(¥ Hopeless Solo (¥ Intramural sports starting up this September (¥ Should you play Fantasy Football? And more! Intramural sports starting up this September > Coquitlam campus to host soccer, volleyball, and basketball Chandler Walter Assistant Editor chool is starting up again, which means new and returning students will soon be looking for a way to get their minds off of the piles of homework and ever creeping deadlines. Intramural sports at Douglas College aim to do just that, and more. The Coquitlam campus will be hosting basketball, soccer, and volleyball for any Douglas College student who wishes to get their sweat on, or to forget about school work for a game or three. Anna Schachner, the Recreation and Wellness Coordinator in the Student Engagement Department, said that intramurals are not just good for staying in shape, but that other positives could come from dropping in as well. “The benefits they'll get from meeting new students, feeling good, staying fit, and just having fun with their peers, I think it’s really important, and a lot of places you just don’t get the opportunity to do that,” she said. The college also organizes tournaments throughout the school year, giving students the opportunity to form teams and play a little more competitively. One tournament that is a hit with students, said Schachner, is the Royal’s Rumble, a multi-sport tournament that measures not just athletic skill, but team spirit as well. Is eSports stagnating? > Has the industry’s spontaneous growth come to a halt? Davie Wong Sports Editor he world of eSports has been thought to be a booming industry, with incredible growth numbers and profits to prove it. Analysts and critics could no longer deny that eSports was beginning to really earn its place in the traditional world of sport. However, this year could be a step back from that. The competitive scene of the hugely popular game Counter- Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) has been hugely rocked by scandals as of late. From players cheating to match fixing, it’s been a rough year for Counter Strike fans and investors. For the StarCraft 2 scene, the release of a new expansion did little to bring viewers to the pro scene, which has been declining in viewership for a few years now. Some experts blame the producers of the game, Blizzard Entertainment, for patching and tweaking the game to a point of un-playability, while others believe that the rise of other games has been the cause of the decline in viewership. Whatever the case, the numbers don’t lie, and the viewership for one of the largest contributors to the eSports community is declining. That is a very scary bit of news for investors. And while Blizzard has been seemingly neglecting the StarCraft community, it was partly due to the preparation that went into the release of their new title, Overwatch. Since its release, Overwatch has taken the world, more or less, by storm, “It’s not just based on your athleticism, it’s also spirit points: your team sportsmanship, your team outfit, your team name, so that there’s other ways to get pulling viewership from across the eSports community. The release of Overwatch sent the player-bases of other games reeling. One game in particular, the global giant League of Legends, saw its player-base drop dramatically. While the North American region and Korean region of the League of Legends community has mostly bounced back, the European region of the game is still struggling, and seemingly dying out. Viewership numbers have plummeted in that region for a variety of reasons. Stellar pay from overseas neighbour North America has seen an exodus of skilled European players leaving their teams in favour of North American teams. Poor match production and poor international play has seen the y 9 FS) a £ i s > uv a o E some points,” she said. “It brings a lot of new students together.” One such student is Eric Osmond, a Criminology student European League of Legends scene take a serious numbers hit, and that is really not good for attracting investors. Yet despite all of this, investors are still abundant and eager. This year saw former NBA star Shaquille O’Neil invest heavily into the eSports team NRG. NBA former legend Rick Fox, as well as current NBA player Jonas Jerebko, purchased their own teams and made forays into the world of eSports. Over across the pond, FC Schalke 04, a professional German football team, purchased their own League of Legends team. The media presence around the scene has also taken off. This year, Yahoo and ESPN created their own branches of media for the sole purpose of reporting on eSports. With these two big at Douglas College and Student Ambassador for the Office of New Students. He decided to drop in for basketball intramurals back in 2014, and said that it was a large influence on his current social life. “] didn’t actually have a team or anything, I just signed up as an individual and they put me ona team,” he said, “but then my teammates became my good friends, just because we hung out outside of playing basketball, and built good relationships together.” Osmond said that he would encourage students to try it out, as it is welcoming to all skill levels. “I would just recommend anybody to try it out and see how it goes,” he said. “It’s free, so you might as well get involved.” Intramurals start up at the Coquitlam Campus on September 20, with soccer on Tuesdays, and volleyball and basketball on Thursdays. Students can either register online, or simply drop in on the day of. However, Schachner said, it is worth registering online, because students who do so will be notified of any cancellations via email. Students can find more information and register online at: http://www.douglascollege. a/student-life/get-health intramurals names being the first to come into the scene, they’ve both scooped up their share of the best freelance journalists already in the scene and have begun creating a professional standard for what media coverage of the eSports scene should look like. Their entrance brings a wealth of advertisement opportunities, as well as anew method of revenue for eSports teams that has only really been explored in Korea. Despite what looks like diminishing viewership nearly across the board, the eSports industry is still growing. Currently worth an estimated $900 million, it isn’t likely that eSports will go away anytime soon, even if it has been a bit of a slow year.