After four years lined with numerous championships and other accomplishments, Cloud9 closed the doors on its Overwatch League Academy team, the British Hurricane, earlier this week. The British Hurricane was the London Spitfire’s Academy team in Overwatch Contenders, and both the Spitfire and the Hurricane were owned by Cloud9.
All players and coaches associated with the British Hurricane will be released by the end of 2021 as Cloud9 ceases all operations regarding the team, the company revealed on its website. While Cloud9 did not offer a definitive reason as to why the Academy team is being disbanded, the organization seems to be looking towards its other endeavors across other games, as well as looking towards the future of its main Overwatch League team, the London Spitfire.
Within the team’s lifetime, the British Hurricane achieved many feats on behalf of Cloud9. They notably went through their entire Contenders 2020 season without losing a single match to any other European team, winning all of Season Two and the Gauntlet at the end of the year. This year, they successfully retained that first place spot at the end of Contenders Season One and the beginning of Season 2. They then fell to third this past October as part of Season Three.
Cloud9’s main Overwatch League team, the London Spitfire, is still on track to compete in the upcoming OWL season early next year. The destinations of the team members and staff of the British Hurricane affected by this sudden announcement are still unclear.
The next season of the OWL is expected to begin in Spring 2022, using a development build of Overwatch 2 for all matches. The release date for Overwatch 2 has yet to be revealed.
