 2 won't be based on the divisions format that is taking place on PS4, and instead will instead offer a league format used in Xbox ECL and ECL 1-3 on PS4 - however, our long term goal is having divisions on Xbox One as well. Framework Regional restrictions: ECL is a European tournament format, however we do not necessarily exclude North American or Russian players. North American players are not allowed to host matches / be captain in the lineup, which means all games need to take place on European servers. This also applies to Russian players - please evaluate your previous connection experience against some of the teams participating in the ECL, especially if you live in eastern parts of your country (which likely connects you to US West servers). In case of severe connection issues, we reserve the right to exclude teams or players. 6 vs. 6 tournament: ECL is played 6 vs. 6 only, using the EASHL challenge game mode in NHL 18. Individual requirements: Each player needs to create an account at NHLGamer.com and create his personal player card. Roster requirements: Teams need to have at least 8 players to sign up. The roster cap is 14 players. Sign-up period: Registrations will be open indefinitely until 8 teams have agreed to participate. Afterwards, sign-ups will be open for another two weeks to make for a larger competition. Rules: TBA Sign-up procedure To sign up your team for Xbox ECL 2, we ask the main captain (C) only to go to the Xbox ECL 2 registration thread: XBOX ECL 2 Registration You will find in-depth instructions on the procedure, including all the necessary details you need to provide - such as team name, abbreviation, EA SPORTS team page and possible name changes. Final notes ECL and its divisions format is in a process of continuous evolvement. When NHLGamer.com first announced the switch to setting up three skill-based divisions, our main goal was to transform the diverse EASHL landscape to encourage the development of true franchises. Thanks to all the dedicated players out there, this is already bearing fruit: Established teams are building a core roster while also paying attention to the plenty of ambitious newcomers in the NHL community. We see social media channels popping up on a weekly, if not daily basis. We see lots of new streamers on Twitch and other platforms, showing off ECL to all the NHL fans out there. We see allies supporting our project more frequently than ever before. We see how the community is evolving and shaping up to be a professional and organized force in the gaming landscape. This is something we will continue to support in the future. We believe that, even though we might see a few teams folding this or even next season, which potentially requires us to restructure some of the divisions, in the long run we will see a healthy and fluid framework for the greatest 6 vs. 6 experience that's out there. It's not our achievement. It's your achievement. We welcome everyone to continue this road of success. We welcome everyone to play with the best. @The_Alpha_Furyan & @gzell60 for NHLGamer.com Facebook (NHLGamer)Twitter (NHLGamerCOM)YouTube (NHLGamer Official) Instagram (NHLGamerOfficial) Twitch (NHLGamerTwitch)

Hello NHL Gamers! Thanks to EA SPORTS and @gzell60 we've managed to secure a hefty amount of codes for the NHL18 Beta on PS4 and XB1. Codes for Playstation 4 are available only for European PSN accounts, codes for Xbox have no restricitions. Before going further, first we'd like to take care of our community members. In order to recieve a code, please visit this thread and use the provided template to complete your request: A quick reminder - we're streaming the NHL18 Beta almost every evening on our Twitch channel - https://www.twitch.tv/nhlgamertwitch OxtreeLAT // NHLGamer.com

Hey NHL Gamers, Many of us were hoping for it, most of us were certainly speculating about it - scratch your head no more! EA SPORTS has confirmed that the NHL 18 Beta is in fact now open for everyone - no beta code necessary. Just jump into the Playstation or Xbox store and you should be able to locate the beta for download. Chances are, you've already been enjoying the beta for a week. In that case, just continue enjoying - no further action necessary! As you can see from the below image we snagged from their Instagram post, the beta will now end on the 8th of August. Without further ado, pick up those controllers and see you on the ice! On behalf of the NHLGamer staff,

