This past weekend was the
NPPL DC event held at Pev’s Paintball in Aldie, VA. However, those that played
the event, me included called it several different names throughout the
weekend, of which none were positive.
I have been a long time
supporter of the NPPL and have made it a point to support a league that first
took the initiative to offer a pump division at a national level. However, in
the last few years the league has begun to care more about money, fame, and the
professional players then those at the divisional level who pay their way and
support the league. Now for those that don’t play pump or stay in the know
should know that at the beginning of this season the NPPL canceled the pump
division. However, after much criticism
they brought the division back with a higher than ever entry fee. I had made
the decision after they canceled the division that RC would not play any NPPL
events this year, except for NPPL DC. The plan was to cash in our free entry
voucher and play up a division for fun; however, the NPPL would only let us use
the voucher for pump, which was fine with the team and me. Either way we were
playing this event just because it would be cheap and we wanted a chance to
finally win a NPPL DC (prior to this we had two 2nd place finishes and
a 5th place finish at this event) event, which has been something we
have been trying to do for 4yrs.
Now with the above all said and
done, I went ahead and signed us up when the time came. Now I like to consider
myself someone who is update on most tournaments, rules, etc, however, I always
like to double check things I cannot find out on my own. Now in years past the
DC event has always been a one day pump event (or two days) because the turnout
is usually smaller than the other events. However, this year all the pump games
have been played in a day (or at least that’s what I’ve heard or could find
online). The only issue was that “day” has been different from event to event. I
emailed the NPPL and asked them if they knew what day the event would be, in
return I received a reply that stated they wouldn’t know until all the teams
signed up, but they were planning on playing pump in a single day and would
know more as the event grew closer. As the event grew closer I asked again and
to their best knowledge pump would be played on one day, but they still didn’t
know which one. I even went as far as to ask a second person within the NPPL to
confirm this information for me and they stated one day as well. I made the
team aware that the event would be one day, however, which day I did not know. The
event grew closer and I was still awaiting an answer to which day we would be
playing with much anticipation, however, an answer never came as promised and
the schedule was released at 9PM the Tuesday night before the event. To my
surprise the pump division was playing all three days of the event. I called
the guys playing and after much bitching and scrambling everybody was able to
get Friday off, so they could play the event. However, Thursday was the
official check-in date and only 3 of the 5 playing could make it to the venue
on time to check in (some guys just couldn’t get Thursday and Friday off on
such short notice). I personally couldn’t make it until Friday morning so Dana,
sat in at the captains meeting for me.
Dana was assured in the captains meeting that the NPPL was going to
provide us with the best tournament experience ever and that if you needed
anything Ed Poorman has dedicated the rest of his life to making the NPPL great.
Ed also made it clear that he was the person to contact about tournament
issues, because he had the time to investigate our problems.
Friday rolls along and our first
game is at 8:35am (games started at 8am) on Field Three. Now let me tell you
about Field Three first…Field Three is the practice field used for this event,
it has no air hook-up and you had to go to the turf fields’ pits to get air. It
had netting on two sides of the field, so no spectators could watch (at the
captains meeting we were told spectators to go get pit access to watch for
free, however, when we tried this we were charged $10 a person and even after
we tried to explain we still had to pay the $10 a person). The boundary lines
were wrong and when we asked about them being extended to 5ft on each side as
we were told this in the captain’s meeting. The head ref had no knowledge of
this and when he did learn this only extended the snake side, despite all the
other fields having both sides widened. Back to topic of an 8:35am first game,
anybody that knows me knows I like to be early and ready to go. Since we needed
to walk the field as a team still, pull paint, get two players checked in and
get geared up, I advised the team to be at the field no later than 6:15am. When
I arrived it appeared all was going well, the unchecked in players were checked
in, the guys were getting ready, I pulled our paint, we walked the field and by
7:45am we were ready to go. Now I want to talk about the paint for this event
for a moment, the NPPL is sponsored by Valken and supposedly you can only shoot
Valken paint unless you’re a pro, because they can shoot whatever. We go to
pull our paint and normally you test a few balls from each batch and figure out
what is working best. Valken however just hands you a case of paint and there
is no testing. We decided to shoot Valken Pro because we were told it was good
and shouldn’t have any problems. However, this crap was deformed and rock hard.
