This March, ESL announced they would be creating an E-Sports hall of fame, to honor the top Counter Strike, League of Legends, StarCraft and fighting games players. They had previously promised their first inductee would be from CS, and have now announced be Emil “ HeatoN ” Christensen will be taking on the opening spot.
HeatoN, at 32, is widely regarded as one of the most successful Counter Strike players ever, having retired in 2007, after successful spells at Ninjas in Pyjamas (NiP), where he went on to win the Cyberathlete Professional League World Championship in 2001, and at SK Gaming, where he helped the team to 4 world championships prior to their 2004 disbanding, after which he returned to NiP.
After his retirement, he took on coaching NiP for a brief spell in 2007 until leaving to manage his own Championship Gaming Series, the short lived Stockholm Magnetik. The end of his CGS franchise would lead to a lengthy hiatus, until his revival of NiP, as a coach, with the launch of Counter Strike: Global Offensive, in 2012.
The Hall of Fame itself will work as any traditional organisation of the sort, fitted with a panel of “writers, commentators, coaches, analysts and other experts” which vote on the entrants and collaborate with the general community. Inductees must be relevant figures in the scene, who have retired for a greater length of time than a year.
Fittingly, HeatoN will be inducted into the Hall of Fame by another great CS player, and NiP member, Christopher “GeT_RiGhT” Alesund at the ESL One Cologne, a previous NiP win.
Many have immortalized Christensen, who won 9 of the 10 finals he reached as a player, through highlight reels such as the following.
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