Six EU ESL PL matches rescheduled
Due to flight delays and cancellations for three teams that attended DreamHack Masters Las Vegas, ESL has decided to postpone six ESL Pro League Season 5 matches that were scheduled to be played today and tomorrow.
Members of Natus Vincere, Virtus.pro and Ninjas in Pyjamas were struck by lengthy delays on their return from Las Vegas, with certain players spending more than 72 hours in transit to their homes.
In light of that, ESL has decided that the three teams' upcoming matches will be rescheduled—but pointed out that this is a special circumstance and that rescheduling matches is normally not possible in Pro League.
byali was one of the players affected by extreme flight delays
ESL put out the following statement:
"We started to receive first reports and warnings about a cancelled flight from Dreamhack Las Vegas back to Europe on Tuesday. We were also informed that this might affect teams showing up for their matches this week, including Natus Vincere, Ninjas in Pyjamas and Virtus.pro. After receiving further information throughout last night and earlier this morning, we decided to invoke special circumstances and cancel the three related matches this week and reschedule them to a later point which has not been defined yet."
"We would like to make it clear that usually rescheduling matches is not possible in the League. However, due to the special circumstances and the delays caused by the airline, we are granting a special exception. Players affected by this will in some cases arrive home after their official match start or just a short time before the start of their match after being on the road and traveling for more than 72 hours in a stressful and exhausting situation out of their control."
The following double-headers will be rescheduled for a later, to be announced date:
22.2., 19:00 | Natus Vincere | vs. North |
23.2., 19:00 | Ninjas in Pyjamas | vs. fnatic |
23.2., 21:20 | Virtus.pro | vs. HellRaisers |
Professeur writes for HLTV.org and can be found on Twitter.