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With 2006 coming to a close and Christmas just 2 weeks away, what a better way to celebrate the end of busy year by hosting a giant LAN party. After an extended 6 month absence, the TFL aka Toronto Fun League hosted a 2 day event at the CNIB Centre on December 16th-17th, 2006. Like previous TFL events, the theme presented this year was BYOC with the inclusion of professional gaming tournaments ranging from the ever-popular Counter Strike, Counter Strike Source, Warcraft III, Starcraft and 1v1 Unreal. Event participants would have a chance to win up to $50,000 in prizes donated by the event sponsors. MODTHEBOX was invited down to participate in the event along with a few other sponsors which included A-Bit, Cooler Master, D-Link, G-Skill, K-Tec and LG Electronics.

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The weekend started off with great weather considering this was the month of December. There was a slight chill in the air with temperatures ranging from 9°C-11°C. The CNIB Center is located mid-way from Toronto's downtown core so traveling time by car was an easy 40 minute drive. The CNIB organization is a nationwide, community-based, registered charity committed to research, public education and vision health for all Canadians. CNIB provides the services and support necessary for people to enjoy a good quality of life while living with vision loss.

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Upon entering the event all spectators and visitors are required to sign-up at the TFL registration booth. TFL|Grant and TFL|Navy were on-hand to deal with the event participants, issuing each person green coloured wristbands that would provide easy entry and exit from the event. When I arrived on Saturday December 16th, the event was already in full swing with gamers actively fragging away at their systems.

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The LAN admins were busy setting up the network center area using Gigabit switches donated by D-Link and bandwidth provided by Rogers. This area would also include the TFL tournament servers as well as live webcams to stream a portion of the event. As a backup plan to make sure that the event ran smoothly, the TFL also arranged to have a portable diesel generator available onsite for the event.

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In the main tournament and BYOC area LG Electronics had set-up a booth displaying the latest line of products including LG's Wide Display Flatron LCD monitors and mobile notebooks. This gave gamers a chance to get up and close with some of the latest high-end components to hit the consumer market. What particularly caught my eye was the demonstration for Microsoft's widely popular "Gears of War" title for the XBOX360 running on a nice 42" Flatscreen Monitor.