| Reported by:
Andrew Saunders
The layout was an airball field inside a hockey arena, this meant a concrete surface to work with. A plastic sheet was placed over the cement and around a foot of mulch was dumped over top, this made an unstable terrain for quick starts and stops. Playing indoors in a setting like this was nice, with netting around the top part of the stands, players could watch safely with an unobstructed view of the entire field.
There seemed to be a lot of bitching from the players on the field, more than usual. The novice division wasn't bad but the amateur division seemed to slow up the tourney for this reason alone. Most of this could be attributed to the players but some was definitely due to the refs lack of organization and lax approach.
The final game in the amateur division was between Renegade and Strict Union 2, who incidently had the exact same score and were tied for first. This could not have been any more of a climatic game and the teams would not disappoint. Off the break Strict Union 2 lost a player, Renegade then pushed one player up their right side and into the middle of the field. Once the forward Renegade player shot out the Strict Union player on the opposite side of the laydown can, it was just a push to the last player. The amateur division was surprisingly/entertainingly aggressive throughout the day, hopefully this will be a trend for all future events.
One thing that most players there could agree on was that it was wrong not having a finals. This was not made clear at the captains meeting, perhaps it was assumed incorrectly on the part of the players but it came as a suprise to most later in the event. In the end there was no MVP or Sportsmanship award either.
I'm going to start rating these events a-la Facefull. No I am not a self-proclaimed expert in the field of paintball, but it is my opinion and will be as unbiased as possible. Only events that I personally play in will have this feature.
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