Monumental Sports & Entertainment has launched a new esports brand, Caps Gaming, to help grow the NHL competitive gaming community. Pro gamer John “JohnWayne” Casagranda will join the brand as an official streamer.
MSE owns the NHL’s Washington Capitals, the NBA's Washington Wizards, and the WNBA’s Washington Mystics. Beginning in December, Caps Gaming will host a 32-team EA Sports NHL 20 showcase on Xbox One. Users can sign up for the online showcase later this month. Each team will consist of six gamers to mirror the six players that take the ice during an NHL game.
The showcase will start with an eight week regular season, after which 16 teams will move on to a single elimination, two-round online tournament. The four remaining teams will then be flown to Washington D.C. for a live, in-person semifinals and finals in late February. They will be competing for a $15,000 prize pool.
Casagranda has become the first esports pro to be employed by an NHL organization. He will stream his gameplay on the Caps Gaming Twitch channel from mid-November through the end of June. Military defense firm Leidos will serve as a presenting sponsor to Caps Gaming and have its logo integrated on all Caps Gaming Twitch streams.
Casagranda has competed at both the 2018 and 2019 NHL Gaming World Championships (the NHL launched the esports tournament in 2018). While the NHL has yet to establish a comprehensive esports league such as the NBA 2K League or eMLS, the Capitals creating their own esports brand should fuel speculation that an official NHL esports league could be on the horizon. In both of those esports leagues, each competing team is affiliated with a respective club in the NBA or MLS.
