The NorQuest Collegiate Esports Showcase (CES) kicked off on Dec. 19 after condensing the event to one-day filled with Valorant, Super Smash Bros Ultimate games and more. The inaugural showcase, organized by the Edmonton Collegiate Esports Collective (ECEC), brought together students from different post-secondary campuses in Edmonton to compete in a tournament with $1700 in prize pool funding from NAITSA.
Jacob Sacrey, a Game Development student at NAIT and President of Esports at NAIT (ESAN), was one of the main organizers of the event, working mostly on the Valorant tournament side the day of.
“ESAN is the one that kind of kick-started it all, I came to the people at U of A and NorQuest and kind of brought up the idea,” said Sacrey. He said the event was the first of its kind, and for many of the students involved — including Sacrey — it was their first time planning an event like this.
It was also Sacrey’s first time doing commentary for an esports event.
“We found our groove later on,” said Sacrey. “You can kind of see the professionalism coming out a bit more. We worked our way through it and it was still a blast, but things to work on for sure,” Sacrey laughed.
NAIT’s Valorant esports team, ESAN Black, came to play. With a lot to prove against some powerhouse teams with in-person local area network (LAN) tournament experience under their belt, ESAN Black showed their own powers, proving tremendous skill in high-pressure situations. This ability brought them all the way to a final…that didn’t happen.
The ESAN players had to pull out because the event had gone on for ten hours, starting at nine in the morning with the final set to start at seven in the evening, when the Valorant awards were supposed to be at six. The event had gone an hour past already scheduled, with a best of three to play before victors were announced.
Sacrey said there were technical difficulties behind the scenes that added unforeseen problems for the length. Remember, this was the first time running an event like this, and it was put together by students with passion to grow college esports in our city.
However, technical issues are not entirely to blame for the tournament length; Valorant matches can take at minimum half an hour to complete, unlike the event’s Super Smash Bros Ultimate matches, where some NAIT students from the campus Super Smash Bros Club competed.
The NorQuest CES Valorant tournament averaged longer due to how competitively matched these teams were, with multiple games going to overtime.
This did not stop ESAN Black from pulling out some of the best performances I’ve seen in college esports. Going down to the loser’s bracket after facing heavy hitters U of A Green, ESAN Black clawed their way back to the finals and were going to play U of A Green in a storybook rematch before pulling out.
Three veterans from the old Ooks Esports team, Kirin, Brayzee and Captain Nocries, pulled off some of my favourite moments of the tournament. Kirin made some incredible plays and Nocries got four quadruple kills throughout the tournament. Sacrey had high praise for Brayzee’s consistent top-level play and ability to net multiple kills a round, with over 70 kills in the entire tournament In Sacrey’s mind, Brayzee was the MVP for ESAN Black.
“He pulled out so many clutches,” said Sacrey.
This was not a one man show, though. Rookie Azam aced a round and Junior Chicken brought some fantastic double kills to bring ESAN Black to the finals. This full team display from ESAN Black left enemy teams hard pressed to find wins and viewers excited for what could have been an amazing finish by NAIT student gamers.
The student organizers, including Sacrey and ESAN, hope to run another CES later in 2026. In the meantime, ESAN is looking forward to hosting more esports events through their club.
“We’ve done a lot,” said Sacrey. “We did a huge tournament like we said we would, and then we have a few esports teams now, our events are better. We’re doing more events that are funded and there’s just so much stuff that we have done and stuff we haven’t done yet.”
“It’s going to be big for Esports at NAIT.”
For more information about ESAN, students can visit their Ooks Life page or follow them on Instagram @esportsatnait.
Feature image via NorQuest Esports
