Get To Know NHL Esports Player Erik "Eki" Tammenpää

2018 GWC Winner looks to win Sixth European Championship

The NHL 24 European Championship takes place on Sunday, March 17th in Copenhagen, Denmark. Eight players will battle to become Champion, but whoever wishes to capture that title will have to go through Erik "Eki" Tamenpää.

Eki is a five-time European Championship winner and took home the inaugural NHL Gaming World Championship in 2018, an event he highlights as the peak of his competitive career.

When asked if he feels any pressure to defend his title this weekend, Eki responded, "There's always pressure, but I think it's more from the outside when people expect you to win.” He followed up saying he feels he has accomplished everything he’s wanted to and it helps him to just stay loose and enjoy the tournaments, which he believes helps his gameplay.

Eki's love for hockey started at a very early age. He began playing hockey at four years old and played until he was 18. Eki defended the crease for his team, playing as a goalie.

Despite being an avid Toronto Maple Leafs - and Auston Matthews - fan, Eki will be representing the New York Islanders during the event. "Islanders have contacted me the past three years to represent them and I've been happy to do so. They are the No. 1 team in the NHL in terms of placing effort into esports and trying to grow esports and I really appreciate that." 

Now the most decorated NHL esports player, Eki began his journey playing NHL 07 on the PlayStation 2. He did not formally compete until 2017. "I noticed a newspaper in Finland organized a tournament, and I had noticed that I rarely lose online, so for fun, I wanted to go to the tournament, and I finished second, taking home $500," Eki said.

When asked how he would have graded his chances at the two World Championships that were canceled during the COVID seasons he said, "There's always a chance, but honestly, NHL 22 wasn't my best game, and I messed up the team draft that year, so it would have been difficult." Eki chuckled that he still isn’t entirely sure how he won the NHL 22 European Championship.

Though Eki mentioned he felt his game in NHL 21 was the most complete it had ever been and would have been very confident playing for a NHL World Championship.

The NHL 24 European Championship consists of six competitors from Finland and two from Sweden. Eki is familiar with the majority of his competitors and believes his toughest opponents to be Teemu "Temppanen" Karvonen and Niklas "NikkeDangles" Tukiainen.

He mentioned that he feels NikkeDangles has the most natural talent out of anybody in Europe. Eki also mentioned that he thinks his playstyle matches up well against North American players. Eki has high praise for his fellow countryman.

Eki has been around the competitive scene for a while now, and we wanted to know if he felt there was a difference in game styles between EU and NA players. "I think the North Americans play way more straightforward and play more fast-paced than Europeans,” Eki said. 

"Most of the top Europeans usually like to slow it down a bit, maybe defend more passively, and try to control the game a bit more.”

It could have something to do with how European hockey players in real life are known as strong two-way players who are developed early in their careers to manage the puck and game, preferring possession over high-octane hockey. Think Finland at the World Juniors Tournament every year. They always play an extremely tight-checking game and are terrific at taking away time and space from their opponents.

At just 24 years of age, Eki is the oldest of the eight players competing. When asked about how it feels to be the veteran of the group Eki laughed and said, "Really? Oh God! That's shocking. Fun fact I guess? That really caught me off guard."

When asked about the strategy behind drafting his HUT team for this event, Eki said, "My plan is to always have centers for good faceoffs and a good mix of speed and size. I'm happy with the team I ended up getting."

A full-time Twitch Streamer and Content Creator, Eki has positively impacted the reach of the NHL community and his videos have sometimes contributed to gameplay improvements, including to the Pressure System.

The Pressure System that was introduced in NHL 24 has been a hot topic of conversation within the NHL community since its release. We asked Eki his thoughts on the addition and he replied, "Honestly, they should have never brought it in.”

Eki added, "The pressure system was a band-aid to a bigger problem that they have which is the AI, which you can't control and can abuse them a lot." He would love for the AI to be more controllable in order to put more pressure on the puck carrier. 

We ended the interview with Eki asking him his wish list for NHL 25, "A couple of big things that would make this game a lot better is the AI being smarter and more controllable, and to have smoother animations, you get stuck on different animations all the time,” Eki said. 

Both The winner and runner-up of the EU Championship advance to the NHL 24 World Championship, and we expect to see Eki back there again. 

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