Paintball Journal

As of Wednesday, I will officially be a blogger for Xtreme Paintball. This brings many new exciting opportunities not only for myself but for this blog as well. I plan to use that blog as a way to really get in touch with people and companies and can use some of the material that becomes available through that blog to fuel this blog. I will also be able to promote Paintball Journal through Xtreme to a small extent. I’m very excited about all of this, but do not fear, I will not be leaving this blog to Evan. I will still be writing as usual, every day of the week.

Hopefully this new blog can really get my foot in the door with the vast majority of large paintball companies when they realize the legitimacy and ooey-gooey goodness of my blogging.

Wow, I’m watching NPPL right now on the website that Dana pointed out. It’s pretty sweet. Looks like the games will be closing out pretty soon, but there’s going to be plenty more tomorrow and Sunday. Here’s the schedule, just tune in during those times to watch your favorite teams, I know I will be!

Be warned though, the British announcer only knows how to say “Absolutely!” and “Definitely!” It’s already getting on my nerves after fifteen minutes.

Hah, and who knows what you’ll learn. So apparently Johnny Perchak developed a fear of flying after who knows how many miles around the world he had already gone. So he ended up driving to the events, but that got old? I don’t know, a guy bumped up field and interrupted the story. Oh well - awesome site, tune in!

There’s a new contest on PBNation. This time they’re offering $500 in give away prizes to their store. Here are the specs. As usual, you need to be a supporting member to be eligible to win.
$500 Heroes for a Day Give-a-way on PbNation

Hey, here we go again. 10 winners in one contest!

To celebrate the new release of Heroes for a Day we have a great contest that anyone can win and we are going to have a bunch of winners. With our good friends at Monkey with A Gun we are going to be giving away $500 worth of gift certificates for use in the PbNation store to a total of ten winners.

The Breakdown:

$100 for 1 Grand Prize winner

$75 each for 2 second place winners

$50 each for 3 third place winners

$25 each for 4 forth place winners

10 winners for a total of $500.00

Read the fine print and enjoy.

Got the tag? Get the Swag…

You must be a current PbNation Annual Supporting Member to register for the contest on the ASM forum on PbNation.

Recently we here at Paintball Journal got a little surprise. We were featured on G4TV’s “Attack of the Show”. In a segment called “BlogWatch”, the hosts of AOtS talked about two paintball blogs, ours, and Paintball Guns . Net. Surprisingly, neither of the blogs were contacted by them to let us know about it. Eh, not that we’re complaining.

You can stream the episode through G4TV’s site, but it’s a little buggy sometimes. Hopefully we’ll be able to direct link you someday, but until then you’ll have to make do with G4’s flawed “Pile” video system.

This week I’m going to be featuring different ‘07 teams in my posts. A quick recap on the teams we’ve already covered:

NE Hurricanes
Dallas Elite
Avalance
Dynasty
Ultimate

A preliminary look tells me I’ll probably try to cover XSV Damage, Ironmen, Naughty Dogs, Joy Division, and the All-Americans, but that could change. So keep an eye out for an exciting week of predictions and rosters for the ‘07 season, helped along by stats from the events that have already been play like LAO and HB.

Friendly Fire is hosting their next Young Gunz tourney this Sunday the 15th. This will be their second tournament on their new field set up, which I’ll say is very nice. They have doubled the width of the field, and maybe even the length a little bit, as well as installed grass-like turf. Their latest addition I saw from last weekend was the netted staging area for X-Ball style tournaments with penalty box included! But I don’t think that’s going to be the tourney format this time.

Young Guns 3-Man\Top Gun
April 15th
Must be 18 or under
$75.00 per team entry fee
Field paint only
Cash Prizes for 1st-3rd places
Amount decided by number of teams
Semi automatic only(no ramping)
Captains meeting at 8:30, first game at 9:00
Top Gun with crowd participation $5.00 per person with cash prizes

I’m predicting that the JFK team will sweep the tournament untouched, except maybe by Sadistic, which will place in a close second (for the third tourney in a row), and then followed by one of the MIA teams for third. We’re not playing this time for various reasons, mainly money, but also because we need to work on other things first before we give it another shot. Anyways, we’re hoping to make it up there to watch all the same, and probably take some photos.

Paintball, Paintball Tournament, Fiendly Fire Paintball

Okay, so it was me doing the nominating. Still though, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t head over to The Blogger’s Choice Awards and vote for a Paintball Blog to win!!! Think about how sweet that would be. If a paintball blog was to win the BCA for Best Sports Blog, that would really make people sit up and notice. So, it’s time to give back to the sport, and put your vote in!

