First off, why don't you start by introducing yourself to the community?
-"Awrite! I'm Nicolay Berntsen from Norway. Currently studying economics at university in northern Norway. I'm a semi active HoN player and I'm 22 years old, been playing under LuckyDuckie in HoN."
What inspired you to create this league?
-"Me and two other guys felt that something were missing in the HoN scene, and that was tournaments and arranged competitions for teams who weren't sponsored by Intel and what not. So we created this league, contacted the norwegian HoN scene asking for beta testers, and it became a success."
What is the aim of this tournament? And what's the rationale behind limiting it to teams with majority from a few countries?
-"The reason for limiting it to four countries (Note: Each team needs to have 3 out of their 5 to be either Danish, Swedish, Norwegian or Finnish to qualify) to have a common community, competition ground and stage. And the rationale behind it is, that it'd be easier arranging LAN events in a not so distant future (we hope), to crown the best nordic team. If the whole world would join in, it'll probably be more difficult."
What prizes are you guys offering for your tournaments? And are they sponsored by S2 as well? If not, are there any sponsors?
-"We're not sponsored by S2, actually we're so new that I bet they haven't heard of us yet, but we've got some potential partners we're in negotiations with.. We didn't want to go out with any big cash prizes just yet before we know the size and popularity of the league. But we can say that so far, we've got one small sponsor for the tournament prizes. We're of course always looking for new and bigger ones."
With the launch of your Winter 01 tourney, what are the plans of the future for NCL?
-"Plans for the future is to be the official crowners of the best scandinavian teams, and that the NCL will not only be an online event, but offline as well. And of course, keeping the game we all love alive. Also, an important part behind our idea of this NCL project, is that we'd rather host a lot of small prized tournaments, and keep the scene alive, than to host one big one where everyone knows the winner beforehand to promote longevity of the project."
With leagues in the past proving to be too hard to schedule, only time will prove whether this league will achieve its aims. However, limiting its scope to a region where HoN is growing fast, especially with big nearby LAN events such as DreamHack, is definitely a good start. Interested teams can sign up at the Clan League homepage here.
