It's here. It's finally here.

After months of planning and organizing and mobilizing behind the scenes, it's time to get down to business. Let's do this. Let's descend upon Chicagoland for Word Cup, the most exciting tournament on the Scrabble calendar in 2022. Our whole team has been gearing up for this event for 6+ months, and now it's happening. Let's go.

The final deadline for registration passed on Friday, which means barring any unexpected last-minute shakeups, we'll be moving forward with a field of 73 players, including 40 in Division 1 and 33 in Division 2. The field is big, and it is loaded, with former world and national champions up and down the list. D1 should be an absolute murderers' row, and we should have an exciting competition in D2 as well, with a number of strong intermediates preparing to vie for that title. We're excited to watch both races unfold.

What excites me the most, though I won't speak for the entire CoCo team on this, is the truly international nature of this tournament. When we first founded this organization almost three years ago now, one of our primary goals was to unite the U.S. and Canada with the rest of the Scrabble world, getting everyone to play together under one roof using one lexicon. This tournament will be our greatest success yet in that regard, as we received sign-ups from 11 different countries around the globe.

And for everyone else in the Scrabble world who can't make it to the tournament in person, we plan on sharing the event with you as well, courtesy of a world-class streaming experience. I'm thrilled to announce that we've firmed up a number of details on that front. This year's Word Cup broadcast will be produced by Christian Kay, the absolute best Scrabble streamer in the business, and will feature live commentary from a number of on-air analysts including myself, Jesse Matthews, Weibin Toh, Jeremy Khoo, Aditya Iyengar, and possibly another special guest or two that we're still nailing down. Plus, thanks to the blessing of Scopely, the makers of Scrabble GO and PlayScrabble.com, we're poised to air the stream live on the game's official Twitch channel: twitch.tv/Scrabble. This tournament is 31 rounds long, and we plan to be on the air all week, delivering you 31 expert-level games of Scrabble, culminating in the crowning of a champion next Wednesday. We can't wait.

We plan to provide a host of other content, too. Follow along on your platform of choice - we'll have updates on the tournament coming at you all week long via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and this very blog. You'll have no shortage of ways to follow the action. Plus, game-by-game results are always easy to find on our website right here.

Whether you're in the playing room slinging tiles or in your living room at home following along, we hope you're looking forward to Word Cup! Get ready for the tournament of the year.