Hey NHL Gamers! Today marks one of those very special days in the short history of the website we have all been waiting for. In the past few weeks - alongside the ECL 4 Playoffs and our coverage of the IS Cup - interesting and highly promising connections have come together. Thanks to our Staff member Hampus (@The_Alpha_Furyan), who acted as the leading negotiator throughout this process, we are finally able to reveal the first official sponsorship for NHLGamer.com: Summer Cup Season 2, Presented by Webhallen! We could not be more proud of this partnership with one of the leading retailers for consumer electronics, hardware and software in Sweden - running a total of 26 stores scattered across the country. We believe this partner is a perfect match for a populated and innovative eSports platform like NHLGamer. Webhallen can be found here: Online Shop Facebook Twitter Instagram Youtube Twitch THE DEAL Webhallen will be accompanying us throughout the duration of Summer Cup Season 2, leading up to the announcement of NHL 18 during E3 in Los Angeles which takes place on June 13-15. While everyone is going to be excited about EA SPORTS NHL 18 feature announcements, trailers and other types of content; Webhallen will act as NHLGamer's recommended retail source for purchasing the game, due to release in September 2017 (estimate). Finally, to honor the best Summer Cup Season 2 teams, Webhallen will be offering the following prizes for Summer Cup Season 2: Summer Cup winners receive one physical copy of NHL 18 (PS4) per player, arriving at launch Members of the 2nd place team receive runner-up prizes, which are to be announced in due time OUTLOOK Last year around 150 players took part in this draft-type league, which was aimed at experienced players as well as community greenhorns. The stated goal of the tournament was to improve networking between our players and to open up ways for prospects to make their way into EASHL's best teams out there. This is the same promise we are going to deliver on with Season 2, only even better. Based on this, there will be a few tweaks to the following aspects of Summer Cup: Team building: No more than 2 players from a single ECL 4 team are allowed to play in the same Summer Cup team. This rule applies to the final rosters, after transfers and free agents. Team names: Due to our new API reporting tool, the Summer Cup will be played in dedicated EASHL teams which will have "NG" as a prefix - for example "NG Golden Knights". Sign-ups: To rule out unfortunate circumstances when it comes to player positioning, holidays and other aspects, the sign-ups will follow a clearer structure, allowing captains to recognize fitting players more easily. Draft procedure: We are working on improving our draft pick tool and simplifying communication towards and between team captains to reduce idling, allowing us to increase the speed in which draft picks are made. LEAGUE DETAILS Summer Cup Season 2 will take place on PS4 - if you are looking for Xbox action, we would love to see your team sign up for Xbox ECL! Last day to sign up is Wednesday, May 24th. Players instead of teams sign up using the registration tool linked at the bottom of the post. All signed up players are aimed to be seeded into teams with a size of 10 players (may vary). Out of all registrations, NHL Gamer Staff will elect an according number of team captains from the players that offered to take on a captaincy rule in their sign-up post - anyone is allowed to apply for it. Team captains will receive a draft sheet on May 26th, containing all signed up players and relevant information in a structured form. Team captains will be taking part in a live draft event on May 28th, picking their roster until all players are seeded. All games are played 6vs6 using dedicated EASHL teams. The leagues are set to start on the week of May 29th and aimed to be finished in July. Full rules will be released after registration is over. HOW TO PARTICIPATE To participate, make sure you are logged in or create an account first, visit the sign-up page and fill in all fields of the registration form like below - make sure the player positions in your Player Card are up-to-date so captains know who they are drafting! You can update your Player Card on the "Edit Player" page. Sign-up page: Click here! That's all you need to do... sounds easy eh? Let's take this opportunity - together with our new partner Webhallen - to finish NHL 17 with a bang: Sending shockwaves through the community and setting up NHLGamer.com's ambitious goals for NHL 18. @gzell60 for NHLGamer.com

Hello NHLGamers, It’s been rumored, it’s been talked about… we even hinted at it earlier during the season but tonight we are finally making the official announcement: moving forward after ECL 3, the European Championship League will take on a skill and merit-based divisional format. This is your post to find out everything about this new system and the next step in Online Competitive EASHL gaming before it is launched in ECL 4. Divisions First thing’s first, the divisions. The idea behind creating these divisions will be expanded upon in the text but the short version is this: We are continually working to improve the site, the leagues and the overall NHLGamer experience for everyone. Some might say this development process is moving too slow and does not reach far enough, some might say the website is expanding