NBA All-Star joins MTA Gaming Tournament

WASILLA — For the fourth year in a row, MTA hosted the state’s largest gaming tournament.

This time, the tournament was entirely virtual, hosted out of MTA’s new location at The Shoppes at Sun Mountain in Wasilla. In years past, nearly 500 gamers have descended upon the Menard Center in Wasilla for hours of gaming tournaments and prizes in person. This year, the tournament went virtual and hosted over 160 gamers in the three-day competition.

“I think it’s kind of a natural transition. With MTA already being so focused on technology, it wasn’t so much a matter of how do we do it’s just a matter of I guess what do we need to make it happen. With the events that we’ve ran in the past I think it was really easy to transition it to this format,” said MTA Esports coordinator Brandn Meiners.

On Saturday, MTA hosted the Super Smash Brothers Ultimate tournament that included students in Mat-Su Borough School District schools. MTA has partnered with MSBSD to provide esports for students that was halted along with other traditional sports in the spring. On Sunday, MTA hosted tournaments in Tekken 7 and Dragonball Fighters. The Valorant tournament hosted by MTA on Friday had a surprise celebrity guest when Boston Celtics guard Gordon Heyward Zoomed in to guest commentate on the Valorant matchup between Alaskan gamers.

Heyward finished his 10th year in the NBA last season in the bubble with the Boston Celtics. Though Heyward averages just over 15 points per game over his career and was named to the All-Star team in 2017, the veteran claimed that he was the best player in the NBA while being interviewed by MTA Public Relations Manager Jessica Gilbert.

“For PC gaming I think I’m ahead of everybody in the NBA. A lot of the NBA guys you know, it’s interesting when I first got in the league I was one of the only ones that played video games pretty hardcore and consistently. It’s just like different generations you know, and then now that was my 10th year in the NBA last year and everybody plays video games in the NBA. that’s basically what everyone was doing in the bubble, everybody plays video games but a lot of them play on console,” said Heyward.

Heyward was a member of the Butler Bulldogs team that lost to the Duke Blue Devils in the 2010 NCAA Championship Game and was taken ninth overall by the Utah Jazz in the 2010 draft. Heyward recently invested in Tribe gaming and has become an esports advocate as an avid gamer himself.

“There’s lots of correlations between video games and people would say traditional sports. I think obviously the major difference being it’s not nearly as physical but certainly you know pressure situations are still the same. You can definitely get nervous if you’re in a big time environment like a major tournament like you guys are running. I think the mental side, the strategic side of video games you have very similar stuff in basketball,” said Heyward. “When I was a kid none of that was there. There was no Twitch, there was no Youtube. Video games was a passion of mine. If I wasn’t playing sports, I was playing video games, but back then you really couldn’t make a career out of it and I think you’re starting to see the transition where kids, students like you were saying, are able to really put their heart into becoming a professional video game player and I think all of the things that you need as somebody who would be professional video game player are things that you can learn to then ultimately help you in life.”

While MTA was not able to host as many gamers at this year’s MTA Gaming Tournament, the new retail space at The Shoppes at Sun Mountain features an auditorium style room with levels of comfortable seating for presentations or gaming tournaments to be hosted in.

“This is actually our first time doing anything in our new setup here at The Shoppes at Sun Mountain,” said Gilbert. “We’re super stoked about it and really excited to bring the whole public here eventually when we can get there, but for now we’ll have it set up as a virtual tournament.”