The DreamHack organization has announced the official dates of 2011 and 2012 events. After signing an agreement with Elmia, whose venues DreamHack has been using for the past ten years.

“Last event we broke all earlier records and we can easily conclude that the customer demand is bigger then ever”, an official statement reads

The 2010 winter edition for DreamHack was a record breaker. Never before has any of there past events accommodated so many people, and regaining another Guinness World Record under there belts.

The potential of having DreamHack at Elmia is still huge and with an amazing track record the last years we now continue on the same path and get a closer co-operation. DreamHack is attracting an huge audience to the region and we are now planning to offer a even better festival experience and exciting news for our visitors and partners the upcoming events”, DreamHack CEO Robert Ohlén said.

With the new deal in effect, these dates have been released:

DreamHack Summer 2011: 18-21 June
DreamHack Winter 2011: 24-27 November
DreamHack Summer 2012: 16-19 June
DreamHack Winter 2012: 22-25 November

Kimmo “BASiC” Fagerholm, stated earlier in the week that Power Gaming was officially revamping their roster for 2011, hopefully in an attempt to bring them back towards international prominence. This new roster did not involve Fagerholm and he was cut in order to make space, soon after that Niko “naSu” Kovanen annouced that he has quit Counter Strike, in order to focus on “personal commitments”.

After the recent shake up however, Power Gaming has annouced that they have changed their roster, and have added Tomi “Lurppis” Kovanen and Juuso “contE” Sajakoski. The added experience from Kovanen’s time spent at American organization Team Evil Geniuses, could possibly be very beneficial to the Finnish team after a rather dismal performance at World E Sport Masters, where they placed 7-8 overall.

I didn’t originally plan on playing CS anymore post-EG but after talking to the guys I decided to team up with them once again, this time under Power Gaming. I believe we will have a lot of fun competing together this year! We will obviously still do our best to practice hard and do well at tournaments, as Finland is definitely due some top placings again in CS 1.6.

Power Gaming 2011

Joona “natu” Leppanen
Samu “plastE” Aalto
Tino “tihOp” Puumala
Tomi “lurppis” Kovanen
Juuso “contE” Sajakoski

Oleksii “White-Ra” Krupnyk has been a notorious player around the European Starcraft scene, and has many years of experience under his belt. Considered one of the greatest European players currently in the scene, even at the age of 30, and with a wife back at home he continues to game, for the sake of his love for E Sports.

With his many acheivements in Starcraft 2 such as a second place at the recent Intel Extreme Masters European Championship finals, 1st place at HomeStory Cup #2, and 1st place at ROOT Gaming’s Warzone, it seems to many players that the Ukrainian should travel to Korea to compete in the most prestigious Starcraft 2 competition currently in the scene; Gom TV’s Global Starcraft 2 League.

However, White-Ra is currently 50-50 on his decision on whether to go to Korea or not, as revealed by a recent interview by fragster.de.

Can you tell us something about the eSports scene in the Ukraine? Is eSports widely known in the Ukraine?

White-Ra: “This time the situation is good, because you can see Na’Vi as well as good Starcraft 2 players and especially because we have this club. Of course we are not as big as Germany or similar countries, but we can show good games, good results and good organisation work as far as cybersport tournaments and teams and other things go.”

Now that you are married, how does your wife deal with this situation? Does she support you a lot, or is it difficult when you have to train for an an event or something and don’t have enough time to be with your wife?

White-Ra: “Sure, she supports me very well. Sometimes we go together to a tournament like DreamHack. She came with me and she liked Sweden and my friends there very much. So I might go to Korea for the next GSL, which I don’t know yet, it’s like 50/50, but if I go to Korea, we will go together, me and my wife.”

Read the full interview here.

Alice “ali” Lew spoke to ESFI World today about the interesting move announced last week that brought together a new United States Counter-Strike 1.6 team for SK Gaming. The team, assembled by Lew, will be one of only a rare few which consists of both female and male players. The squad plans to first compete in the ESEA’s open division before hopefully moving up to Invite in the next season.

If I didn’t genuinely feel that it was possible, I wouldn’t have said it,” she explains. “With discipline, dedication, preparation and practice, anything is possible. We’re starting to get really comfortable with each other and finding each other’s strengths and weaknesses… I believe that it will be only in due time that we’ll be at the top of our game, individually and as a team.

Read the complete interview at ESFIWorld.com.

Today was the Intel Extreme Masters 5 European Championship Finals, and fnatic came out as the victors against mTw Gaming.

The best of three started off on de_nuke where mTw won the match 16-11. This map was full of spam kills and agressive pushes from both sides. The second map waa de_train. This map really showed how close the two teams were in skill, and how badly both teams wanted to win. After a double overtime, fnatic wins with a score of 26-23. The final match was played on de_inferno. It was full of quick rounds and several strats that showcased the talents of both teams. At the end of the first half fnatic was down by one round with a score of 7-8 on the terroist side. As soon as the second half began, fnatic had CT side on lock. With several denied bomb plants and an epic clutch from Xizt, fnatic secured their victory and the title of IEM European Champions.

After watching the three matches, it is safe to say that the MVP of this matchup is Richard “Xizt” Landström

Prizes

1. fnatic – $20,000
2. mTw – $9,500 + World Finals slot
3. Frag eXecutors – $5,500 + World Finals slot
4. Natus Vincere – $3,200 + World Finals slot
5-6. Lions – $2,150 + World Finals slot
5-6. Meet Your Makers – $2,150 + World Finals slot
7-8. TCM-Gaming – $1,500 + World Finals slot
7-8. SK Gaming – $1,500 + World Finals slot
9-10. forZe – $1,250
9-10. Electronic Sahara – $1,250
11-12. mousesports – $1,000
11-12. Alternate – $1,000