Hey everyone,

After an incredible few days at the Austin Major, I’m back home in Ottawa and wanted to share some highlights from the BLAST Austin Major — one of the most exciting events I’ve attended.

The atmosphere was amazing. I had the chance to meet so many people I admire in the Counter-Strike scene, reconnect with familiar faces from the ThirdSite community, and meet even more CS fans from Ottawa.

Special thanks to Jason Lake, CEO of Complexity, for taking the time to meet with fans. His ongoing support for the North American CS scene has been a real inspiration for people like me to get involved and help grow the scene however we can.

I also had the chance to meet Fl0m, ParksCasts (caster and Team Manager for Esports Canada), and GoosemanCS (one of the original developers of Counter-Strike). Finally got to meet Mahone in person as well — he works at Leetify and played a key role in helping us secure our Leetify partnership, generously providing giveaway codes for our ThirdSite watch parties.

Sorry if I forgot anyone else — it was great to meet you, too.

Attending this event wasn’t just about enjoying great CS as a fan — it was also an opportunity to connect with others in the scene and share what we’re building with ThirdSite. I’m looking forward to organizing our next event and hopefully including some of the people and organizations I met at the Major in a future watch party.

The Austin Major was a huge moment for North American Counter-Strike. Here’s hoping we see more Majors hosted in NA soon — and fingers crossed for one in Canada!

—eviljonbob
Founder, ThirdSite