“Excuse me, but is there wifi here?”
A British journalist who came to the Espoo arena to follow the CS:GO tournament organized by a Finnish telecom operator asks me for the wireless network password. I state that I shared the network from my phone, because the media has not had its own network organized in advance.
The irony of the situation is not lost on the British journalist. However, access to the internet is organized quickly, so even a British journalist has access to the information highway.
On Friday afternoon, thousands of Finnish and foreign e-sports fans have arrived in Espoo to watch the quarter-final matches of the Masters tournament. There are six more teams participating in the tournament, each dreaming of a slice of the 200,000 euro prize pool.
The e-sports event taken to the ice hall is only the second of its kind in Finland. The first Arctic Invitational, organized in Helsinki Arena in 2019, was a bust not only in terms of the number of spectators, but also because of the extended schedules. It was also the last e-sports event of its organizing company.
A group of Arctic Invitational creators have been working on the Espoo event. The most prominent of them is the television program that has become public through Diil Olli-Pekka Villa, who served as the front man for the previous event. We have learned from previous mistakes, Villa promised the tournament before In an interview with E-eruhlu (you will switch to another service) and that seems to have happened, at least in terms of staying on schedule.
As the first quarter-final starts almost on time, Villa, who is now on Elisa’s payroll, walks through the media area very satisfied. Sitting next to me is the manager of the German company Sprout Daniel Paulus praises the tournament to Villa passing by.
– For the first tournament, this has been really successful. If this was even the tenth tournament organized by Elisa, it would nevertheless be a well-organized event from the team’s point of view. There is still room for improvement in small things, but they are small things, says Paulus.
Paulus says that the Germans are already satisfied with their success in the tournament at this point. The winning team will be given plenty of prize money in Espoo and a place in the qualifying phase of next year’s IEM Katowice major tournament, but for Sprout it is enough that the team gets a comfortable number of world ranking points from the tournament.
The Finns’ tournament was a cakewalk
In the first quarter-final, the Bulgarian 500 and the German BIG face each other. The Bulgarians have caused extra headaches for the tournament organizers, as the logo of the team’s new background organization is the same as the logo of the cryptocurrency casino sponsoring the team. The logos cannot be shown in the arena or on broadcasts, so they have been taped hidden from the Bulgarians’ jerseys. The Germans take the match 2-0 and advance to the semi-finals against Sprout.
The audience at Espoo Areena will wake up properly at the latest, when the Finnish ENCE team meets the Danish Astralis in the second quarter-final. The team of the number one organization of the domestic e-sports field no longer has Finnish players, but a coach An advantage “saw” Saw and the Finnish background forces are enough to get the public on ENCE’s side. When the first map is resolved, victoriously for ENCE, the crowd goes wild.
Unfortunately, the Danes spoil the atmosphere of Friday night in the second map by quickly advancing to a 10–1 lead. Apart from the occasional shouts of encouragement from Astralis, the crowd following the match quietly makes noise again as ENCE wins the second round, but the situation is still difficult for the team. In the end, the Danes take the map 16–14 and struggle to draw in the match.
It’s already Saturday when Astralis wins the third map in overtime and knocks ENCE out of the tournament. The audience leaves the hall disappointed.
Saturdays feel like a sports festival
Elisa’s e-sports boss on Saturday Teemu Koski says that the hall is practically sold out. About 3,000 actual seat tickets have been sold, and in addition, more than a hundred people watch the matches in the vip restaurants and in the halls.
– Anyway, everything has gone better than expected, Koski says about how the event went.
However, the semi-final between the German BIG and the Danish Sprout, scheduled for half past five, cannot start quite on time. Sprout’s Romanian star Laurentiu ‘lauNX’ Tarlea can’t get on stage because of stomach problems, so the Danish coach plays for the team Danny ‘BERRY’ Kruger as his fifth player.