in ways that it should not. The community is special in many ways, not just because parts of it has stayed together for years (including previous websites, the community is now more than half a decade old) but also because it is continually expanding. NHLGamer has almost doubled its membership in less than a year while still maintaining its core, which is all of you in the community. It creates a tough balancing act when trying to create a fun place for EASHL rookies that want to experience the thrill of playing competitively for the first time while trying to give the hardened tournament veterans what they want, which is the best tournament possible where the stakes are high and winner takes all. Still, in an attempt to achieve this, we will be creating a divisions system where the hope is that teams will be better matched against each other – something we hope will lead to tighter games, more fun for everyone involved all the while creating a stronger foundation for the tournament to stand on. Our hope is also that more teams will be inclined to stay together and build longer lasting franchises. We’ve structured this post so that we should be able to answer as many of your questions as possible by getting to them one by one – a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) if you will. This FAQ will be available for future reference when the actual division based leagues come around. Despite this, if you feel something is unclear or just plain weird, feel free to sound off in the comment section with questions like: “Well, what if this happens..?” and we will do our best and elaborate. Let’s get to it: Q: How many divisions will there be? The short answer is 3 – a total of 3 separate divisions. The longer answer is that we set off to create an environment where all the top teams face off in the prestigious ECL Elite, up and coming franchises battle with veteran teams in the competitive ECL Pro and all newly entered or learning teams start off in ECL Amateur to hone their skills. This prevents teams with years of experience and chemistry from numerous EASHL competitions, from facing off with teams new to the site who are just learning what it takes to play EASHL at the ECL level. Q: How many teams will there be in each division? We are looking at a total of 16 teams for ECL Elite, 16 teams for ECL Pro and, depending on the amount of registrations, 16-24 (or more) teams in ECL Amateur. The goal is to keep ECL Elite and ECL Pro consistently the same size (16 teams each), which means if teams completely drop out of the division system or inactive teams return (read on), there will be balancing measures - meaning increased amounts of promotions or relegations. During extraordinary circumstances, ECL Pro can deviate from its 16-team baseline but ECL Elite has a hard cap of 16 teams. This part, much like inactive teams, is specified further down in the text. In case ECL Amateur sees an extraordinary amount of registrations, the staff will then decide if the division can be split up into two “conferences” (like ECL 3) or if registrations will have to be closed for the tournament in question. As a rule of thumb, we always do our best to include all registered teams in our leagues, as long as it’s reasonable. Q: How many games will there be in a season? The amount of games will, as per usual, be 2 games against each opponent – meaning 30 games (15 opponents) each season for ECL Elite & ECL Pro and somewhere around the same for ECL Amateur depending on the amount of teams. This ensures lean, hard-fought seasons with what we hope is the perfect amount of games – you get a sense of both the regular season grind while at the same time reaching the playoff threshold in just 5 short weeks: this by playing 3 opponents per week, just like during the last few seasons. Q: How will promotion and relegation work? First off, we will have promotions and relegations. Having closed divisions is not something we are considering at the moment so we are going with the European hockey model where teams can be both promoted and relegated in the different divisions. For ECL Elite: 8 out of 16 teams will make the ECL Elite Playoffs where the Top 8 teams start off in quarterfinals, then proceed to semi-finals and finally the ECL Finals where the league winner will be crowned. The teams that finish #15 and 16 in ECL Elite will instantly be relegated and play in ECL Pro the following season. Teams that finish #13 and 14 will not be instantly relegated, but will have to play two teams (one each) from ECL Pro in a Best of 7- ECL Relegation/Promotion Round. Teams that finish in places 9-12 will not play in the playoffs nor be subject to relegation. In summary, this means a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 4 teams are relegated each season. It also means 10 out of 16 teams will see some form of post-season play and ensure that every team will be fighting all season, either