If you were involved in tournament paintball in the late 1990s early 2000s you were part of something very special that may never happen again. The industry for the most part was small and working together to better the sport. the atmosphere around NPPL events was electric, especially the World Cup. it was a party with your best friends and when you were there you knew in your heart that you were part of some thing great.
DYE, National Paintball supply,and smartparts had there huge ass semi trucks that fold out into booths. there was a mixture of fields from woods to hyper (witch used to belong to dye precision, they were the last to convert to air ball bunkers), to air ball. Kingman brought a DJ shocktech had a great setup with a bad ass sound system, and then there was WDP and the infamous Angel heaven. walking around you would bump into major people in the industry and they were cool to talk to.Playing these events was amazing, even if you were a division B player you could and probably would draw a pro team to play against. Aftershock (with Danny Love) and Avalanche (pre Jeremy Salms), and image were the teams to beat back then, things were awesome.
paintball traveled with the warped tour, VANS made shoes specific to our sport..... and some where along the lines things started to slip.

fast foreward just a couple years and you have a league split down the middle. the NPPL bankrupt, An industry that said "forget building a bigger pie I want my slice now" and players that have changed the sport they loved to have a better shot at getting their face on TV, we no longer are seeing as many new players coming up because we are scaring them off before they get a foot in the door. local fields and stores are closing because they can't keep themselves alive in the current market.

the most profound conversation I have had with Tom Kaye was at IAO 2003, he was talking about always looking forward to the event because a lot of the big names would get together at Ms. Dobbins (from ICD ) place and brainstorm about how to make the sport better for the players and the industry, But he said they could no longer do that because of all the lawsuits being thrown around, later that year Tom retired from paintball ..... we need more Tom kayes