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Beginning Friday, eight Counter-Strike: Global Offensive teams from North America, Brazil and Europe will compete for their share of a $750,000 prize pool.Tournament organizer FACEIT and Twitchs Esports Championship Series (ECS) Season 2 Finals event in Anaheim, California, will put the nail in the final event of the Counter-Strike leagues. The tournament will round out the year before teams head to Atlanta to compete for their spot in the first major in 2017, the ELeague major.Spots for the Esports Championship Series finals have been earned through two online leagues, one in Europe and one in North America. While previous ECS finals events have been a wash for European teams, this weekends event gives a boiling North America -- which has taken first in two offline events recently -- a chance at another title.The Group A dilemmaCloud9 Optic Gaming FaZe Clan AstralisIts no secret in Counter-Strike that offline and online performances can vary tremendously. Often times, teams that perform well offline can struggle when competing online, particularly in league matches, as opposed to offline events on the weekends. That issue has led us to Group A of the ECS Finals, which features four teams that have had decent performances online, but stellar performances offline, in the past few months.Group A will pit North Americas Cloud9 and OpTic Gaming against Europes FaZe Clan and Astralis. The group will showcase a rematch between ELeague Season 2 finalists Astralis and OpTic Gaming on Friday. These teams both went against the odds in their ELeague playoff runs over the past weeks, with the finals series going to OpTic, an unexpected victor.But dont discredit Cloud9 or FaZe. Since buying out Finn karrigan Andersen from Astralis and later moving Fabien kioShiMa Fiey back onto the team, FaZe has seen some of its best results, recently taking third/fourth in ELeague after a semifinal loss to OpTic. Now, karrigan will get a chance to lead his band of Europeans into battle against his former team.As for Cloud9, the team has also seen an improvement in performance since adding former Team SoloMid player Timothy autimatic Ta to the lineup. In late October, the team took first at the ESL Pro League finals -- ending a 10-year drought of a North American team not winning a premiere event. But the teams shaky performances at the Americas Minor and DreamHack Winter leave much to be desired, so Cloud9 will need to fight to the death if it wants to advance out of the group.Lions, tigers and stand-ins -- oh my!SK Gaming Team Dignitas Immortals Team EnVyUsAt face value, Group B should go to SK Gaming and Team Dignitas. The former has been the best team in the world throughout 2016, and the latter has had a stellar fall. But not all is fun and games at ECS; both of those teams have stand-ins.Team Dignitas star rifler Emil Magiskb0Y Reif will sit out of the event as he returns home to Denmark to complete school exams. The team will use Heroics Valdemar valde Bj?rn Vangs? in his place.Meanwhile, SK Gaming benched Lincoln fnx Lau due to different opinions on how to develop the team after a rough period of performances. In his place will be former FaZe Clan Portuguese rifler Ricardo fox Pacheco, who has never competed with the team but speaks Portuguese, so theres no language barrier.Those stand-ins shake up the group, with Immortals looking competitive until SK Gaming likely makes a bid for one of its players, considering both teams have swapped players back and forth in the past few years. Its likely that Immortals will make it out of this group, due to Dignitas and SK Gamings predictable lack of coordination.While EnVyUs will also participate in Group B, the team probably wont make it out, except if there are hard flops from disjointed versions of Team Dignitas and SK Gaming. But if DreamHack Winter is any indication of unexpected winners, EnVyUs could enjoy some kind of run. Clearance Air Max . The move comes after the Canadiens were approached by the Buffalo Sabres for permission to speak to Dudley - a former Sabres player and head coach. "The Sabres called for permission and I appreciate that, Im flattered, Dudley told TSN Hockey Insider Pierre LeBrun of ESPN. Cheap Air Max From China . Q: Team Canada announces their Olympic roster three weeks from today. Who is general manager Steve Yzerman watching? LeBrun: Over the last 48 hours, hes taken in the home-and-home between the Dallas Stars and Colorado Avalanche with Jamie Benn and Matt Duchene being the obvious targets. https://www.airmaxchina.us/ . As he recorded his 23rd and 24th points of the evening, a segment of the sellout Air Canada Centre crowd expressed their appreciation for the Raptors point guard with a smattering of MVP chants. Replica Air Max . Traditional contenders Brazil, Greece and Turkey drew the other three spots to complete the 24-team field for this summers tournament in Spain, basketball governing body FIBA announced Saturday at its meeting in Barcelona. Discount Air Max .ca looks back at the stories and moments that made the year memorable.Nico Rosberg is convinced he will still be at Mercedes for many years, as he prepares for the final season of his current contract. Rosbergs future with F1s world champions is likely to prove one of the main off-track talking points of the 2016 season with the contract extension he signed two years ago expiring in December.The 30-year-old joined Mercedes when they bought the Brawn team in 2010 and over the last three seasons has been partnered by Lewis Hamilton, whose deal runs until 2018. But although Rosberg has enjoyed periods where he has held the upper hand, Hamilton has finished ahead in the championship in all three years - beating the German to the world title in 2014 and 2015.However, despite suggestions that either the team or Rosberg himself could look to make a change at the end of the year if the intra-team balance of power does not change, the German isnt anticipating a move anytime soon.Im sure there is going to be many more years to go here at Mercedes, he told Sky Sports News HQ. Craig Slater caught up with Nico Rosberg after the German drove Mercedes 2016 car for the first time I feel comfortable here, I really enjoy being part of the team, weve achieved so much, and theres even more to achieve in the future.Mercedes reveal the new W07Despite the success of thhe Hamilton-Rosberg partnership since Mercedes arrival as F1s dominant force - they have won 80 per cent of the races and back-to-back championship doubles - team boss Toto Wolff admitted in November the teams biggest weakness is the dynamic of the relationship between the drivers.ddddddddddddWolff went further by warning that the team could break up the pairing if relations deteriorated to the point where the wider harmony inside the Brackley outfit was damaged. Mercedes released the first images of their W07 ahead of testing Hamilton and Rosberg were both present at Silverstone last Friday for the shakedown of Mercedes new W07 car and the German acknowledged that this was the time of year when they particularly had to work towards the same goal.At the moment were working together because its in our interests that the cars as good as possible to make sure there is no other opposition and its just between the two of us, he said.Although Hamilton comfortably won last years drivers title, Rosberg ended the campaign in some of best form of his career with a run of six poles and three wins in a row.And despite his team-mates run of title victories, Rosberg insisted: I look forward to going up against Lewis again. Hes been driving at an extremely high level and thats the sort of battle I relish - thats why I do sport for and compete for.The first Barcelona test starts on Monday February 22 and the Sky Sports F1 Digital team will be providing live commentary from dawn until dusk on all four days of both Barcelona tests while Sky Sports News HQ will also deliver live updates from trackside. Every race live in 2016 Sky Sports F1 brings you every race live in 2016. Fast and easy online upgrade - click here Also See: Merc drivers respond to Vettel Ferrari worry Mercedes ' ' '