to make the playoffs or avoid elimination. For ECL Pro: 8 out of 16 teams will make the ECL Pro Playoffs where the Top 8 teams start off in quarterfinals, then proceed to semi-finals and finally the ECL Pro Finals where the league winner will be crowned. The top two teams (finalists) of ECL Pro are instantly promoted and will play the season after in ECL Elite. The teams finishing in spots #3 and 4 (the losers of the semi-final round) will then move on to face teams #13 and 14 (one each) from ECL Elite in the Relegation/Promotion Round (7 games). As far as relegations go, teams that finish #15 and 16 will be instantly relegated to ECL Amateur for the following season. Teams that finish #13 and 14 will follow the same model mentioned earlier and play two teams from ECL Amateur (one each) in a best-out-of 7 battle. In summary, this means 10 out of 16 teams in ECL Pro sees some form of post-season play. For ECL Amateur: 8 out of 16 teams (depending on the size of the division) will make the ECL Amateur Playoffs where the Top 8 teams start off in quarterfinals, then proceed to semi-finals and finally the ECL Amateur Finals where the league winner will be crowned. The top two teams (finalists) of ECL Amateur are instantly promoted and will play the next season in ECL Pro. The teams that finish in spots #3 and 4 will then move on to face teams #13 and 14 from ECL Pro in the Relegation/Promotion Round (7 games). In summary, this means a total of 4 teams in ECL Amateur will be given the chance to advance to ECL Pro, something that we hope will be a welcome addition for all our new members looking to make their way up. Q: What teams will play where when the Divisional system starts up in ECL Season 4? We said before ECL 3 that the new format (bigger conferences, more games) was mainly for two reasons; 1. To try out the format and see what the benefits and disadvantages were and 2. To make sure all teams truly got the opportunity to distinguish themselves over a long season before we introduced divisions. Therefore, the teams that finish this long, grinding regular season in the Top 4 in each of the ECL 3 conferences will have guaranteed spots in ECL Elite, locking up the first 8 spots. The next 8 spots will be decided by the ECL 3 playoffs. This gives the remaining 24 playoff-bound teams (seeds 5-16) a chance to – outside of battling for the title in our biggest tournament yet – use the playoffs to get their hands on the final 8 spots. The deciding factor will be wins. Out of the 24 teams who make the playoffs but are not directly qualified for ECL Elite, the 8 who manages to collect the most playoff wins will be the ones to claim the final spots. In a situation where two or more teams have the same amount of playoff wins, the regular season rank will act as a tie-breaker. The third tie-breaker is PPG in the playoffs and the fourth is PPG in the regular season. This naturally means the 8 teams who aren’t directly qualified to ECL Elite and make it the farthest in the playoffs are the final 8 to be added to the top division. This could theoretically mean that, if there is an upset and a #16 seed beats a #1 seed right away in the first round – they could both be playing in ECL Elite the following season. The teams that made the playoffs in ECL 3, but didn’t make the cut for ECL Elite, will start ECL Season 4 in ECL Pro. Teams that do not qualify for the ECL 3 playoffs will start in ECL Amateur next season. Q: Can a team pause/be inactive for a season? In ECL Elite and ECL Pro, teams can apply to “pause” for one season (in ECL Amateur this is not necessary). This turns them into an inactive team, and they will not participate during that season. They cannot be promoted nor relegated. An inactive team is however expected to play during the following season, otherwise they will lose their current divisional spot. A need for a longer inactivity would have to be brought up with the NHLGamer staff and will be handled on a case-by-case basis. To fulfill the inactive status, the team needs to keep at least their captain and one assistant captain, as well as 2 other players (for a total of 4) on the inactive roster – these players are not allowed to participate with another team in said season, where the team is marked as inactive. Special cases where, for example, 6-7 players outside of the captaincy squad cannot play and will stay inactive but the Captain wants to play for another team and still keep the divisional spot will be handled on an individual basis by the staff. If an inactive team is not able to keep the amount of necessary players on the inactive roster (4), they will lose their inactive status and drop to division 3 for the next season. Q: What if teams split up? Who keeps the divisional spot? On NHLGamer, just like in real life, drama is to be expected. Sometimes it even finds its way into individual teams. But if teams split up, who keeps the spot? The staff will