HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – The Honolulu Marathon isn’t the only athletic event happening this weekend.
The Vanta Hawaii ESports League Championships kicked off Saturday morning, it’s their first ever in-person tournament.
21 different schools will be competing throughout the two-day tournament in games like Super Smash Bros, League of Legends and Rocket League.
Vanta Hawaii holding this event with the hopes of bringing ESports more into the mainstream here in the islands.
“It’s really special.” Vanta co-founder Ed Lallier told Hawaii News Now. “When we started, this idea of building a Hawaii ESports league, I mean, so many people rallied around it, Hawaii has such a wealth of talent and enthusiasm and it’s really great to see everybody coming together, just to make a really healthy ecosystem.”
For the students, in their own words, it’s just awesome. Landon Paslay is a seventh grader at Ewa Makai Middle School and he and his teammates only have one goal in mind.
“I’m really excited about it.” Paslay said, “I plan to either give them a run for their money or to win.”
Beyond the buttons and combo moves, Vanta Hawaii looks to educate their athletes throughout the tourney, during their lunch breaks they will have presentations from guest speakers on the career pathways that ESports has to offer and on the prevention of cyber bullying, a cause that hits close to home for Lallier.
“It’s really a special for me, I founded Vanta in response to my son unfortunately being cyber bullied and so we sought out to create a space that’s safe for kids to game.” Lallier said. “They have adult supervision and they’re learning meaningful skills that are actually going somewhere rather than just a hobby, there’s actually over 200 plus colleges and universities that will give you a full athletic scholarship to play on their varsity video game team.”
The Championships run through Sunday at HPU’s ESports Arena at Aloha Tower.
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