Gamers, Wild players unite at inaugural Wild Gaming Tournament Finals

BLOOMINGTON -- Growing up in central Sweden, Victor Rask used to create his likeness in the video game NHL 1999 and dream of one day scoring goals just like the character on the screen in front of him.
Monday afternoon inside the Rotunda at Mall of America, the Wild center grabbed a controller and went back to his childhood -- only this time, he didn't have to custom-make his own name and number from scratch using the game's "create a player" feature. Rask scored three goals as his virtual "self" against one lucky Wild fan in a friendly game of EA Sports NHL 19, part of the pro-am portion of the first-ever Minnesota Wild Gaming Tournament Finals presented by Mall of America.
Related: [Replay Monday's Wild Gaming Tournament Finals pres. by Mall of America on Twitch]
"It was a lot of fun," said Rask, who today is more of a Fortnite fan but was still able to best his opponent Monday. "I hadn't played this game in a long time, so I wasn't sure how good I was going to be."

Monday's event was the first of its kind as the Wild and the rest of the NHL explore the world of esports. Minnesota welcomed hundreds of Mall of America guests to the live finals event, and more than 3,800 unique viewers tuned in for the team's inaugural stream on
Twitch
.

Many of them watched professional gamers Gordon Bouchard (better known in the gaming world as Bouch 26), Harley Sitko (Sitful), Joshua D'Eri (JFear) and Matthew Grenier split a $7,400 prize purse for making the finals. Bouchard and Grenier each won to place first in the tournament's Xbox One and PlayStation 4 brackets, which began with online play Feb. 2-3 and garnered nearly 500 registered participants.
Before Wild Vision host Paul Fletcher teamed up with renowned esports commentator Dirk to call the finals, Rask joined teammates Devan Dubnyk and Jordan Greenway in the afternoon's first slew of games. The day also featured an MVP lounge and appearances from respected NHL YouTubers Cole Mogg and Finn MacConnell and NHL gamer Alex Kangas, who took part in the NHL World Gaming Championship last year and played goalie at the University of Minnesota from 2007-11.

With the landscapes of sports and video games continuing to intersect, more and more professional organizations have begun holding similar virtual tournaments and leagues. The goal is to give current fans new ways to connect, with the possibility of branching out into different communities that traditionally may not be as interested in, for example, an NHL franchise.
"I think it's a good event; I think it's a good setup," said the 20-year-old Bouchard, who when he isn't playing NHL 19 attends Brock University in St. Catharine's, Ontario and serves as a junior hockey video scout. Bouchard's father, Robert, served as a video coach for the Nashville Predators. "It was more than what I thought it was going to be. ... I think any time teams start to get involved it's good for the growth. ... Just the fact that NHL teams are getting to take part in this, it's pretty cool. Hopefully more NHL teams will get involved and it will just grow from here."