HUNDEN's BAN to be removed by ESIC?!
Topic: Sources: HUNDEN to be unbanned!
2020 and 2021 was a tumultuous couple of years for Counter-Strike, from everything going online to the coach bug abuse, which saw 37 coaches getting banned from ESIC affiliated competitions, but one person in particular was in focus. Nicolai 'HUNDEN' Petersen, the former coach of Heroic.
2020 started out well for Heroic, culminating in a historical win at IEM Cologne for the Danish roster. The story would sour in 2021, when HUNDEN amongst other coaches got a ban for abusing the coaching bug.
What is the coaching bug?
The coaching bug allowed coaches to get 'stuck' in a place in the map for the entirety of the game. The findings from Michal Slowinski and Steve Dudenhoeffer, who reviewed a huge number of demos manually to catch the coaches abusing the bug, was used in accordance with ESIC to give out bans to their affiliated competitions according to their guidelines.
What happened?
On September 28th of 2020, ESIC officially announced the ban of the 37 coaches who abused the coaching bug, where HUNDEN was on that list. This resulted in HUNDEN being moved to an analyst position within Heroic, with the expectation of him returning to the Head Coach position again after the ban expired.
On May 2nd of 2021, Heroic made an official announcement of HUNDEN coming back to the team, while the joy in the community was high, and the ambitions was through the roof, it would soon lose its grasp and become heavily impacted by the controversy that would happen no less than two months after the announcement (Announcement).
Two days before the reigning Cologne champions would return to defend their title, an announcement from Heroic appeared on HLTV stating that HUNDEN would not attend IEM Cologne (Source). This would later be revealed that HUNDEN had shared a Google Drive with an opponent, which contained confidential information about the strats, anti-strats, how they watched demos and much more.
HUNDEN was convicted of using the coach bug and later accused for sharing the previously mentioned confidential information from Heroic's playbook to a competitor. This was then later confirmed in Heroic's own video statement about the scenario (Source).
In the same video the Heroic players admitted that they knew of the first time HUNDEN used the coach bug and told him not to do it again. HUNDEN chose to do it again later, which resulted in him being officially removed from the team.
HUNDEN was then later convicted by ESIC of
- The perceived or actual threat posed to competitive integrity created by the Incident concerning the upcoming member event: ESL’s IEM Cologne;
- The perceived or actual threat posed to competitive integrity in esports more broadly; and
- The perceived or actual threat posed to the reputation of ESIC’s member, and esports more broadly (Source).
As ESIC mention in their report, they investigated the situation through various sources and methods, which led to HUNDEN receiving another ban, this time lasting 2 years.
On May 2nd of 2021, Heroic made an official announcement of HUNDEN coming back to the team, while the joy in the community was high, and the ambitions was through the roof, it would soon lose its grasp and become heavily impacted by the controversy that would happen no less than two months after the announcement (Announcement).
Two days before the reigning Cologne champions would return to defend their title, an announcement from Heroic appeared on HLTV stating that HUNDEN would not attend IEM Cologne (Source). This would later be revealed that HUNDEN had shared a Google Drive with an opponent, which contained confidential information about the strats, anti-strats, how they watched demos and much more.
HUNDEN was convicted of using the coach bug and later accused for sharing the previously mentioned confidential information from Heroic's playbook to a competitor. This was then later confirmed in Heroic's own video statement about the scenario (Source).
In the same video the Heroic players admitted that they knew of the first time HUNDEN used the coach bug and told him not to do it again. HUNDEN chose to do it again later, which resulted in him being officially removed from the team.
HUNDEN was then later convicted by ESIC of
- The perceived or actual threat posed to competitive integrity created by the Incident concerning the upcoming member event: ESL’s IEM Cologne;
- The perceived or actual threat posed to competitive integrity in esports more broadly; and
- The perceived or actual threat posed to the reputation of ESIC’s member, and esports more broadly (Source).
As ESIC mention in their report, they investigated the situation through various sources and methods, which led to HUNDEN receiving another ban, this time lasting 2 years.
Update on the situation
HUNDEN later pressed legal charges against ESIC to dispute the ban.
The sources tell EsportFire, based on the burden of proof, which were in ESIC's hands, there were not sustainable enough evidence for the ban, which led to the case being dropped before reaching court. The sources also mention that this will result in an official unban of Nicolai "HUNDEN" Petersen, and an official apology from ESIC.
The sources tell EsportFire, based on the burden of proof, which were in ESIC's hands, there were not sustainable enough evidence for the ban, which led to the case being dropped before reaching court. The sources also mention that this will result in an official unban of Nicolai "HUNDEN" Petersen, and an official apology from ESIC.
