Pump League in New England

Gravity League - NH - July 11th, 2009 - Pump Tournament 3 Man

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AG Paintball is going to be the first location of the newly formed Gravity League Pump Tournament.
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3 Man Limited Paint Pump Tournament
Date: July 11th, 2009
Location: AG Paintball ( agpaintball.com ), Weare, NH
Style of Play: 3 Man Pump Tournament, Limited Paint.
Cost: $90 per team ($30 per player), includes admission and all day air.
Paint: Field Paint Only - Empire RAMP Paintballs - $20 per bag - $65 per Case
Limited Paint: Unless things change (it's been known to happen), we're playing 40 rounds per player only. Walk onto the field with 4 tubes of paint each. 
Rules: To be posted shortly in PDF format, but in short. Pumps only. No air assist or electronics in the gun in any form... Electronic hoppers are allowed.

Trophies and Prizes to be awarded to the top 3 teams. 

This is going to be a fun, let's get out there and play style tournament. Leave your attitudes at the gate, as they will not be tolerated. I will be there, and I will be playing!!!

one more day to go

well, this week I got the gear bag put back  in order, most of my tools have been located. the Sto is shooting nice (by the way she is the sexiest cocker ever made) I have manged to locate a few more potential players thanks to Mcarter brown. Ricko will be joining us up in New York as a camera man so I should have some pics and video up on sunday.

Paintball Paintball Paintball

so after a while away from the field, and this blog for that matter I have come to the conclusion that I will be sticking around this god foresaken sport, atleast for another season. we will be heading to  up state New York for a two on two oldschool pump event the weekend after next... not exactly what I was hoping for for my first event for my 20th year on the field( it should have been Nppl HB but this should be fun anyway ) 

I have a lot to do to get ready to go

my gearbag is in shambles

my tools are tossed to the wind 

I have to set up the AKA two liter I bought for the STO sniper and never bothered putting on. 

my cat seems to have a taste for JT soft ears so I have 4 out of five proflexes with cat damage (damn you General Tso's Kitten)

I was doing great with the gym until work came on hot and heavy and now I am back into my usual off season slump. so I need to get my fat ass back on the treadmill quick. 

before we roll into this year we need to find some replacement  players and pump play in Western Massachusetts is on the slim side so that should be fun... if you have any leads feel free to let me know.

I hope I get to the field and it feels like old times I don't want this to me more work then fun anymore. 

I don't want to be a baysitter

I just want to  play.... to go out give it my all and win lose or drawI want the other teams to respect me. and if they do win I want it to be such a fight they hurt bad enough the next day that they think twice about going to work.  in these twenty year I have alway tried to be the good guy  and as long as I am in this, thats what I will be. 

 

life behind lenses vintage tech #1

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

NPPL Bankruptcy

"Pacific Paintball and its subsidiaries will be filing proceedings under the United States Bankruptcy Code to effect a liquidation of their respective assets and business operations. The affairs and assets of Pacific Paintball LLC, NPPL LLC, XPSL LLC, PB2X LLC, Xtreme Paintball Fields LLC and Camp Pendleton Paintball LLC will be administered by a court appointed trustee in bankruptcy. The bankruptcy court will provide you with written instructions regarding how and where to file any claims in this matter.

Despite doing all we could do, we were unable to make the business a viable concern. Further, in this severe economic climate, we were unable to secure new funding. It is a truly regrettable outcome, though one which is unfortunately occurring more and more frequently in this environment. We thank all those who have supported us"

Earlier this week this press release was sent out signaling the end of an era in paintball. there have been a lot of mixed emotions from the playing community.
most of the NPPL teams I have talked to are in a daze and doing there best to figure out what they are going to be doing this season.
some of the people on the paintball forums are saying that this is a good thing because it should unify tournament paintball, having only one major league in the US, but I am not that optimistic. I do not think that the PSP will be able to keep it together with the HUGE influx of players that may be coming there way and the first few deciding events may become a logistical nightmare.
if all of the teams playing in the NPPL hopped over to PSP events, it would just about double the size of the league.
the PSP already runs for 4 days with the players that they have, so the events would most likely be a week long. and for the most part the players are not in a position the be able to take 5-6 weeks off of work or school per year.

plus there are people like me who do not have faith in the way the PSP is setting its rules.

