Washinton Capitals Enter Esports with NHL 19 Tournaments
By Nicholas Barth ·
The popular National Hockey League team of the Washington Capitals have announced two major NHL 19 events as the organization's first venture in the esports industry.
With the major rise in popularity that the esports industry has seen over the years, organizations from many other traditional professional sports leagues have invested into being major players in the esports world. From numerous National Basketball Association (NBA) teams having invested into having League of Legends teams in the League Championship Series to the likes of the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League partnering with the Pittsburgh Knights esports organization. Now, the Washington Capitals of the National Hockey League (NHL) are the latest professional sports franchise to announce its first dive into the esports world.
The Washington Capitals announced on Monday, December 17th that it and Monumental Sports and Entertainment will be playing host to the Chel Classic, an official NHL Esports Activation that will see a three versus three best-of-five showcase match take place between the Washington Capitals and the Tampa Bay Lighting at the Capital One Arena on March 19th.
Capitals to take leap into esports realm in 2019 with Chel Classic and Capitals Esports Faceoff#ALLCAPS #CapsEsportsFaceoffhttps://t.co/YeP2X0sRi8
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) December 17, 2018
Players will be selected to represent the NHL 19 squad for the NHL team at the Chel Classic by earning one of the three roster spots through competing in the Capitals Esports Faceoff which are a series of online qualification tournaments that will take place January 12th, 19th, 26th and February 2nd. The top eight players from the online qualifiers will then battle against one another in an eight person live tournament on February 22nd to secure one of the three Washington Capitals Chel Classic roster spots and a share of a $10,000 prize pool.
Interested individuals will be able to watch all of the exciting NHL 19 esports action on the official Twitch channel for the Washington Capitals. All of the revenue that is collected through the Twitch stream of both the Capitals Esports Faceoff and Chel Classic through the date of March 20th will be donated to the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Washington.
Registration for the Capitals Esports Faceoff will open to the public on January at 9 AM and can be found on the event's official page on smash.gg. The qualification tournaments will feature a double elimination bracket where players will compete in NHL 19 on the Playstation 4 console.
(cover photo courtesy of Washington Capitals)