A Regina man is doing his part to grow the electronic sports (esports) scene in the province of Saskatchewan.
“The appetite is global and it’s pushing into Saskatchewan,” said Shaye Ruecker.
Ruecker started the Saskatchewan ESports Association in September of 2022 as a non-profit after realizing the province was one of the last to enter the industry.
“We want to create a good educational standpoint for esports,” Ruecker said. “We want high school teams; we want universities to have teams where we bring in people on scholarships — athletes from around the world.”
There is already an esports program pilot project underway at the Athol Murray College of Notre Dame.
“There is a large demand among younger people,” Ruecker said. “You have older people who are traditionally just watching sports on TV and are getting their entertainment through cable and syndicated sitcoms and things like that, but more and more youths and kids are actually spending a lot of time online watching influencers on YouTube and videogame tournaments and streamers on Twitch TV.”
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Ruecker said the esports scene is slated to be a $5 billion industry by 2025.
The University of Saskatchewan also has an esports club that was founded last year and has expanded with hundreds of members.
Ruecker said some athletes are competing in sanctioned leagues at a national level.
Esport events are also happening throughout Indigenous communities across the province through Treaty 4 ESports.
“We would love to empower any community organizations or local clubs to work on creating their own tournaments and giving them whatever support we can, whether it is to find venues, sponsorship or any other partnership programs we can send their way.”
Regina Twitch TV streamer Sierra Huber said that being a role model in the industry is rewarding.
“It kind of seemed too good to be true, like ‘no way you’re going to make it full-time streaming,'” Huber said.
Better known online as ‘Saskii’, Huber quit her job in finance to make it big in the esports world.
“When I say that out loud, I think I’m an absolute lunatic, like I left finance to play video games, but I have zero regrets.”
And with more than 3,000 followers on the platform, Huber said connecting with others is what makes it worth it.
“I’m OK at the video games, but I love interacting with people and streaming is kind of the best of both worlds,” she explained. “You get to meet new people and game, so you get to do both of those things that you love. Although, it is something nerve-wracking and there is judgment for sure – there is another side of that and it can be like,’listen, if I can do it, literally anyone can do it.'”
Ruecker said a difficult barrier to work around in the industry is the fact that the games and rules are always evolving.
“You don’t have football changing the rules once every 10 years or so and those are very minute, small rules, but there are different games and different genres that keep popping up and down.”
He said the most popular games in the esport world right now are League of Legends, Counter Strike, Super Smash Brothers and Street Fighter.
“We were told as kids that you can’t make a living playing Mario all day when we would skip our homework or skip school to do any of that kind of stuff, but the fact of the matter is, it has become more than just sitting down and playing games.”