Everybody knows that paintball is one of the most intense sports out there, and players lay a lot on the line, like money, careers, and friends. But now I realize where this all comes from, it comes from all the paintball companies suing each other over pointless crap (like $400,000 in this case)! We see more bickering and drama coming from the largest companies in the paintball industry than we do from high school girls (and the ones I know…well that’s simply amazing).

Here’s the official article.

April 4th
Originally Posted by Dale Ford
It would appear that Bob Long and his company, Bob Long Action Sports Technologies are suing Gino Postorivo, NPS, PBS Holdings, Inc. and AJ Holdings, LLC.

A scan of federal court records indicates that case #: 3:07-cv-01547-CRB was filed March 19th, 2007 in the Northern California Federal District Courts. At this time the complaint itself isn’t available on PACER, but a hearing notice has been issued in the case. While the specifics aren’t available, the documents indicate that Long and BLAST are suing over a contract dispute. The lawsuit indicates a possible reason why BLAST products are now being distributed by Archon Paintball, rather than NPS as they had been for several years.

As the details become available they’ll be reported here. Representatives for both BLAST and NPS have been contacted for comment.

Seriously, just pay your dues and move on. Or perhaps it’s the other way around; stop your whining and move on. This is paintball!

And that’s all I have to say about that.

I personally don’t know the feeling of coming back to a staging area to find that my gun has been stolen, and I hope I never have to face that. I have, however, seen it happen at a local field, and heard plenty of stories about it. A paintball gun can be a high dollar item, especially markers built for the tournament level that can run well over $1,000 new, and because they are quite small they can easily be carried off without anybody noticing.

There has recently been a much larger operation running at an airport, where paintball gear is being targeted and stolen from the terminal, while it’s being taken out for loading, or sometime in between. These people seem to know what they’re doing, and probably know the paintball market well.

To all fellow players please be aware there is a out break of theft at Detroit Airport that is targeting paintball equipment. Members of Philly and Smart Parts Staff have had total of 11 guns and air systems stolen. Most of this has happened through the Mesaba Air portion of the NWA which fly’s the smaller Aircraft. Gant has 2 shockers stolen (1 a Tremor), and this Friday seven of the Philly Players flew into Detroit for a connection to Latrobe and had a total of 8 Shockers stolen. Eric Dearman’s return to the Team was ruined by having his custom engraved Hybrid stolen and JT Bouchard lost his Hybrid as well; Gant had another NXt stolen. The thieves are working at the Ramp level as articles of clothing were found in the cargo hold of the aircraft on arrival at Latrobe. So please be aware and careful. As usual there will be the hater’s but we are trying to warn all of the paintball community.

I hope that these guys are found, and get what’s coming to them…like a bullet to the brain, or maybe even a Mack truck. It’s a shame to see this happening, but paintball is a high dollar market, and the demand for high-end guns has never been greater. Be a responsible baller and always keep an eye out for suspicious activity at the field, or especially when buying a gun from somebody. If the thing is priced oddly lower than what they usually sell for then there could be something to it; most likely a scam, but it could also be somebody trying to make quick money off of it. And be sure to click the picture below to see if the gun matches anything that has been reported stolen in this stolen marker database.

Another up and coming stolen marker data base is Paintball Theft. Check it out, and help them grow if you’ve had equipment stolen. It’s a great aid to everyone in the paintball community.

An indoor paintball field has recently snuck into the local scene around here. There were rumors of a couple guys starting a field, but nothing more than just that, rumors. So a couple of months go by, and all of a sudden there is a 17,000 sq ft complex that’s already under renovation to build a speedball and a hyberball course.

It appears that Splatz Indoor Paintball is nearly ready to open its doors to the public, but that’s what I’m worried about. I hope this doesn’t turn into a watered down version of paintball, with the store owners complete noobs at sport and don’t know how to manage customers, from recballers to tournament players. I’m hoping that this doesn’t turn into field where little rich kids run the place, but I have a feeling it might be heading that way. A friend drove out there to check it out, and he said the fields were small, another downside. So I don’t know at this point. I guess I need to get out there in person.

I don’t think it’s going to even be able to compare to Friendly Fire. If you want solid, tournament-grade competition, that is the place to be, and that’s where we will be. Too bad it’s a hour and thirty minutes drive for us…

Anyways, it’ll be interesting to see how this place turns out.

Check out this massive sponsorship deal that Dynasty has landed with JT – three years for over $1,000,000! It’s just another sign that paintball is on the rise! Simply amazing; that’s the most money any paintball team has ever seen, and that will be a tough one to break for awhile. I’ve always liked JT, and this is what the sport really needs right now. Two thumbs up to both JT and Dynasty for bringing the sport to the world!

As quoted from Paintballstar.com:

JT Sports LLC, a K2 Inc. company, announced today that it has signed a three-year partnership with the professional paintball team Dynasty. The deal’s value is estimated at more than $1 million.

