Avalanche Allegedly Caught Cheating and Thrown out of WC

[billmi]

Originally posted by hitech

BTW, it is my understanding that Salm worked for Ed and has now lost his job. That is probably a more severe punishment than any sort of ban.

That's minor...
Lee Harvey Oswald was disposed of more permanently than just losing his job at the Book Depository after the three votes that elected LBJ to the presidency were supposedly cast by him, and him alone.

[RetroEclipseMan]

I agree that cheating should not be tolerated at all. But in reality there are cheaters in every sport no matter what level it is at. Just look at the players in pro baseball getting caught corking there bats, I don't think that players at lowere levels are now going to go out and cork their bats now. I know that what a pro paintball player doesn't affect how I play or view the game. Sure you may hear about pro players cheating more but I think that's just because the stakes are higher and there's more coverage. I mean I play a lot of rec ball as well and I see players wipe hit after hit off themselves and then complain about getting overshot when you put 10 balls on ther back to make sure they don't wipe.

As far as what happens to the rest of Avalanche i just don't think that if the team is broken up that it's going to make a big impact on the sport. Cheating will still happen and unless a new way to stop is put in place then it will continue to go on. Not to mention there is no hard proof that the anyone else on the team had any knowlege of what Salm was doing. Sure it is hard to believe that at least someone else didn't know but suspending the whole team just is not the right thing to do and just won't send that big of message to other players. Maybe stiffer rules for cheating should be put in place like if anyone is caught wiping then the team forfits the points for that game rather than a 1for1 or what not.

[ogre55]

Originally posted by RetroEclipseMan
Just look at the players in pro baseball getting caught corking there bats, I don't think that players at lowere levels are now going to go out and cork their bats now.

Really? Then I guess you missed the Little League World Series Scandal last year, when a player in the Bronx, NY team was found to have had his birth certificate changed to make him younger and allow him to participate.

When there are pros in a sport, there are others that will look up to them. When those that look up to the pros see said pros acting like, well you know (damn filters) , they will seek to emulate their heros.

I don't know how much cheating there is in pro baseball, but I know that many pro ball players make a habit of acting less than sportmanlike, both on and off the field. I have seen guys playing softball pick up games act just as bad on the field. And little league games where parents and kids act like those same pro players.

When people see pros do everything in their power to win, some tend to adopt the same attitudes. Look at it this way. I am a young player. I have dreams of making it big. I see many pros cheating and making it big. I begin associating making it big with cheating. I cheat.

Makes a strange sort of sense doesn't it?

Ogre

[ogre55]

Originally posted by billmi
[B]
My point is it's pretty rediculous for people to get all in a huff over this one incident and ignore, or play down the seriousness of the others.

I don't think that anyone is playing down other incidents of cheating, or elevating this one because the perpetrator was caught. What gets my goat is the blatant method used to cheat. There is a difference between wiping, shooting from the deadbox etc., and dressing up in black pajamas, hiding out the woods and shooting the opposing team in the back.

I liken it to the difference of corking a bat and druging the opposing teams water. Both methods will result in your team scoring more points, but the method used in one, is much more flagrant than the method used in the other.

Ogre

[Kneedragger]

Originally posted by RetroEclipseMan
I agree that cheating should not be tolerated at all. But in reality there are cheaters in every sport no matter what level it is at. Just look at the players in pro baseball getting caught corking there bats, I don't think that players at lowere levels are now going to go out and cork their bats now.

I don't think there's much chance of corking an aluminum bat.

[Kneedragger]

Let's see. What's the biggest difference between pro paintball and say pro football. In pro football, you don't have the Eagles reffing in a game between the Cowboy's and the Redskin's.

You can point fingers and slam players all you want. It comes down to the fact, that players cheat, because they can. As long as the benifits of cheating outweigh the consequences, it will continue to happen. The reason people take it so hard in paintball is because cheating in paintball has never been dealt with the way cheating in other sports is. All it takes is a group of refs that take the rule book, and enforce it to the letter. It's pretty simple, but actually initiating it is the hard part. We've done it the wrong way for so long, people just come to accept it. You always hear how paintball can't afford to pay professional refs a salary and traveling money. Well then, since all the teams can seem to travel to tournaments, why not just have the tournaments in the same place every time and train a reffing staf of people that live where the tournaments are held. Think about it, what's the point of traveling to Chicago, Orlando, Atlantic City, and Vegas anymore? It's pretty much all airball so why do you need to go to different places just to play on an air ball field?

The referees in other sports have a set of rules/guidelines they go by. They don't choose which ones they want to enforce, and then turn around and disregard the ones they don't want to.

