Another year of JANLAN has come and gone and what an event it was. This year we saw a huge response from our sponsors and JANLAN was an incredible event because of it. We also saw a double circuit blow out, a finicky internet connection, five competitions, and an AQA clan grudge match that was an intense nail-biting affair.

First, I want to give a gigantic thank you to our sponsors for all of their donations and support; they help create one of the most memorable JanLAN's in the last 10 years. They donated such a mountain of good stuff that I can only list the REALLY BIG stuff.

Thank you again for all your support without the community events like ours could never take place. This was the first year that we had a high enough turn out to actually push the circuits in the building we use; but, we reconfigured the output of the power grid, changed how the MCP directed the power flow and had everyone up and running with zero issues after the first few hiccups. However, due to the quick work of reconfiguring teams cable control went slightly awry.

For most of the prizes and loot we drew raffle winners and scattered the winners about the faithful in a generally liberal manner. The Cooler Master case "Early Bird" prize was awarded to "Anubis" on the first day. The next day we raffled off the last of the non-competetive prizes, with "BilboHicks" winning a Crucial Memory 6 Gigabyte 1333MHz DDR3 Ballistix™ memory kit, an anonymous player winning a SilverStone KL02 Case, and our Bigfoot Networks Killer™ 2100 Network Card Grand Prize being won by "Xyphyr".

During the event we hosted five official competitions, Dawn of War: Soulstorm, Starcraft 2, Team Fortress 2, Call of Duty 4 and Unreal Tournament 3. Dawn of War: Soulstorm was a five man single elimination event that lasted a grueling three hours in total. With the eventual winner being an anonymous player, who took home a Cooler Master Case for his prowess. The Starcraft 2 competition was an eight man double elimination event that was dominated by "Justin". For his stellar performance he was awarded the top prize, a Cooler Master case. We kicked off first person shooter competition with Team Fortress 2 with what started out as a landslide turned into a 130 minute frantic bout of barely contained chaos across the entirety TC Hydro. The entire match was absolutely subjugated to the will of "Banzi" whose total score was more than double his nearest competitor. For his amazing score, he was also awarded a Cooler Master case. The Unreal Tournament 3 competition was initially a plague of rockets from "Bazonkia" that catapulted him into the lead, and when the match degenerated into a close quarter's match of flak cannons and impact hammers, he continued his march to victory. For his prowess in digital gib generation he was awarded a Cooler Master Laptop Cooler and a copy of Street Fighter 4. The final competition for JanLAN 2011 was a max capacity match of Call of Duty 4. Three total rounds of 20 minutes each. The initial round saw no clear winner, with seven competitors all within three points of each other; however, the final two matches were controlled by "Combo Man" displaying an unrivaled skill with digital arms. His total score at the end of the event was greater than the 2nd and 3rd place finishers combined. The final award for our competitions was another Cooler Master case.

The final event of JANLAN was the annual grudge match of Aquarium Gaming vs. the world, well actually everyone else at the LAN who wants to challenge us. In previous years the match has been a blowout in one direction or the other; this year, this year was something special. The game was Call of Duty 4, game type: Sabotage, map: Countdown, Style: Hardcore; 11 man teams, best of seven rounds. The challengers went ahead 3 rounds to zero against Aquarium in a brutal slugfest. Using a very effective crossfire of heavy machine guns and pinpoint sniper fire they pinned Clan Aquarium against their hangers. Only suicide runs could get the bomb away from the plant location. Down, bleeding, our faith in tatters, two of our Clan members emerged from the carnage to keep us from failing; so began the TriggerFish and Porch Zombie show. With the rest of the clan flanking them, acting as bullet soaks and meat shields, TriggerFish and Porch Zombie eliminated the entire opposing force and planted the bomb; holding the location against all comers. Our first win was a spark of hope, the rest of the clan answered the showing with grit and determination Clan Aquarium won the final two rounds to force overtime. In the final round, the bomb removed, elimination of the enemy was our only concern; Gresh picked up with TriggerFish and Porch Zombie left off and with careful patience eliminated the final three members of the challenging force, thereby sealing the victory for Clan Aquarium. And so ended the final organized match of JANLAN 2011.

-Brent "ZePoisonousWyrm" Lingo