Avalanche Allegedly Caught Cheating and Thrown out of WC

[Laser]

If they want to get rid of a good percentage of the cheating have more refs. Each ref beeing responsible for 1 or 2 players each

[Snewk]

This is a slap in the face to all paintball player who play responsibly in rec or tournament play. What I mean is those who don't wipe, play just to have fun wether you win or lose, tagged the other team out or didn't get a single tag. I'm not a big time super tournament player, I'm just a rec baller now and play with friends, and have a good time doing it. By seeing Salm do this, it disgusts me to see a person, who is probably a role model to quite a few young paint ballers out there, pull this stunt on such a widely advertised event such as World Cup makes me sick.

Now about the previous comments about Rocky teaching people how to wipe and such. I don't know if I'd believe that. I met him personally at my local field when he rolled through a few weeks back. He is a very nice person, and spent time to talk to me and shake my hand. To me that is the best thing a pro can do to reach out and help the community. Not shoot the opposing team from the woods.

With WDP supposedly dropping their sponsorship, good for them. It does show they have no room for cheaters, and I hope JT and the other companies that sponsor Avalanche to follow. Salm screwed Avalanche and quite possibly paintball up for life.

[Restola]

Originally posted by AGD

We need to decide what winning is worth and what we are going to teach the players of the future.

That decision was made long ago, and before paintball ever existed.

There will always be someone, somewhere, that will go to any lengths to win.

I have no respect for the professional tourny scene. Its hard to really respect any team you dont know on a personal basis when they rank high in a tourny. I look at them, as an average player with no desire to ever go beyond walk-on games, and say "Yeah, they probably cheated. So did the people they beat, they were just better at it." And yes, I will say that about any team when you get to the pro level until I hear something to the contrary (and I have heard good things about many teams).

Other sports are either slow enough that good decisions can be made, or are high-profile enough that cameras are everywhere and calls can be disputed. The nature of our sport makes both of those nearly impossible, and therefor paintball lacks any real legitimacy.

But I could care less if every tourny was cancelled forever. It wont effect me. Rec ball can drive the industry enough to keep it moving. Only problem is I'll have to play with those "pros" on my fields...

[aaron_mag]

Originally posted by Restola
And yes, I will say that about any team when you get to the pro level until I hear something to the contrary

That is a little harsh! As a rec player I know where you are coming from. There is a great speedball oriented field in my area that was alot of fun to play at. Then it was discovered by all the teams (or the rec players became tourney players) and suddenly it wasn't a "fun" place. Instead we had screaming matches, attitude, and teams claiming a whole field for their practice time. That doesn't mean, however, that ALL tournament players are that way. Most of them are pretty nice and want to have fun. It is just that the loud ones can get pretty darn loud

[RamboPreacher]

rec. ball, rec. ball - ohhh hahhhhh!

Anyway, now that I have that off my chest...

I have played some tournies, but never at anything like the cup. I have met many great people on different and varied teams. my conclusion is that people are people, and one "bad" person does not make a "bad" team. I think the ruling was fair, though.

What I find appaling is that some of us (I include me here too) have at least thought that all tourny-boys are cheeters. For me, I just make a concious effort to not think that way, because I know that it isn'e true, no matter how I "feel" as a rec-baller (and occasional tourney player).

As someone already posted and as I "preach" - Paintball is FUN!!! maybe that is just my opinion, but I believe that there should be a bit more than that. as another posted an analagy to street-boxing and professional boxing; there is a difference. I hope that the rulings made and the decisians made will help to lead our great sport in a "better" direction at those levels.

Paintball is fun!!! I say, lets all do what we can to educate the public that it is about fun and not just the "win". It is great to win, and we should play to win (at those kinds of events), but it is stil supposed to be, that - PLAY.

if a pro-baseball or football or soccer player or whatever gets caught cheeting, there are penalties, fees and a price must be paid. I am all for making similar rules for paintball. cheeting shouldn't even be an option.

my 2 cents - thanks

[Blennidae]

Maybe something good can come of this. Maybe this will be the wake up call for professional paintball that cheating (in any form) won't be tolerated.

If you make penalties real, harsh and ENFORCED, it will make cheating not "worth" it anymore. Make it a zero tolerance type penalty. You wipe, you and your team are booted from the tournament. More than one occurance per season, banned for the year. Repeat, and banned for life.

Or continue to slap the wrist of the "star players/teams" and live with no hope of any acceptance of paintball as a legitimate sport.

P.S. thanks to everyone who provided clarification on my netting question.

[Grey_Goose]

Originally posted by AGD
For me personally there were other forms of cheating in this tournament that I felt were just as bad but done with such sophistication that when people heard about it they just dismissed it.

AGD

Can you elaborate? I'd PM you, but you don't like that

[magman007]

Well, you will all laugh at me, but as a tourny player, i am stand up. I have never wiped. Ever. When i feel a hit, i call the ref and ask for a check, if he says im clean, i will even point out where i thought it was hit. 9/10, the reff missed the hit, and then pulled me. I admit, even though it was one les person on the field for my team (except for those times in chile where i was the last person on the team) IT felt good to have done the right thing.

I agree that wiping cannot be tolorated. One of the many tricks now is to run with your forearm infront of you, then when you dive, when your arm hits, it wipes off. This is utter crap.

