REGINA – The first season of SK League has come to an end. It’s a competitive video game, or e-sports, league focusing on the highly popular game League of Legends.
After an initial qualifying tournament the top 16 teams faced off in a seven week season, whittling the field down to two teams; The Thunder Ducks and Vicious and Delicious.
“Your team’s goal is to get to the enemies base and destroy their base, and they want to do the same to you. There’s a lot that goes on in between, but that’s kind of the main goal,” said Devin Johnson of the Thunder Ducks.
E-Sports are still emerging in North America, but in Asian countries like South Korea major tournaments fill stadiums.
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SK League is the first of its kind in Canada and has opened the door of competitive gaming to players not just in Saskatchewan, but across the Prairies. Of the league’s 231 members a handful of players are from Alberta, Manitoba, and even the United States.
“SK League was basically the first thing. The fact that they had such a good number of people turn out and this competition has been really well run, so it’s good to see,” said Vicious and Delicious team member Morgan “Mo Money” Anderson.
Ultimately Vicious and Delicious came out on top. They took home a trophy, and $1,000.
This year 33 teams took part in SK League competition, and going into season two the ground work is being done to start expanding nationally.
“We’re currently trying to find teams that can work autonomously in each province so there’s not too much stress put on the core team,” said SK League CEO Matthew Rosseaux. “But the idea is we want to open up registration with the goal of having at least 64 teams.”
Rosseaux said the interest is out there. He has received messages from people as far away as New Brunswick asking about SK League
“When is this coming to our province? Why isn’t it in Ontario and only Saskatchewan that doesn’t make any sense, and well that’s where we chose to start it,” he said.
Work began in April of this year to start SK League, and once other league’s are established Rosseux said they plan on introducing a national championship.
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