STORY BY MARK ELGIE
We are all Sheridan Bruins.
That was the underlying philosophy behind a League of Legends competition held at Trafalgar campus last Friday.
The event was held to gauge interest in a potential League of Legends intramural team, in a bid to expand the Bruins community.
“We were really looking at alternatives to the standard sporting events at Sheridan,” said Michael Thornton, a Sheridan First Year Connections project assistant.
“We wanted to expand that base, and so one of the things we tossed around was intramurals, but for games,” Thornton said.
“At this campus especially, but at other campuses as well, there’s a huge gaming community. Trafalgar campus has Game Design, a huge facility of applied science and technology, so we thought ‘what can we do to entice more people to come out and sort of be part of the athletics portfolio, part of the athletics envelope?’”
Several competitive video games were looked at, like Heroes of Newerth, Defense of the Ancients, Call of Duty, and FIFA. League of Legends was the one ultimately settled upon, due to its accessibility to a larger amount of players.
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“I don’t think the learning curve is as steep as Dota 2 or Heroes of Newerth,” said Adam McInnis, a first-year connections peer mentor.
“I think, bar none, League of Legends is the most popular and the easiest for consumers to watch or spectate on,” said Matt Rempel, Associate Dean of Accessible and Co-curricular learning at Sheridan.
Rempel said part of the aim is to make these League of Legends events feel as close to traditional sporting events as possible: there are those who play the sport, and there are those who watch and cheer.
“Part of what we’re doing tonight is there’s people who are playing games and we’re putting the game up on the big screen so anybody could watch.”
The screen up at the front of the room has a deliberate time lag. It displays the action 3 minutes behind what appears on competitors’ computer screens, in order to prevent players from getting assistance from someone familiar with the game posing as a spectator.
League of Legends is considered an e-sport, or electronic sport.
It marks the Bruins’ first foray into the world of electronic sports.
“It’s funny, when people use the term e-sports, people are like ‘e-sports, what’s that? What do you mean by that?’ And really, it’s an all-encompassing term,” Thornton said.
“But in this case, when we’re talking about competitive e-sports, we’re talking about games like League of Legends, games like Call of Duty, that kind of stuff. And really, it’s a great way to foster that sense of community and competition in sort of a friendly and welcoming environment.”
League of Legends intramurals begin Feb 23.
For more information, visit http://sheridanbruins.com/league-of-legends/.