The regular Redemption wasn’t much better, but the positive part was it was
around .689 bore size depending on what ball you tested. 8 AM rolls around when
the first game is supposed to start and the field still has some deflated
bunkers, and the refs are standing around talking, so at 8:30ish the first game
is played and I assumed we were good from there. However, game three of the day
on this field was the first pump game and the teams playing were no shows. After
standing around waiting the game against West Coast Sharks and West Coast
Nation was skipped and the teams continued playing. When it came time for our
turn we were skipped right over and when I inquired why, I was told because the
team we were supposed to be playing was playing a game on another field in
another division and when they finished they were coming over to play us. I
relay this news to the team and we begin our waiting game. Around 9:45am
everybody is starting to become upset as the other teams have yet to show up
and the other teams playing in the other division are just about done playing
and we have yet to play a game. I go back over and inquire and learn the other
teams playing don’t want to play pump yet because they want to finish their
other division’s games first. To be honest I was cool with this, not thrilled
but okay. What pissed me off was no one said a word to us about this until we
had to go up and ask, so now were told our games would begin at 10:30am. We
continued to wait, some guys went to watch games, others to check out the
vendor’s area and I went and looked for the other teams’ captain. Now the
reason I did this was because I have been told the pump games will be the last
games played on this field, so I had the idea of why not play all the pump
prelim games now and this way tomorrow we don’t have this schedule issue and
nobody has to wait or be rushed. I find the other teams’ captain and he’s cool
with this and we began our search for someone that could make this happen and
after talking with several people, we were told this couldn’t happen because it
wouldn’t be fair to the refs and that the schedule issue won’t happen because
they changed the Saturday schedule (nobody knew about this until that moment). I
went back to our pits and got everyone ready to play our 3 games scheduled for
the day. Our 1st game of the day took place a little after 11am. The first game was against West Coast Sharks
2. The Sharks had a very aggressive
breakout to the 50-snake, 50-wedge, 30-can, D1 and snake corner. The 50-snake player was burned off break, but
the corner filled the snake immediately.
PigPen was also clipped in the pack on the breakout, thus leaving the
snake vulnerable and the Sharks used that to their advantage clearing the RC
players one by one. Our second game was
against the West Coast Nation and the outcome was much better. RC made it to all of its primary bunkers,
Pigpen cleared out their 50 snake and wedge while Ninji and Amish cleaned up
the D-side. So after playing two games we
were 1 and 1, Sharks 2 is 3 and 0 and Sharks Nation is 0 and 3. We were waiting for our 3rd game but
we were told there are no more games for the day and our last game must have
been moved to Saturday. While, the team gets ready to leave I attempt to locate
the new Saturday schedule. Now this should be easy, go to registration ask for
the new schedule, sha’zam new schedule, however, this is the NPPL. I go ask
Valarie for the new schedule and she gives me the old one. I explain this and
she tells me she doesn’t know what I’m talking about and to find Tony, so I go
around the pits and find Tony and after his smart ass comments about this he
takes me to Ryan who makes the schedule and prints me off the new schedule. While
walking back to the truck I realize we only play 5 games on Saturday and that
gives us a total of 7 games. I counted the other team’s games and I realize Sharks
2 have 8 games and Sharks Nation also has 7 games. The missing game we were
supposed to play today had not been included on Saturday’s schedule. I went
back to registration, found Ryan and explained my findings. He does some
checking and confirms there was in fact a missing game between Sharks nation
and us. The plan Ryan decided on is to just add the missing game to the end of
the schedule. I asked him if he’s going to reprint the schedule and he said no,
he’s just going to put the extra score card in for tomorrow and tell the
scorekeeper about the change. After sorting this out I linked back up with the
team and made sure everyone was ready to go. At this point everyone had enough and it was off
to Dana’s to play some corn hole, eat, bitch about today, and discuss our plans
for Saturday. 
Saturday comes around and our first
game is scheduled for 12pm, everyone arrives around 10 AM and we begin to get
ready. When it comes time to fill pods and so forth, I go to use our paint from
yesterday and its rock hard, even more so then yesterday. Come to find out
Scooter stored the paint in his house, which was about 60 something degrees, so
needless to say we had to buy more paint and day 2 Valken paint wasn’t much
better than day 1 Valken paint. So after I get the new paint and everybody is
at the chrono, I check in with the scorekeeper to make sure the extra game was
added. Despite it not being on the schedule the card was there and after a
minute or two of explanation we were good to go. The games began a little late,
but not super late. The fist game RC played on Saturday was against Sharks 2,
RC made it to their primary bunkers and locked the field down from the
aggressive play of Sharks 2. The Sharks fell one by one starting from the
50-wedge. The next matchup RC had was against Sharks 2 again. The play was similar, but this time Pigpen,
Scooter and Amish got taken out leaving Ninji and CMcD holding it down. CMcD was in the carwash and Ninji was in D3
against 3 Sharks. They managed to get
the game to a 2 on 2 then the Sharks snake player started to run down
CMcD. CMcD realized the player was
coming, so he jumped up in the middle of the carwash and shot the approaching
player. The player continued to play on
shooting CMcD, but the ref did make a decision and said the CMcD had shot their
guy first. While the refs were sorting