look at each individual case but, as a rule of thumb, the captain is considered the owner of the team. If a team has disagreements where, for example, the captain has lost the faith of his teammates and kicked most of them – he will have to explain his case to the staff. If both assistant captains and at least 3 other members that played for the team the season before applies ownership of the team, they will have a strong case to claim the team (however not the name of the team, unless agreed on with the captain). If a team is completely dismantled, they will not keep their spot in the division. Q: What about newly created teams that consist of established ECL players from several different teams? Do they have to start in ECL Amateur? To have highly skilled, established, experienced EASHL players form a new team only to play in ECL Amateur and be unevenly matched with completely new teams goes against what we’re trying to accomplish with this system. That said, we are aiming to create an environment where longevity, stability and consistency are some of the key factors moving forward. What follows is an attempt to balance these mindsets. Let us use a team from this season as an example; Laser HT. Laser, for those of you who don’t know, has been an established franchise in EASHL tournaments for years. Yet, they had not played in either ECL season 1 nor 2, but the players that today form Laser had. Many of them had even been a part of teams that made the finals, even won the tournaments. Now, ECL 3 was not based on divisions but if it had been – like in the future – Laser could have applied for Exceptional Team Status. This term is drawn from the OHL (Ontario Hockey League) where certain special players (lately John Tavares, Aaron Ekblad and Connor McDavid) have been granted Exceptional Player Status where they were allowed to “skip” one year of waiting to be drafted and were approved to be drafted to the OHL at age 15 instead of age 16. Similarly, new teams can apply for Exceptional Team Status in the ECL where they will be allowed to skip ECL Amateur and start in ECL Pro. At this point, new teams cannot apply directly for ECL Elite as it would undermine the idea of working your way up the divisions and staying there based on ECL results. Anyway, back to Laser. Had Laser applied the Staff would have granted them this status due to a few factors; Longevity and reputation (Several top tournament finishes in their history, always considered a top team when participating) Quality of players (most, if not all, players on the current Laser squad have been leading members and top point producers of teams that finished in the top-4 of both previous tournaments) EASHL 6vs6 ranking (they are ranked in the Top-10 of all European teams) When deciding Exceptional status, there will always be a subjective factor involved but bullet points like the ones in the example above will form the basis of any decision made on whether to grant exceptional status or not. Finally, the term “exceptional status” is there for a reason. These applications will only be granted under very special circumstances. Q: Will there be an ECL Season 5? Will it be played during NHL 17? When will the leagues start for NHL 18? The below are subject to change, but provide an overlook of our plans and what our suggestions are for the upcoming leagues: NHL 17: ECL Season 3 ends by 29.1.2017 ECL Season 4 starts 13.2.2017 and ends 2.4.2017 ECL Season 5 starts 24.4.2017 and ends 18.6.2017 Summer Cup specifics to be determined. (This is a draft-type league) NHL 18: releases 14.9.2017 (estimate) ECL Season 6 starts 16.10.2017 and ends 10.12.2017 ECL Season 7 starts 8.1.2018 and ends 4.3.2018 ECL Season 8 starts 2.4.2018 and ends 27.5.2018 Summer Cup specifics to be determined. (This is a draft-type league) Q: Are you guys out of your minds? This concept/detail x will never work! First of all, this is a proposition that we have set up for the community and we look forward to hearing your feedback. While we have a strong belief in that the plans we propose will be a good step for the community, we don’t blindly believe our plans to be perfect (nor that there is a perfect one-solution-fits-all solution) and we are open to discuss the subject as a whole or the smaller details as long as the discussion and feedback is constructive and respectful. Please elaborate on your own ideas. Verbally attacking the staff, or other community members will not be tolerated and may lead to disciplinary actions. That is all for now. Please feel free to share any and all thoughts you might have in the comment section below. On behalf of the NHLGamer.com Staff,