JT Sports, the worldwide leader in the manufacturing, marketing, and distribution of paintball products, has sponsored Dynasty since its formation in 2001. The new deal runs through 2009. Dynasty, the world’s top-ranked professional paintball team, has won the past five consecutive World Paintball Championships and has more tournament titles than any other team in the history of the sport.

“JT Sports prides itself on developing high-quality products for paintball players worldwide – from professionals like Dynasty to the millions of amateur and recreation players. The success of Dynasty is a true measure of what can be accomplished by using the best products,” said Chuck Hendsch, vice president of JT Sports.

As part of the deal, Dynasty will work with JT Sports to create a new line of customized Dynasty-branded, tournament-grade products. JT Sports and Dynasty will host paintball clinics around the world and appear together at JT Sports’ nationwide network of retailers. In addition, JT Sports and Dynasty will collaborate on tournament and event appearances.

“JT Sports makes products that help us win; without the support of JT Sports it would be difficult to have achieved all that we have,” said Dynasty captain Alex Fraige. “The same commitment and dedication that we apply on the field, JT applies in their products, which is why we’re thrilled to work with the JT Sports family.”

I’m anxious to see these new “product lines” as well – really anxious. I liked the past Dynasty jerseys, and JT always have solid gear and blending the two should make for a wicked awesome combo.

And a special thanks to PBStar for keeping us up-to-date on all the latest news!

Haha, Smart Parts it at it again. Here’s what they’re up to in their latest shenanigans.

Smart Parts today announced that it has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against AJ Intermediate Holdings LLC and AJ Acquisition I, LLC, doing business as Kee Action Sports. The suit was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in the Tyler Division. The suit alleges infringement of seven patents that Smart Parts believes are being infringed by Kee. The seven patents are generally directed to electropneumatically operated paintball markers and barrels for paintball markers.

“Smart Parts has invested considerable resources in the development of advanced paintball markers and accessories,” said William Gardner, Jr., Smart Parts’ President and co-founder. “We value our intellectual property highly, and have filed this case to protect our products, our market, and our many licensees,” Gardner said.

Yeah, what else is new? And here’s some feedback.

“Bahahahaha - SP vs. KEE…. this one will be glorious.”

“Boycot SP”

And to bluntly put it, “Smart parts is great and all but they are little girls.

They want to take over.

Imagine every paintball gun in the future being SP.”

As usual, Smart Parts gets flamed. Can’t blame them for doing it though, that’s just business.

Paintball, Smart Parts, Lawsuit

Well, here it is, my final will and testament before the tournament. All I can say is that I’m excited and optimistic for Sunday. The turf and expanded field will be a lot different, but should work to our advantage as an athletic team.

We’re taking a coaching staff (JP) who will be yelling at us from the sidelines, and drawing on a dry-erase board. Also, possibly munching on a bubble-gum cigar.

Evan has been in a pissy mood for the past couple of days, and apparently the only cure is bunkering someone who we know we’ll be playing, not to mention names, but… he’s a cocky bastard.

We lose an hour due to Daylight Savings Time, so waking up will be even tougher now. Looks like an early night on Saturday.

I have to make sammiches, get more batteries, pick up some Gatorade, and make sure I have enough money.

But damn, I’m ready to play.

No Trace - For The Win.

paintball, tournament, team no trace

NPPL has released the field layouts for the 2007 Huntington Beach event. Most are pretty generic, snake side and dorito with stuff in between. You know, the usual layout. But then there were two that caught my eye: the Spyder Field and the Bawls Field.

The Spyder field is just down right weird for an NPPL event. It has like…this diamond thing made up of pipe bunkers, or whatever you’d like to call them, sitting right on the entire left side of the field, right on the fifty. That’s not real uncommon, but then they have another pipe connecting the left side doll house to a right fifty stand up wedge. Bah, I can’t explain it, just look at the picture!

The Bawls Field has a double snake going, but both are fairly short. It seems like an interesting field to play, and should match up some wicked battles as both teams try to fit players in them.

Anyways, here are the links to the rest of the fields.

NPPL
Angel
JT
Eclipse

Here is a picture of us, celebrated for out 4th Place. Huzzah.

Anyway, I can’t wait to get all of the pictures. Most didn’t turn out that great, so I’ll probably have to do a lot of post-edit work, like I did with this one.

In other new, we will probably not be playing the March 11th tournament at FFP, because Ben, our potential third guy, will be really out of practice. However, I’ve heard that they’ll be completely expanded and have all their turf in, so we may have to reconsider. Both Evan and I are ready to go, so it’s a possibility. I really can’t wait to play again, because this weekend was a blast.