St. Dominic is excited to announce a new sport to the long list of athletics and activities: Esports. With all new technology and a huge interest in gaming from all grade levels, St. Dominic has all of the necessities to accomplish this goal.

Esports is electronic sports (gaming). Esports in its simplest form is competitions using video games. Esports competitions are typically based on multiplayer video games, typically between professional players, teams, or individuals. Some games require a team of five, three or just one person. St. Dominic will have options for all three categories for its students. Esports help with collaboration, teamwork and other skills that are also learned through traditional sports. If a player doesn’t want to play on a team then they can focus on a solo game just like in golf or tennis.

Back in September, Mr. Doug Small, director of technology and boys basketball coach, sent out a survey to every class asking if anyone was interested in participating in an Esports team. With over 100 responses, Mr. Small knew he had to make it happen.

“This year, one of my jobs was to look into Esport to see how much it cost and if it would fit our school environment,” Mr. Small said.

Many schools in our district already have an Esports team, and St. Dominic does not want to be late to the game. Including a different type of activity in our school is very exciting and important in order to include the interests of every student. Mr. Small has been very busy trying to get everything sorted out in order for this to become reality. He worked with the IT company, Keystone Technologies to upgrade the network in the future Esports room to increase the bandwidth. This allows Esports to not hog the network from the day to day activities of our students and staff.

“We hired a company, ggCircuit, who outfitted CBC, to outfit our room which means to convert a classroom into an Esports lab.  The company ggCircuit is coming in the first of January to install their server which allows them to help, manage and update the machines. Being installed in the room will be 25 Pc’s with tables, gaming chairs, gaming headphones and all the accessories that come with a computer, 8 TV’s hung on the wall, 11 consoles (3 PS5’s, 3 Xbox Series X, and 5 Nintendo Switches) and so much more. Just this weekend, I bought all of the games that we will compete in. The games are Super Smash Ultimate, Splatoon, Mario Kart (switch),  FIFA, NHL, Madden (PS5, Xbox), and Overwatch, Fortnite, Rocket League, League of Legends, Smite, and Valorant (PC),” Mr. Small said.

Whether a student is used to a PC or a Ninetdo Switch, Mr. Small made sure to have it all. There will be an interest meeting on Monday to figure out how many teams there will be, so make sure to go check it out and game on!