Emil Christensen

For the Danish film actor, see Emil Hass Christensen. For the Danish wrestler, see Emil Christensen (wrestler).
Emil Christensen
HeatoN
Status Inactive
Date of birth 14 June 1984
Hometown Stockholm
Nationality Swedish
Games Counter-Strike

Emil Pathric William Christensen (born 14 June 1984 in Stockholm), alias HeatoN, is a former Swedish professional Counter-Strike player, formerly playing as captain of the gaming team Ninjas in Pyjamas (NiP). He is widely considered as one of the best Counter-Strike players of all time.

The name HeatoN comes from a brand of equipment he used when he played ice hockey.

Career

Emil's first hobby was ice hockey, but he retired because of injury. A friend (CS player fRa1L, from RevolutioN) told him to try Counter-Strike. Christensen was part of the original Ninjas in Pyjamas team of 2001 which won the Cyberathlete Professional League World Championship that year. He and the other members of Ninjas in Pyjamas went on to become the foundation to the highly successful SK Sweden, one of the most successful teams in electronic sports history.[1] Christensen led SK Gaming to the World Cyber Games Counter-Strike championship in 2003 and to 4th place in 2004.[2][3]

Christensen was nominated for Best Counter-Strike Player of the Year in 2004, losing out to SK Gaming teammate, Tommy "potti'" Ingemarsson.[4] He was selected for the Global Gaming League European Counter-Strike All-Star team in 2005.[5]

At the beginning of 2005 he and the rest of SK Sweden chose not to renew their contracts with SK Gaming and re-formed NiP.[6] Since then some of the NiP players moved back to SK Gaming but Christensen and others have stayed on at Ninjas in Pyjamas. NiP are now competing at professional LAN tournaments again, after a hiatus in which SpawN joined after HeatoN decided to take time off for personal reasons.

Christensen, along with the other members of Ninjas in Pyjamas, assisted in the design of the SteelSound 5H (USB) Headphones produced by SteelSeries.

In December 2006 he travelled to New York and Dallas to provide support for his teammates as they competed in the WSVG world finals and CPL winter respectively. NiP were expected to be strong contenders in both tournaments, however bowed out uncharacteristically early.

In September 2007 HeatoN quit playing Counter-Strike to be coach of NiP but was then offered a chance to be a general manager for Stockholm in the CGS. HeatoN's CGS franchise is called the Stockholm Magnetik and has a Counter-Strike: Source team, Dead or Alive 4 players, one male, one female, a FIFA 08 player and two Forza Motorsport 2 players to represent him and his franchise.

After the CGS's collapse in late 2008 Christensen moved to promote a hardware company named Qpad,[7] from his native country Sweden, for the first part of 2009. Later in the year however, he left Qpad to join with his former teammate Abdisamad Mohamed (SpawN) in product development at ZOWIE GEAR which is a manufacturer of competitive gaming gear, founded late 2008.[8] In July 2010, ZOWIE GEAR announced HeatoN's first series of mice co-developed by himself called EC after player's initials.[9] In March 2012 ZOWIE GEAR announced a new version of the EC series, named the EC eVo series which features an improved optical sensor and is expected to be released in the beginning of April.[10]

Professional teams

Christensen has played professionally with the following teams:

References

  1. ↑ "pcgames.gwn.com". pcgames.gwn.com. Retrieved 2013-01-22.
  2. ↑ "WCG Official Website". Wcg.com. Retrieved 2013-01-22.
  3. ↑ "WCG Official Website". Wcg.com. Retrieved 2013-01-22.
  4. ↑ "eSports Journalist Award ::". Esports-award.org. Retrieved 2013-01-22.
  5. ↑
  6. ↑ "Counter-Strike: The Ninjas Are Back". SK Gaming. 1 January 2005. Retrieved 2013-01-22.
  7. ↑
  8. ↑
  9. ↑ "South America W2B". Zowie Gear. Retrieved 2013-01-22.
  10. ↑ "Introducing the EC eVo". Zowie Gear. Retrieved 2013-01-22.

External links