I do not think that ramping has a place in tournament paintball.
the ASTM standards set forth by the paintball manufacturers are put in place for a reason, to keep the companies safe from lawsuits as long as they build markers withing the ASTM guidelines
and in those guidelines it states 1 trigger pull, one ball, pump or semi auto action only.
on top of that I spent a LONG time learning my gear and how to make it shoot
it is a skill that is lost to ramping, now every twelve year kid can pull the trigger three times and hold down a lane.

the PSP fans will say that the ramping rule was put in place to curb cheating, and in a sense it does, if you change the rules to allow cheating, I guess it is no longer cheating, but all that would have had to be done is to talk to the board manufacturers and make them add a mini usb connector to the boards so they could be flashed when the player steps on the field insuring that they are locked in semi and capped at X bps (the board manufacturers re designed them to be PSP compliant so they could have just as easily made them semi only compliant)
and if they refused put them on a list of non complient boards an not allow them at the events. hit them in the wallet they will fall in line

Yes you still have the issue of trigger bounce , but you have that issue with the first three shots in PSP mode .Distribute HARD penalties and fines for players caught willfully cheating. Do you really think that it would be worth say a two event suspension for that player with no substitution (so the team has team play a man down) or a $500.00 from every rostered member of a team or an automatic forfit from the event to have a cheating marker on the field? make it not worth their effort and they will fall in line.

next on my list of gripes is sideline coaching, again I spent a lot of time on field awareness and it is lost to 12 year old who can have people on the sidelines tell him whats happening, where the opponents are, how many are left, how much time is left and when to move.
it is just a stupid rule written for lazy people who are unwilling to do the work to become better in their sport.

that said, the PSP has a lot of god going for it too
the xball format aside from the rules listed above is VERY cool. and I wouldn't mind at all playing it.... just with stock class pump guns and no coaches :)
think about that... the highest level of player playing with the lowest technology
games not being decided by the largest wall of paint, or a monkey on the sideline running his mouth, but by the best team.... if it was a perfect world

tournament paintball

why do I play tournys? well alot of reasons...

first and foremost for fun and friends

but other than that

A paintball tournament is where I feel most alive

this is something I was writing about the other night
a lot of it might not make sense to anybody who wasn't there but I'll put it up here anyway

life to me:

life to me is a long ride to get to the game, it is 3:00 am fire alarms in the skydome hotel the night before finals,

it is a doughnut orgy in Fla.

it is pit beef sandwiches in Maryland.

it is being so tired and filthy at the end of a day playing that you can get away with just about anything at the hotel after words because you must appear completely insane to the staff.

it is 600 fields in 600 cities and 600 different hotel rooms in cities that you have never been to before. and just before everybody falls asleep it's "TELL ME A STORY" as you are beaten by your 10 team mates that have shoe horned themselves into a room the size of a closet.

it is 3....2....1..... TEN SECONDS!!! and for some reason that ten seconds last a lifetime.

it is dive bars up and down the east coast

It is flying back home after a tourny and hoping you get home in time to catch the dropkick murphys show

it is making the finals at Skyball by one point

life to me is calling your girlfriend from 2,000 miles away and trying to convince her that you really do love her even though work only permits you to see her on the weekends and alot of those have to be used for practice, scrimages, tourneys, team meetings, and machine work for other players.

it is seeing your team name or picture in the magazines for the first time and after that waiting none to patiently for them to come to your door just to see if you are in it again

it is the feeling you get right before the game starts when everybody has a hand in and you look at your team mates and know that there is nowhere else you would rather be

writen by me in 2003