this out the other Shark player ran down and shot out CMcD. Now you would have expected a one for one for
playing on, but that didn’t happen. Our
next game was against Sharks Nation. RC broke out in the usual style PigPen in
the snake, Scooter in God, Ninji and Amish to D2 and Can, and CMcD holding down
the center. Nation made a great move up
the D-side and won the game. The next
game was against the Sharks 2 and RC was ready to play, we broke out and
dominated Sharks 2 with 5 alive. We’re continued playing, grinding it out and
the day is coming to a close. That’s when I realized the other team probably
didn’t know about the additional game, so I go over and tell them. Now their
captain was on the field at this time and when he came off he was pissed when
he heard this. I explained what had happened and his reply was to accuse me of
cheating and trying to get an extra game. The scorekeeper tried explaining and
to be honest I thought she handled the situation well, even though she and I
both felt we were gonna get hit at some point during this debate. The other
captain goes and gets his schedule and team info he sees’ we’re right and makes
a comment about it not mattering anyways. They already won the event because
it’s total points. I said no, when we asked the NPPL we were told the top 2
teams were going on to play for 1st and 2nd. He says we’re
wrong and when we ask the scorekeeper she has no idea, so they find the head
guy running the field and he confirms the pump division is total points no
finals. When I ask when the change occurred he said it never had been we must
have been misinformed by registration or someone else and that they got pump
5-man mixed up with D4 5-man. I looked at our schedule and there are 3 total
games left. We play 2 and Sharks 2 play 1 more. If Sharks 2 wins their last
game they win the event and if they lose we have a chance to tie them for 1st
and it comes down to points. However, Sharks 2 last game is against their
b-team Sharks Nation and to be nice the Nation wasn’t the strongest team and
Sharks 2 beat them easily, so we know the best we can do is 2nd, so
that’s what we do. We won our last two games by dominating the Sharks Nation and
we get 2nd place overall in the pump division. This though does not
sit well with the team, as everyone is upset about the finals getting canceled
and everything else that has gone wrong with this event. No matter what I say,
I can’t change the teams mind or my mind for that matter; we had just been
completely screwed over by the NPPL. Now most people would say well you should
have won more games and I agree, however, when you know its top 2 going on and
you’re in the top 2 you’re not too worried about winning. You’re worried about
someone getting hurt, trying new things for the finals and so forth. I’m not
saying we’re not trying to win; in fact we went 4 and 2 that day which was the
best record of all the teams playing on Saturday in our division. What I’m
saying is finding out 3 games before the tournament is over your finals is
canceled is bullshit!
Now before I go into my closing
I want to discuss the reffing on field three. Atrocious is the first word that
comes to mind, however, I must say they were at least equally bad to all the
teams playing and no one got any special treatment. They were slow, arrived
late, took more breaks than games played and seemed like they didn’t care if
the bunkers were inflated one way or another. They didn’t want to make calls or
check players, even when you could see the hits from the sidelines. I watched a
player get shot (D4 player) multiply times in the pack as he dove into the
snake and the head ref leaned in a little and called him clean. A second later
he gets shot in the face and when he stands up his outer pod on his pack has
about 2-3 clearly visible hits on it. Another time the head ref was screaming a
player across field had been eliminated multiple times and even point at the
player and this player continued to play, shoot people, and no penalty was pulled
and not one of the other refs on that side went in to pull the player. Now I can go on, however I’ll leave it at
that, and close this paragraph with I heard the reffing on all the fields was
pretty bad. How bad I don’t’ know but if it was as bad as what’s listed above
I’m amazed there were no fights!
So after everyone calmed down
and packed up, I went over to registration to pick up our trophy and prize. When I got there they confirmed what I already
knew is that we got 2nd overall.
As I’m waiting I overhear Ed Poorman (Players Liaison) talking about how
he hates 5man and doesn’t think it’s worth the bother in the NPPL. Now this is
the guy who’s supposed to work with the players and he’s bashing a division and
not only that, my division that already feels like 2nd class
citizens at this event. Now I’m getting a little more visibly upset, when Chuck
Hendsch walks over to me. He congratulates me and asked how we thought the
event went. I asked him if he wanted the truth and he said yes, so I proceeded
to tell him how the event went for us and for that moment he seemed to care and
he listened to what I had to say. He went into the back to find out why the
finals had been canceled because he wasn’t even aware of this and when he
emerged he and I both knew there was nothing he could do. He tried to explain
but to be honest I didn’t care, he even offered us $350 off a future event, of
which I politely turned down because the team wanted nothing to do with the
NPPL anymore unless major changes were made and he couldn’t promise this. He
asked if we wanted to do the team picture and I told him no, everyone was upset
and we just wanted to leave, so he hands me a check for $94.50 and our
trophy/medals and we parted ways. As I’m walking back to the truck I realize
the check says NPPL PUMP 2nd Place Chicago.
In closing I would like to thank our sponsors
for providing us with great gear and support.
Although, we did not get 1st place RC conducted themselves in
a professional manner and played hard despite all the schedule and format
changes. I also want to apologize for all the people that read this, I didn’t
discuss our playing in great detail which I usually do, but more or less I complained
about
