GCI announce Alaskan-only $20,000 event

When we think of North American Counter-Strike, nothing gets more North in North American than the wild lands of Alaska. The 49th state to join the Union, Alaska is most well known for it's expansive beauty, wild nature, frigid tempuratures, and now, a CS:GO scene.

While the contiguous 48 states have excellent connections to servers for ping, Alaska and Hawaii are the two states that struggle the most in online competition. The most famous North American player from one of these two faraway states is Alex "Mauisnake" Ellenberg who hails from the great state of Hawaii. Most of his time would be spent playing on Los Angeles servers as they were the only ones that would be playable for him.

No major event has been held in Hawaii or Alaska, but it look like the Anchorage-based telecom company GCI is now hosting the Northern Lights Invitational, a $20,000 CS:GO event taking place in February 2023. The event is also unique in that it will only allow players hailing from The Last Frontier, meaning we should not expect any ECL teams taking place.

Dust2.us has reached out for further details, however there was no representative of the company able to respond at this current time. It is unknown if the event is online only or if there will be a LAN component. Details regarding the event can be found here, where signing up will provide all up to date information regarding the event.

Regardless of the aspects of the event, this will likely be a first for North American Counter-Strike where an event is specifically restricted to residents of the state instead of being an open platform. Who knows, we might find the next Nick "nitr0" Canella hailing from Nome.