For instance in football, pass interference- automatic first down and the ball is spotted at the point of the infraction. The ref doesn't have the choice to say give the the team that was interfered a first down but have to play the next down at the original line of scrimmage.

In a NPPL tournanment, have any of you ever seen a 2 for 1 pulled? That is for playing on with an OBVIOUS hit. Obvious hits are defined in the rule book. I see players play on all the time with an obvious hit, yet almost always, the refs at the most pull a 1 for 1. So instead of adhereing to the rules, the ref has decided to circumvent the written rule and enforce a penalty of his own choosing. Until even the most basic issues of reffing are addressed, tournament paintball will be nothing more then a joke when compared to real competitive sports.

[SlartyBartFast]

With all the prizes and money it seems it's a sham to say that good refs can't be paid properly.

Professional paintball has simply decided that they are more interested in money and prizes than they are about the game.

Want the refs to do their job properly? Give them incentives for finding cheaters that outweighs having to put up with some over paid spoilt brat exploding in their face.

Make bad calls hurt the ref if overturned by the Ultimate Judge.

[Kneedragger]

Incentives could open up a whole new can of worms. Just handle refs the way every other sport does. You are hired to do a job, if you are incapable of performing that job to a standard, then you get fired. Accountability is all you need.

[RetroEclipseMan]

Originally posted by Kneedragger
Let's see. What's the biggest difference between pro paintball and say pro football. In pro football, you don't have the Eagles reffing in a game between the Cowboy's and the Redskin's.

You can point fingers and slam players all you want. It comes down to the fact, that players cheat, because they can. As long as the benifits of cheating outweigh the consequences, it will continue to happen. The reason people take it so hard in paintball is because cheating in paintball has never been dealt with the way cheating in other sports is. All it takes is a group of refs that take the rule book, and enforce it to the letter. It's pretty simple, but actually initiating it is the hard part. We've done it the wrong way for so long, people just come to accept it. You always hear how paintball can't afford to pay professional refs a salary and traveling money. Well then, since all the teams can seem to travel to tournaments, why not just have the tournaments in the same place every time and train a reffing staf of people that live where the tournaments are held. Think about it, what's the point of traveling to Chicago, Orlando, Atlantic City, and Vegas anymore? It's pretty much all airball so why do you need to go to different places just to play on an air ball field?

The referees in other sports have a set of rules/guidelines they go by. They don't choose which ones they want to enforce, and then turn around and disregard the ones they don't want to.

For instance in football, pass interference- automatic first down and the ball is spotted at the point of the infraction. The ref doesn't have the choice to say give the the team that was interfered a first down but have to play the next down at the original line of scrimmage.

In a NPPL tournanment, have any of you ever seen a 2 for 1 pulled? That is for playing on with an OBVIOUS hit. Obvious hits are defined in the rule book. I see players play on all the time with an obvious hit, yet almost always, the refs at the most pull a 1 for 1. So instead of adhereing to the rules, the ref has decided to circumvent the written rule and enforce a penalty of his own choosing. Until even the most basic issues of reffing are addressed, tournament paintball will be nothing more then a joke when compared to real competitive sports.

I totally agree. I think that if the rules aren't enforced all the time the way they are written then there's no point at having them at all. It's like setting a candybar infront of a little kid and telling him he cant have it but not punishing him if he does take it. If a player knows he/she can get away with wiping a hit or playing with an obvious hit then what is stopping them from doing it. I know if a ref wasn't going to pull me for playing with an obvious hit then I would continue to do it.

[dcmander]

Anyone have a link to a webpage that has all the NPPL rules so I can know what a 1 for 1 and a 2 for 1 is

Someone could also explain those two terms for me right here...

[billmi]

Originally posted by dcmander
Anyone have a link to a webpage that has all the NPPL rules so I can know what a 1 for 1 and a 2 for 1 is

Someone could also explain those two terms for me right here...

Paintballrefs.com

A 1 for 1, 2 for 1, and 3 for 1, are penalty pulls.

It's the number of players pulled for the infraction. If you commit an offense that is a one for one penalty, one player from your team gets eliminated.

The NPPL sent to these type of penalties instead of points penalties so that when the game is over, the score is final, instead of like it used to be where it would look like one team won, then they'd asess some penalties while filling out the score sheet, then the other team would win.

See you on the field,
-Bill Mills

[1stdeadeye]

Re: Re: Hold On A Minute!!

Originally posted by ShooterJM


It was intended as a joke.

Correction he was charged with murder and felony assault. He wasn't convicted of murder. He plead guilty to a minor misdemeanor in exchange for testifying against the two other people charged as well. If the prosecution weren't the most inept, worthless, good for nothing, pieces of crap lawyers little Ray "Stabby McStab" Lewis would've been convicted.

I know, hence the " "!

