CANEX Championship Gaming Series trophy comes to Halifax for second year in a row
By Ryan Melanson,
Trident Staff
It seems that members of Formation Halifax not only excel in real-world military operations, but on the virtual battlefield as well.
The Second Annual CANEX Championship Gaming Series took place from August 18 to 20, and for the second time, the Championship trophy was presented to a team from the Halifax region.
The tournament-format event featured 16 teams of gamers representing bases across the country, battling it out online in a series of matches that were broadcast live on the streaming service Twitch. Last year, competitors played military first-person shooter game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and CANEX switched it up this year with Overwatch, a popular shooter that puts the emphasis on teamwork and completing objectives.
LS Chris Hanratty, captain of the winning Halifax team and a member of BIS Client Services, entered the tournament with a few colleagues for the first time this year after seeing a notice posted at the Stadacona CANEX store.
“There’s a group of us that work together and we play the game together semi frequently, so we thought it would be fun to put together a team and give it a shot,” he said.
Thanks to their experience with the game, their team, named Desktop Support, took down the competition without much challenge in the opening matches. They had to get serious in the later rounds to come out on top against similarly skilled gamers from other bases, including their final opponents from CFB Petawawa.
“From the semi-finals on we got down to the teams who played the game really well and put a lot of practice into preparing, so there was a good mix of skill levels through the tournament,” LS Hanratty said.
Five of the six team members met at the Stadacona CANEX retail store recently to officially accept their winning trophy from CFB Halifax Base Commander Capt(N) Paul Forget and CANEX District Manager Benoit Chartrand, along with an impressive set of prizes. Each member of the winning team came away with a package of MSI and Cougar gaming gear worth more than $400, including a backpack, headset, gaming mouse and keyboard. Prizes were also awarded to the second place team, along with random draw prizes open to all competitors. Those who tuned in on Twitch to watch also had a chance to win, with draw prizes for viewers that included a $500 550 Acer gaming monitor and a $1,300 Acer gaming laptop.
Both the number of participants (109) and number of people who tuned in and interacted with the matches online were up significantly compared to the debut of the CANEX Championship Gaming Series in 2016, and organizers with CANEX are calling the event’s second year a success. Sponsors to be thanked include MSI, Asus, Acer, Cougar, and NVIDIA, which are all brands carried at CANEX stores and online. You can look out for information regarding next year’s Gaming Series by following the CANEX Facebook page for exclusive announcements at http://facebook.com/CANEX.ca