I agree that whiping and other things of the sort musnt be tolorated. First offence your whole team sits a game, giving up a perfect game for the oposistion.2nd offence the team forefeits all its points for the tournament, and is asked to leve. IF caught again at another tournament, they forefeit the next 2 tournaments. If ever caught again, they are out of the nppl for a year. This is really how it should be. Same goes for playing with a hit.

AS for Salm, he should be sued by warped. If Avalanche looses its WDP sponsorship, Warped is going to have a hard time being able to distribute their angels, saying they are wdp angels. Also, Warped is as much of avalanche, as AV is as much as warped. There really the same thing. With out AVS, ther isnt really warped. same thing with Adrenalin


Salm is done, for good. No ifs ands or buts, he will never be fairly reffed again, no team will have him, and no sponsor will have him. IF a team does have him, they may loose sponsors because of him. Salm was stupid.....

WDP must be happy he atleast didnt use their marker to cheet. How does Diablo/ draxxus feel about this? him using a matrix?

[Restola]

Originally posted by RamboPreacher
What I find appaling is that some of us (I include me here too) have at least thought that all tourny-boys are cheeters. For me, I just make a concious effort to not think that way, because I know that it isn'e true, no matter how I "feel" as a rec-baller (and occasional tourney player).

True or not, a few players can and have left a black mark on the "professional" sport of paintball.

I dont respect professional paintball, and I do my best not to support it. Someone once said players will have to make up their mind about what they'll put up with, well I've made up mine (before this incident). If I'm spending money, I refuse to support crap I dont like. I haven't heard anything negative about the AGD teams, and I'll keep supporting the company as much as I can as a consumer. But WDP and Warped have serious issues with me.

I'm one guy, does anyone care? No. But the beauty of our country is that if more and more players start to feel like I do, companies (and the teams they give our money to) will change or dissapear.

Teams need to prove their sportsmanship. I have a hard time giving everyone who is being paid to give exposure to a product by winning with it my unconditional trust until they lose it.

Its my money, I want a company to support a team that will earn it.

[Nick1Shot]

Well

I've never condoned cheating of any matter in any game or sport. But No Fear Sports Gear was right when they said "Rules were made to be broken". If it wasn't a problem there wouldn't be a rule about it. Laws make people outlaws. Rules are in place to help control the problem. If you look at an offensive line in the NFL, they actually teach those guys how to grab ahold of a defenders shoulderpads in a way so that the referee can't see it. I compare wiping to holding in the NFL. Look at traveling in the NBA...they don't even bother to call that stuff anymore, the more endorsement $$$ Michael Jordan makes, the more steps he's allowed to take. The thing is, competition brings out what is real in people. And if integrity isn't in a person, you'll see it when they compete, at ANYTHING. It's unfortunate that it has to happen, but it is part of the game. Keep it to a minimum and not allowing it to be "Flagrant" is what's important. I think the "Salm incident" is severe and needs to be dealt with severely. But it shouldn't be compared to wiping. Finally, I'll leave you with this:

"To be a respectable [Paintballer], one must first be a respectable person."
-Ken Swift

Fun stuff,
Nick_OSPM

[Richter]

http://www.omahapaintball.com/video.htm

[aaron_mag]

Originally posted by magman007
Well, you will all laugh at me, but as a tourny player, i am stand up. I have never wiped. Ever.

I don't laugh. I think that people who are playing (whether rec or tourney) for the CHALLENGE are all like this. After all it is the basic rule of the game. There is no challenge otherwise.

Same goes for playing with a hit.

Now here I disagree with you. Penalized fine...but not banned, vilified, etc. We've all at some time played on with a hit. Sometimes you don't notice when you've gotten a gun hit. Last time I played I was happily blasting away until I noticed someone had shot me in the marker elbow. Naturally I wiped it and kept playing (just kidding. I called myself out).

AS for Salm, he should be sued by warped.

Sheesh. Don't bring the lawyers in on this. First off Salm probably doesn't have any money worth going after. Second the best thing that they can do is move on and put it behind them.

[jwa158]

i heard pretty much the exact same thing from what AGD said. i heard this from a couple people talking about it while watching the dynasty and bob long ironmen game (i think it was ironmen). i also heard he was in tears when the fireman brought drug him out to the field. i did watch some of the avalanche and the GZ Gold game. only thing i saw was GZ's back player cursing at the ref cuz he was in the way of his fire and had a rake in the way. i didn't get to watch the rest of the game cuz i had a game to play. later that day when me and a teamate were walking home, we saw lasoya and poorman walking back to the cup. we walked back to the cup later that day and saw lasoya and poorman leaving with 3 angel boxes. i don't think there's really a point to my story, but i just thought i'd bring it up. i hope avalanche didn't plan any of this, cuz i got lasoya's autograph while i was at the cup and i won't have much to brag about if i got an autograph from a team who cheats.

[Ov3rmind]

I do know some of Avalanche cheats (as do a lot of pro teams), but some of 'em don't. I'd personally be very disappointed to find out if Rocky had any idea this was going to happen.

[Automaggin2]

I almost HIT THE FLOOR when i saw this. I cant belive Salm would be so low as to hide in the woods. In all honesty, i think Avalanche knew about this. I blive NPPL offcials should sit down with Avalanche, there sponsors, and refs and decide what to do. This is outrageous.