NHL

EKI claims two silver medals at Finnish Championship

Our two NHL players have been competing in the Finnish Championship in Helsinki, Finland. On Friday, we saw Erik ‘’EKI’’ Tammenpää finishing 2nd in the 1v1 tournament. On Saturday, the powerhouse from Team Sampi followed it up with taking 2nd with his team ‘’Filadelphia’’ in 6v6.

This weekend, we would officially say goodbye to NHL19 in Finland with the Finnish Championship. Our players Erik ‘’EKI’’ Tammenpää and Arttu ‘’Artuzio’’ Mustila had both secured themselves a spot in the 1v1 tournament that took place on Friday. ‘’EKI’’ headed into the event as the defending champion, and therefore being invited to the event with Seed 1. ‘’Artuzio’’ had made it through the qualification bracket. 

The tournament started solidly for both of our players. Both ‘’EKI’’ and ‘’Artuzio’’ won their group and headed into the playoff phase. However, in the first playoff match, Arttu ‘’Artuzio’’ Mustila ended up losing a close match against ‘’FlyerKungen’’ 2-1. Meaning that he ended up placing in the TOP8.

• “I got a huge start to the tournament winning my group by 3 wins. After that, I lost my quarter-final series 1-2 against Flyerkungen. It was very tough one for me because I played so well yesterday and I knew that I could have been at the finals easily this time.” Mustila said. 

‘’EKI’’ ended up facing a strong player in ‘’PleeMaker’’ in the quarter-final. ‘’PleeMaker’’ who barely missed out on playing in the world cup finals in Las Vegas, Nevada. However, ‘’EKI’’ proved to be one level above ‘’PleeMaker’’ in this match, and advanced with a 2-0 score. The next match-up and the last obstacle for the grand final ended up being yet another tough match for ‘’EKI’’. This time it was ‘’Hansulinho’’ who was on the other side of the ice. ‘’Hansulinho’’ who along with ‘’EKI’’ played in the world championship in Las Vegas recently. But as in the European Regional GWC final, ‘’EKI’’ was once again the better player and advanced with a 2-0 score. 

• “I had a weird feeling the whole tournament, to be honest. My first game of the day was very good, but the 2nd and 3rd game felt tough and even though I won I felt like I wasn’t playing that good. Of course, I got it going and won against PleeMaker and Hansulinho before the final, but couldn’t get the most of myself in the final.” Tammenpaa said

In the grand final, he ended up facing ‘’Kriketsi’’. The match ended up with the defending champion ‘’EKI’’ losing the series 2-0, and a new Finnish champion was crowned.

Q: Heading into the grand final, how did you see yourself vs. ‘’Kritsetsi’’?

• “I faced ‘’Kriketsi’’ in the last eSM Semi-Final and also in the NHL GWC for the Vegas spot. In both of those series, I beat him and I felt like I had his number. But ‘’Kriketsi’’ had improved a lot and also learned from his previous mistakes against me in the past and I couldn’t adjust in time.”

Q: You ended up placing 2nd in the 1v1 tournament, how pleased are you with the result?

• “My goal is always to win but Friday I think ‘’Kriketsi’’ deserved the win and in the end, I wasn’t that close of winning the tournament so I think I belonged in the 2nd place. Not ideal but I’ll take it.”. 

However, for Erik ‘’EKI’’ Tammenpää the weekend was far from over. Already the following day the Sampi player had the chance at collecting a new trophy to his collection. This time together with his 6v6 team ‘’Filadelphia’’. 

The story from the Friday continued on Saturday, and ‘’EKI’’ ended up collecting another silver medal. Being defeated 3-0 by team HAUV in the grand final.

• “I think as a team we played better than we have played in a long time but just couldn’t capitalize our scoring chances in the final.”

Once again we found our NHL player Erik ‘’EKI’’ Tammenpää leaving an NHL event with medals. Concluding his NHL19 run with two silver medals at the Finnish Championship. 

• “I wanted to bring at least 1 gold but what can you do. Got to 2 finals and did my best but sometimes that isn’t enough. I’ll take the two 2nd place finishes I think it was a solid way to end NHL 19 but of course I would have wanted more.”