Day 1

When going to the tournament the feeling of joy somehow grew stronger. Sitting on the train thinking about what the event will behold was hard. As top teams from all around the Europe would come to Jonkoping to compete for the first prize. To get some adrenaline pumping, get those 60k SEK in your hands. But who would make it?

As the time ran and I finally arrived to Jonkoping I went to dreamhack to check everything out I met up with the best page ever, rakaka and got to actually comment some games. Very fun! After the guys arrived we just checked out the area, talked a bit and checked so everything was fine. We went home and played some poker, Tino/tihOp won 40krones. We had to get to sleep pretty early as we had to play at 10:00 the day after. But as always we didn’t fall asleep until 2-3 am.

Day 2

Waking up at 08:10 to get some breakfast was not fun when you didn’t get enough sleep.  While walking to Elmia from the scandic hotel I heard the guys discussing some stuff and talking and laughing in Finnish. For your information I don’t speak Finnish, I’m Swedish. As always I felt as a fish in the desert. Plain stupid.

When entering the arena at 09:20 am the other teams we were supposed to face wasn’t there. We were in group A = fnatic, Roccat, PlayZone & Bullarna. Today Sunday, I had my own game to think about. I play soccer in second division in Sweden so I had my girlfriend picking me up so I can get to the game and then drive me back. Our first game was against Bullarna, a mix team who’d qualified through internet. We knew jack about em, but it went ok. We won easily. As the games were delayed, or the whole tournament started after the schedule we had to play our games in a row. After Bullarna it was PlayZone’s turn to get smacked. Which didn’t happen, we played equal. Wow, a Swedish semi team who played superbly good while our game didn’t work at all. The Swedes really used their magic to make things go their way. As we only had fnatic left my mind started to take turns as if we would lose we wouldn’t make it to the finals. What if?

Unfortunately me and my girlfriend had to take our asses home as I had 4 hours left to make it to my team gathering. Which I had to make it. While in the car I were stressing out, I had my game and my game. I called my brother to check the results. No luck first time, no update anywhere. After a while I tried again, and luck! Fragbite had updated their database. ROCCAT and fnatic makes it to the finals it said. With a win over the best team in the world 16-8 my day started to become more and more awesome. Finally there, I hurried up to the gathering we started to dress up and then we had the soccer warm-up. For a strange reason I HATE warm ups, it’s so boring I often just do my own warm up containing much easy jogging. The team we were facing was one spot ahead of us in the ladder. In the 57th minute we scored and we just hold back and won the game. I was closer then you could imagine making the goal of the century. Heading back me and the team chilled out watching tv and just talking. Most in finnish.

Day 3

Day contained the final stage of the tournament. Quarter finals, semifinals & the final. It was single elimination that seemly was not positive welcomed by any team. Nothing more to do, we had our game at 20:00 versus Alternate Attax one of the German powerhouses. While the game was scheduled so late I had to do some work with rakaka streaming and commentating some games that was due to play that day. Mtw, mym, dimension4 & aAa.  I let the players sleep since the games was going to be played that late I didn’t want to wake them up at 09:00 for breakfast. After a while I went back to the hotel around 15:00 to check the guys up. I shared room with Max ‘ruuit’ Aspe and Tino ‘tihOp’ Puumala, but somehow contE & naSu was in that room. So I laughed and told them there might be delays, our game vs. Attax was going to be played on dust2 which our current worst maps so I was a bit afraid. I headed back to dreamhack just to check up other teams and just walking around meeting people I’ve talked to on the net.

At 18:00 I went back to the hotel to pick the guys up, I packed my laptop and changed shirt and we headed back. As all the events that I’ve been to it’s always been some kind of delay and already it was 2 hours delayed.  After sitting and waiting for an hour they let us config our computers. I started to get nervous. It feels like I get nervous for the players as well. Attax, an EPS team that had to be good on all maps is not a good first game if you are supposed to pay your worst map vs one of the Germans best teams. Not good, that was my feeling. I just hoped the players were focused, so started to talk to them. We got told the game was due when everyone’s ready. So, we went outside for the usual finnishtakingasmoke talk which happens before every game. And I really mean it. If the Finnish guys doesn’t smoke before a game, it’s not good... While out smoking I had this good feeling, this hunch of happiness in my body that would soon burst into any kind of expression. Before we went in, I told them a few well chosen words that would keep them in shape for the whole tournament. While walking in the adrenaline took over, my heart started to beat and I had to keep track of my hands as the sweat was unbearable. You may think I’m a looser making such a big deal out of it but believe me. The quiet before the battle is the worst time ever especially for a manager who cannot make any drastic changes in a game as killing a whole team itself. The game was on! As usual we lost the knife round but won the gun round there from my mouth went on as a gun, screaming, swearing and breathing. As the win was a fact my breathing started to slowly get calmer. Next was vs SK, the Swedish powerhouse that has beaten the best team in the world fnatic twice in overtime same day.

As our game started two hours later we went out for a snack and just started to talk. We knew it was nuke which we lost to them in Los Angeles last year. But this team they faced a new roccat, that would basically rocc their minds. While sitting outside the area and just surfing on the comp and reading the comments of the game I asked ruuit and tihOp what they thought of the upcoming game. Both were confident and actually they were calm. I think that I’m worried twice as much as I should be, for them and for myself. When we went in my girlfriend called me and congratulate me for the win versus attax and wished me good luck for the upcoming match against the Swedish guys. I told her I had a good feeling but didn’t want to say too much. The game started and the guys pumped up and started to get the adrenaline pumping. I started to shout and talk to the guys. ‘Aimbot ON’ which I use to say. We lost the knife round and had to start as T on nuke which is the worst start ever. But we made a good thing out of the bad start, we were leading with 8-0 which is really good we were on a roll but somehow SK had luck basically luck winning 3 1on1’s with PURE luck so the half time showed us 8-7 to our favor.  As we started as CT I felt that this is it, nothing should go wrong we have the perfect outcome and we just need to play our game, nothing special, no miracle needed. Said and done, we won the game fair with 16-11.