The landscape of the Ontario Smash scene could see a major change in 2017.

Announced on Dec. 22, 2016, the Ontario Smash Circuit (OSC) aims to unite the Ontario smash community and build a more detailed database of players.

“The way it’s been is we’ve had isolated events in London, Windsor and Toronto with a slight bit of overlap where one carpool attends an event. What I’m hoping this will do is unite these communities,” said Shaun Byrne, founder of OSC.

Spanning 10 regions, the circuit will culminate in a 16-player bracket in the finals. There will be 10 regional champions and an additional six wildcard competitors.

The regions include Windsor-Chatham, London-Sarnia, Kitchener-Waterloo, Hamilton-Niagara, Greater Toronto Area, Durham-Peterborough, Kingston, Barrie, Ottawa and Sudbury-North Bay.

“There will be a standings database that takes all the rankings from selected majors and monthlies and the top-six players will qualify as provincial wildcard,” said Byrne.

The standings won’t be something that tries to take over the current power ranking (PR) system, a list that ranks competitive smashers by skill. Instead the standings will “go hand in hand,” allowing for healthy discussion within the community.

Although there are only 10 regions at the moment, there is room for growth with regions if deemed necessary.

Bryne believes that with many isolated events throughout the province it was time to try and unite them while “adding more value to them along the way.” The long term goal would be to approach a larger sponsor to sponsor the entire circuit, which in turn would lead to larger prize pools.

Despite his ties to EGE, Byrne reiterates that the OSC is not an EGE circuit.

“One thing I want to make clear is what I intended the OSC to be is a circuit run by the community, so if other organizers want to be involved I want them to reach out,” said Byrne. “This is not an EGE project, this is an Ontario project.”

EGE will be a “sponsor rather than the lead organizer.” The goal would be to get more sponsors on board to grow the prize pool and increase revenue for the Ontario community.

With the circuit highly community based, the hope is to see organizers across Ontario to join the circuit and help in various ways.  So far Byrne has gotten help from organizers with deciding on which regions to narrow the choices down too, and Byrne has been able to “run ideas across them and find out any problems that may arise so they can be fixed.”

So far, Affinity Play of London is on board to look after the London region.

The OSC can be followed through various social media including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.