Hey NHL Gamers, It’s once again time to take a look at some of the discliplinary actions and requests that have been sitting on the staff’s table for a while. Apologies to the parties that have had to wait for a ruling for a while – we aim to streamline this process to be more efficient in the future. In fact, we are looking for more staff members that are able to contribute to our website. If you feel you have what it takes to bring some value to our website – feel free to send me a PM and tell me what you bring to the table. This installment of NHL Gamer Staff rulings covers the following topics: Teams that have left the league Trades a. Trade deadline b. The requests for captains to be allowed to be traded c. Trading of players that have already been on two teams this season Walkover requests a. Mpire - Silver Sword Griffins b. Murohoki - Terrific Tigers Amount of games played a. Too many games played b. Too few games played 1. Teams that have left the league Sadly, we have to add to the list of teams that have decided to leave the league. At least four new teams have decided to leave and that brings our total up to seven. It is important to remember, that in order to keep the league active and all teams active despite their success, we need to discipline the teams that decide to leave. That being said, we’re always interested in hearing why a team choses to leave, so we can – if within our power – do something to prevent this from happening in the future. The below team have decided to leave ECL Season 3: Ganja Bonanzas (Group 1) We’ve been unable to get a confirmation from the captains, but this seems to be the case. We will edit and take action once we get the confirmation. Rising Phantoms (Group 1) Among other issues, the team has been suffering from connection problems, making the gaming experience far from enjoyable and this is why the team has decided to leave. BraZZers (Group 2) We’ve just received news that the ”team broke and cannot play anymore”. HC Solhem (Group 2) The short explanation that we’ve received is that players have left and the team can’t continue in the league. VC Hockey (Group 2) This is a team that has had its issues throughout the season, but the captains worked hard to keep things going and it was looking like they would pull through. The final blow was, though, when an unknown team (outside the ECL, apparently) recruited two of the VC Hockey players, leaving the team below an active roster of eight players. 2. Trades a. Trade deadline The trade deadline is Wednesday the 7th of December and we will allow trades to be done until 23:59 GMT on the 7th. Please remember that the standard rules for trades apply (including the ones discussed below). The trade deadline is also the deadline for aquiring free agents – in other words, no player movement is allowed after the deadline. b. The requests for captains to be allowed to be traded There has been a handful of questions and requests about being allowed to being traded as a captain (this includes assistant captains as well). The rules are very clear about this, but as always, we took the time to look at the raised question together with the staff, as there were some valid points brought up by the players in question that escalated the issue. The reasoning behind this rule is to make sure the players that take the captain role of a team are committed enough to finish the season with the team, as the captains are often the driving force of a functioning team and making everything click. Even an active group of people can struggle, if you remove the person in charge of organizing the schedules. The NHL Gamer staff stands behind this rule and its core idea, which is why we have decided to make no exception to it. One of the issues brought up is the ability to make a team member a captain or assistant captain on the website without this being accepted by the user. While we strongly believe that every user should be informed about the rules and therefore aware of the captains’ responsibilities, we see this as an opportunity to improve our website and you can look forward to users being prompted to accept the captain position in the coming seasons. c. Trading of players that have already been on two teams during season This is a very rare issue, but we’ve had a case where an active player has changed teams at an early stage during the ECL 3 season and wishes to be traded again. As the above discussed case, this is also something that is clearly defined in the rules. While we symphathize with the player in question, the rule is in place to prevent team hopping during a season. We do not suggest that there is anything fishy with the players request, but we want to underline that we wish for players not to switch teams lightly and this is why we are sticking with the rulebook on this. 3. Walkover requests This is an area where we want to thank the majority of teams for excellent communication – both when communicating their possible issues with agreeing on scheduled games and with negotiating with the fellow captains. There has been some true sportsmanship there – thank you! However, there will always be some cases that don’t go as smoothly for one reason or another. I’m