Initialy the team’s hope had been to solve its rapidly declining performance and failure to meet expectations by having a meeting, but how to accomplish that seemed to be of some disagreement. The first move came with the removal of Preben “oops” Josdal on Friday, July 21st, and today was followed up with the departure of Geir "juve9le" Svendsen and Sondre "REAL" Svanevik.

As a result of those two huge departures the remaining two members of Catch Gamer, Jonas "bsl" Vikan and Lars "Naikon" Olaisen, have decided to retire. This places the entire Catch Gamer Counter-Strike 1.6 organization as inactive from competitive play at this time.

“Long-term the reason for the break up is the, except an average WEG Masters, piss-poor results we have endured in 2006,” said Vikan, “Compared to 2005 we have a much stronger line-up player for player - still the team could not perform to our own standards and goals which stated that we were aiming for top4 finish at every event. Something had to be done and after evaluating the catastrophic effort in Dallas where we place 17th through 24th there was a consensus on not renewing Preben "oops" Josdals contract.”

Consensus according to Svanevik didn’t exist. A divide was created between the older members of Catch Gamer Olaisen (22) and Vikan (24) and the younger members Svendsen (19) and Svanevik (16).

“Well, things didn’t really work out how we thought, after 7 months in Catch-Gamer, we didn’t achieve anything,” said Svanevik, “Things had to be done after ISC, and without me knowing it, oops was removed from the lineup and this is not acceptable. Combined with this, I felt we didn’t really become any better, so it was in fact an easy choice.”

Neither side seems to agree at this point how the circumstances happen. Both conceded a meeting took place on Thursday, 21:00 CET. The result of that meeting is up for debate. Vikan claims all parties agreed to remove Josdal from the team while Svanevik claims nothing was decided and a further meeting would happen the next day.

“We all talked about oops getting kicked, juve9le and I clearly stated our opinion,” said Svanevik, “They told me and juve9le to have another meeting the day after. The day after I woke up because of the telephone, it was one of the Catch owners telling me they had kicked oops.”

Vikan sees the issue as a matter of loyalty. He felt the younger players agreed that Josdal’s behavior had become an issue on the team and something needed to be done in order to improve the team’s results. Still after a decision was made he believes the players changed their mind.

“If Svanevik says that he is either confused or already forgot the ventrilo meeting he participated in on Thursday at 9:00 pm GMT+1 where the different solutions were discussed and where he explicitly said that even though he could go on playing with Josdal he was aware of the downsides of that in terms of personality and that he respected that there was a majority vote from players, sponsors and the management to seek someone that could compete, work, practice with a more positive attitude,” said Vikan.

He went on to add, “In the middle of the process, and after having participated and agreed to it, team members Geir Stian "juve9le" Svendsen and Sondre "REAL" Svanevik changed their minds feeling that it would be impossible for the team to get back on track with a replacement.”

The recent departure of Preben "prb" Gammelsæter from Team NoA has fueled rumors that the former Team 9 members could reunite. Svanevik wouldn’t confirm the rumors entirely but did say that a new team similar to the old Team 9 should happen.

“I will continue playing Counter-Strike, and it will be for a new Norwegian team,” said Svanevik, “It will almost be team9 and even better. We are all very excited, the only thing stopping us are problems finding organizations big enough for the team.”

For the old veterans of the Counter-Strike professional scene, Vikan and Olaisen seem to be content to retire from the scene. Neither has any current prospect of still playing on the horizon. Vikan personally will continue to be a freelance writer, commentator and potentially by giving lectures to businesses and institutions.

“For me personally it's not a surprise as I've been around the block a few times and seen the ‘ugly’ side of eSports,” said Vikan, “However that has never deterred my faith in the industry and its inherent potential. For the sake of myself and Olaisen, this was probably the last hurrah as we are both pondering our retirements after affectionately having been known as ‘team grandpa’ since WEG Masters this spring.”

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