For the first time in four years, the world championship for NHL returned when EA Sports and DreamHack Sports Games hosted the NHL 23 World Championship finals. Compared to its 2019 cousin, the event did not do that well, but considering that the esports scene has been expanded and rebranded in 2023, it was a decent (re)start to life.
The ice hockey simulation video game's top esports players from North America and Europe competed for a $51K prize pool in Nashville, Tennessee, on June 27. Joseph "Jos x 10" Olmstead from Troy, Michigan, clinched the trophy at the Bridgestone Arena after beating Erik "Eki" Tammenpaa of Helsinki, Finland.
The NHL 23 World Championship finals recorded 20K Peak Viewers, which was reached pretty early into this NHL tournament when Teemu "Temppanen" Karvonen beat Samuel "Cadcooks" Landry 2-1 in Round 1. It also registered 17K Hours Watched and 3K Average Viewers over an airtime of five hours.
Knowing that this competition was played only between participants from Europe and North America, English was the only language used during live broadcasts of the action. Twitch was the dominant platform, notching 91.26% of the overall share, with the remaining part going to YouTube.
The official NHL English channel was the only one that broadcast this event for NHL 23 on the red platform, and it ended as the second most watched and popular one among viewers. The number one position on both counts went to the corresponding official English Twitch handle, while ELEAGUE — which brings the best content from premium esports tournaments and the overall gaming community to fans — came in third for both metrics.
Compared to the NHL Gaming World Championship 2019, this year's edition saw 1736.9%, 239.4%, and 1422.4% dips in HW, PV, and AV, respectively, despite being available on more platforms and channels. It has to be noted that the former had six participants, so there were more games and days' worth of action for fans and viewers to take in. Also, the viewers seemed to keenly miss popular names like Karl Caslib (MgxNuclear, Philippines), JohnWaynee90 (USA), and Top Shelf Cookie (TSCookie, USA), who helped make it a much more well-received event.
There was also the little matter of a few other side shows that played the role of appetizer to the main event which was the World Championship. These series of online open tournaments were held in North America and Europe, with the finalists of these tournaments gaining the opportunity to attend in-person events during NHL’s All-Star Weekend and Navy Federal Credit Union NHL Stadium Series.
The NHL 23 World Championship North American Finals, NHL 23 World Championship European Finals, NHL 23 World Championship Console, NHL 23 World Championship All-Star Open, and NHL 23 World Championship Stadium Series Open were all part of the lead-up to the big-ticket tournament. They acted as step-by-step qualifiers where the best gamers were pitted against each other to ultimately unearth the best four athletes who would compete for the grand prize.
The console events saw competitions in the Generation 4 and Generation 5 categories, with the top two from each event battling it out in their respective regions’ finals. These events basically acted as qualifiers for the next stage of the competition, culminating in the booking of two berths from each region at the World Championship.
When comparing these events, it was the NHL 23 World Championship North American Finals that did the best in terms of popularity, hitting 8.4K PV. Its European cousin ended up as the most-watched one after becoming the only one to cross the 15K mark.
More about the NHL 23 esports scene
The rebranded EA Sports NHL 23 World Championship was the largest in NHL esports' new season, which also saw an expansion. It witnessed 65 times more games than its real-world counterpart while also seeing players — representing 32 NHL teams — compete in two regions, with more than 80,000 games played during the regular season.
The World Championship took place between the 2023 NHL Awards and the Upper Deck NHL Draft, with NFL Draft players visiting and greeting fans. The new tournament structure ran from December 2022 to June 2023, featuring online open tournaments in North America and Europe.
At the end of it all, the four best NHL esports players, consisting of winners and runners-up from Europe and North America, had the chance to take home the $51,000 prize, of which $28K went to the winner. Interestingly, Eki was the only athlete to participate in the 2019 and 2023 competitions.
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