A sudden change of players brings gray hairs to the production. Responsible for the functionality of broadcast graphics Valtteri Palonkorpi goes through the code on his laptop in the stands of the arena, because the change of players has caused a surprising software bug. However, the cause of the problem is quickly found, so the match starts quite a quarter of an hour late.
At the very beginning, however, it becomes clear that the players on the stage are not seated in the same order as the production has been informed. The camera images of the players are crossed, so Palonkorpi moves the players to the correct order on the screen of his laptop. The problems don’t go unnoticed by international viewers either, who quickly fill Elisa’s Twitch channel chat with memes. It’s going well if that’s the biggest concern of the viewers, Palonkorpi states.
The first map goes to BIG, who manages to exploit the weaknesses of Sprout, who is playing with a coach on the terrorist or attack side of Overpass. During the first map, the Romanian Tarlea has been put in such condition that he can take his place on the game server, but the team bows to BIG 2–1.
At the start of the second map, Astralis, who is preparing for his own semi-final on stage, is dining backstage. The in-game leader of the Danes Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander states that falafel rolls, pork fillet and vegetables dipped in tomato sauce are acceptable food, but that the meal needs either pasta or rice on the side.
For the players, eating warm food an hour or two before the start of the match is important, according to Rossander, because the game doesn’t go well when you’re hungry, and eating too close to the match has a negative effect on the players’ performance.
Autumn has been difficult for Astralis, as the team was already eliminated from the major tournament in Rio in the qualifying phase. The Danes are still looking for success in Espoo.
– Our goal is to win the tournament, Rossander states.
As the second semi-final begins between Astralis and fnatic, the atmosphere in the arena rises even more. Spectators who came to spend Saturday night have clearly packed more closely around the serving areas and the tables in the VIP area have also filled up. Based on the talk in the hallways, the e-sports audience consumes a lot of the hall’s services, and restaurant sales rise to six-figure numbers over the course of the evening.
In the very first map, the Swedish fnatic grabs the pace stick and secures the final place with a score of 16–9.
At the start of the second map, Elisa Koski already says that he hopes that fnatic will win the semi-final in two maps. The mood in the hall is still high, but stretching the match to Sunday could cause a premature loss of audience.
Fnatic is stuck in the solution of the second map by two match points, but is unable to put the last nails in the coffin of the Danes. As the map ends in overtime, Koski leans on his hands and sighs.
However, the Swedes will once again catch the plot of the game in overtime. Astralis fights with a knife at the throat for one round, but the final nail still comes: fnatic wins the match 2–0.
About hooray. At midnight, Espoo’s arena slowly empties into Tapiola’s night.
Experience spoke in the Finnish league final
Sunday dawns in Espoo with snowfall. The Finnish teams HAVU and ENCE Academy meet in the afternoon in the Elisa Finland League final, but either the length of the previous night or the relatively early timing has increased the number of spectators at the start of the match to hundreds instead of thousands the night before.
The setting of the match is special, because ENCE’s academy team, made up of young Finnish prospects, has only been playing together for a few months. Three former ENCE players are up against each other: the major finalists Jani “Aerial” Jussila and The same “xseveN” Laasanen and transferred to HAVU at the beginning of the year Jonas “doto” Fors.
HAVU shows right from the start that experience speaks. The opening map is quickly 5–0, but ENCE Academy gets perhaps the strongest encouragement of the afternoon when it takes its first round win. The team tries its best, but loses in two maps with numbers 16–8, 16–10.
Lifting the trophy offers HAVU a silver lining in an otherwise difficult week. The team was eliminated from the main tournament even before the playoffs after losing all five of their first group matches.
HAVU’s coach Mikko “xartE” The middle ground is happy with the win. Välimaa was also on the player stage in the previous Finnish arena event, then as a player of SJ Gaming.
– It’s nice to win this, Välimaa states.
As the final match between BIG and fnatic approaches, the tournament organizers also seem relieved that the event will soon be wrapped up. The words “next year” are already repeated in speeches. This time, the tournament has also seen a continuation.