The second Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Call of the North online qualifier presented by Bell is here and Northern Arena has kicked it up a notch this time around.

Thirty-two Canadian teams will lock horns on Oct. 22 and 23 for a shot to compete against some of the best CS:GO teams in the world at the Northern Arena Montreal LAN Finals in November. The number is a tremendous increase from the eight teams that appeared in the first qualifier back in July.

Northern Arena co-founder and CEO Carl-Edwin Michel was especially selective for the first qualifier in a quest to legitimize the competition instead of opening the floodgates, but now says the interest level is much too high to turn down the amount of teams looking to compete.

“It was just not as popular before,” Michel told TSN.ca. “People are taking notice. They are interested. They’re like ‘OK, wait a minute, we want to be a part of it. They have a great platform, we want to be a part of that,” so yeah, it’s cool. It’s just going to get bigger and bigger.”

Michel’s goal when he co-founded the Canadian League of Gamers and later Northern Arena was to increase the exposure for Canadian players and teams in esports. What he’s found is some great and promising Canadian amateur clubs as well as many Canadian connections through teams all over the world.

In order to fit the criteria to compete in the event, teams must be Canadian based, Canadian owned or made up of a majority of Canadian players. The rule eliminated entrants from many teams from Europe and the United States, but allowed compLexity Gaming - three Canadian players - and Luminosity Gaming - Canadian organization with a Brazilian roster - entrance into the event.

“We have to be careful because we’re getting subscriptions from the [United] States, from Europe, but we want to focus on Canada so unfortunately we tell those guys that it’s fun that they’re interested but they can’t compete,” Michel said. “We want to focus on the Canadian teams.”

Luminosity and compLexity will be two of the most recognizable names competing this weekend and are stalwarts on the professional circuit. CompLexity fell in the quarter-finals at the Toronto LAN Finals at the beginning of September and Luminosity was forced to withdraw due to visa issues.

While the event has expanded its borders, Michel is tempering his expectations.

“This weekend is going to be a little quiet … compared to a live event, so we’ll have people watching online. Again, I don’t expect the same numbers as Toronto because we don’t have the same kind of teams,” he said. “They’re Canadian teams trying to compete. But the good thing about that is we have more teams now.”

What he does expect is the level of competition to be of the highest quality. Amateurs and professionals alike will have to bring their best if they hope to join the group of seven waiting for them at the $100,000 main event at the Bell Centre in Montreal from Nov. 10-13.

The seven professional teams already invited to Montreal are Counter Logic Gaming, OpTic Gaming, NRG eSports, EnVyUs, G2 Esports, Team Liquid and Heroic.

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“For Call of the North, numbers are not my priority for that one. I think it’s more about having a nice tournament, having a buzz, people can talk about Northern Arena again,” Michel said. “I’m looking forward to having great matches.”