happy to say that one of the problems that was supposed to be listed below was actually solved by the teams on their own and the games have now been played. a. Mpire - Silver Sword Griffins In this matchup, it’s Mpire who have requested the walkover wins. The reason is that SSG has asked to reschedule the default date and then rescheduled that date as well. SSG offered a good explanation for why the rescheduled date didn’t end up working. SSG has also been very active at offering new dates and based on their explanation, Mpire has been slow to reply to these and eventually came to request WO’s instead of agreeing on a new date. SSG has in fact offered to play the games against Mpire on any date they wish to play. We think this is more than a reasonable offer and ask for the teams to finish the battle on the ice. b. Murohoki - Terrific Tigers Terrific Tigers were unable to get their goalie online and had other games (in another league) scheduled for later. They offered the WO’s themselves, so in this case the staff has chosen not to interfere, while we of course prefer to see the games played. 4. Amount of games played a. Too many games played In order to keep the league as even and interesting as possible, we have added restrictions to the re-scheduling of games in the rulebook. We have noticed that not all teams have followed this rule as strictly as others and in the process has slightly more played games than other teams. As a benchmark, we used 36-38 games at this stage. That being said, the total amount of played games for each team that is over is still reasonably even – with game amounts that can be expected to be played within a week. At this stage, we will not punish teams that have played some extra games, as the outcome at this stage is within the parameters that we designed the rule for in the first place. While it’s of course important to follow the rules under all circumstances, the staff would prefer too many games played opposed to too few. However, we ask teams to still respect this rule and the below listed mentality: o Prioritize the default scheduled games first. o Don’t race to finish the regular season just because you have nothing better to do. If half of your team is unavailable for the upcoming week – that is a better excuse. o When playing games earlier than your default schedule, always target the nearest opponents – we want the majority of teams to finish the regular season on the same date. b. Too few games played On the other side of the spectrum, are teams that are behind on their schedule. We want to give the teams a chance to redeem themselves and catch up, as I’m sure we can all agree we don’t want any more teams dropping out. We kindly ask that the below listed teams contact the NHL Gamer Staff with an update on their situation; are there any problems? Do you need help? Are you committed to finishing the season? Please send a PM here on the community forums to @Kenu, @Lurkins, @The_Alpha_Furyan, @gzell60 and @Ranksu. Thank you. Bone Breakers – Group 2 – 25 games played Free From Rodents – Group 2 – 29 games played ICE BROS – Group 2 – 28 games played EN HUND – Group 2 – 28 games played (The teams leaving and thus having their games nullified might be the reason for the low amount of games played, and if that is the case, that is a valid excuse,) So there you have it! A whole lot of things have been on the staff desk and honestly, the above is just the tip of the ice berg. We’d like to reiterate that we’re very happy about the initiative that many teams have taken in the past few weeks to handle issues on their own. This is much appreciated and the way we want the community to develop. Thank you for taking the time to read this. Hopefully we can make it shorter next time. On behalf of the NHL Gamer staff,

Exciting news NHL Gamers, EA Sports has released, what they describe as Patch 2.0 or Content Update #2 for NHL 17. It includes another impressive list of fixes for this year's title. Especially goalies should be excited, as it seem like quite an extensive amount of the fixes has been put into issues that revolve around goaltending. Be sure to leave your comments about your experiences in the comments for us non-goalies to read! You will be happy to read that the issue with the ceiling ornaments blocking the view in some camera angles. One of the more surprising additions is the addition of 11 new goal celebrations, which we're sure will bring some more variety into the highlight reels. For the full list of changes in the patch, please see below: Sources: https://forums.ea.com/en/nhl/discussion/81396/nhl-17-patch-tuner-notes-updated-nov-21-2016 https://www.easports.com/nhl/news/2016/content-update-2-notes https://www.easports.com/nhl/news/2016/content-update-2

Hey NHL Gamers, EA Sports just released their first trailer for NHL 17, called "The Vision". You can find it below: We will be back with a trailer analysis shortly!