[davidb]

I was just recently talking to a guy who works at a store near where I live. This guy used to play on a team with Rich Telford (who owns the field near here and frequents the aforementioned store, and with whom I have spoken on occasion, so the guy's not making it up) which played the tournament circuit back in the day when Smart Parts was promoting the Magic Box (more on that later).

Anyway, his team was playing against the All Americans, and in his own words, he "got really lucky and got a bunch of eliminations". He soon ran and grabbed the flag, at which point the All Americans gave a certain code:

"Start a fight."

At that point, a few of the guys in the AA's deadbox started getting physical with the other team. While the refs were focused on trying to get the fight broken up, the remaining AA dead box residents proceeded to shoot the members of the other team who were still in the game. Luckily, the guy I was talking to, who still had the flag, was able to run for the hang before being hit.

He also explained to me why it was that the Mag with the Magic Box would shoot farther (and let me tell you when he said it that way I was getting ready to try to keep a straight face). The AA's guns were set up so that when they went to the chrono, they would be shooting at under 300 fps. Once they started playing, however, they would allow the Box to fill with liquid CO2, causing their velocity to spike. People watching the game see this, and simply see that the gun is shooting farther, which they attribute to the Magic Box's magic instead of the increased velocity.

This blatant disregard for safety and the rules is, at least in severity (although perhaps not in utter stupidity and audacity) easily equivalent to Avalanche's little escapade. The main difference, of course, is that Salm got caught. On speaking with some of Rich Telford's sponsored teams (who were with Rich and the Ironmen at WC) last weekend, as far as I can tell, the general concensus among the other teams that were present is that the other players from Avalanche knew all along.

Perhaps what needs to be done, rather than trying to get refs who will be infallible, is to get the games ALL on tape (at least for big games like the Cup). If there could be a camera on each player, things that the refs missed could be caught and penalized after the fact.

For example: Team "Off In the Woods" plays in the WC and wins the Pro Division. Later, on review of the tapes, it is found that on several occasions, members of the team wiped, played through hits which they could clearly be seen to have flinched from, and committed various and sundry other offences. Their title is revoked, and they are told that they are not welcome in the next tourney. Other teams in other tournies who are found to have cheated are docked points, forced to play at a disadvantage next time around, or suspended.

It's probably too costly to be feasible at the moment, but could be something to give serious consideration to in the future. Maybe Warpig.com could be contracted to do the filming?

[billmi]

Originally posted by davidb
For example: Team "Off In the Woods" plays in the WC and wins the Pro Division. Later, on review of the tapes, it is found that on several occasions, members of the team wiped, played through hits which they could clearly be seen to have flinched from, and committed various and sundry other offences. Their title is revoked, and they are told that they are not welcome in the next tourney. Other teams in other tournies who are found to have cheated are docked points, forced to play at a disadvantage next time around, or suspended.

It's probably too costly to be feasible at the moment, but could be something to give serious consideration to in the future. Maybe Warpig.com could be contracted to do the filming?

OK, for World Cup this year, that would have taken 240 cameras and operators to have one camera on every player - double that if you want two angles on every player so you cen see when they flinch from a hit. Half that number for the 5 man, and you're looking at a crew of 500 people for half a week, and 250 for half a week (I'm throwing in the extra 10-20 staffers that would be needed to run tapes back and forth to the fields, and store them in a truck.

Now, when it's done there will be some 15,000 hours of tape to be reviewed. Reviewing it in detail enough to catch a flinch from a hit, and then cross reference to the other camera view for a comparison is going to take 5 man hours per hour of footage MINIMUM, so we're talking around 75,000 man hours to review the footage. We add in equipment time, and we're looking at an overall budget on the order of 7.5 million dollars.

OK, so we just raise the entry fees to deal with that. Using this year's attendance as an example, Corinthian Media Services (the company that publishes WARPIG.com - AKA me) could contract a job like this (OK, I'd do a corporate restructure, and have big staffing issues, but wave a 7.5 million dollar check in my face and I'll find a way).

Entry fees would need to be increased by over $18,000 per team to cover the cost, and then, somewhere between 6 months and 5 years after the tournament was over, once the video was analized, we could publish a list of teams who were disqualified, and PSP could ask them to give the prizes back.

Then again, raise the entry fees by that much, and fewer teams will attend, so the video costs would go down.

See you on the field,
-Bill Mills

[dcmander]

No sport has all perfect calls. Even the sports that do ocassionally have a camera review (NFL - Coach's Challenge), it doesn't happen all the time. Paintball players just need to accept that it is gonna happen. But I agree that it won't stop enless larger punishments are made and enforced for cheating/unsportsmanship conduct, etc.


O/T: Whats an example of a 3 for 1 penalty?