Your impressions of the NPPL Super 7 at Huntington Beach

[ogre55]

For the last few years, many people have felt that the professional side of paintball, especcially in the upper echelons has degenerated as far as the quality and competency of the reffing. Many have also felt that the frequency of players cheating has also increased.

The NPPL made some very encouraging statements regarding it's new Super 7 series and how they were out shape up the tournament scene. Well the first Super 7 tournament has come and gone and I understand that quit a few AOers were there. I would like to get your impressions on the quality of the reffing staff as well as the frequency of players bending and breaking the rules, intentionally or otherwise.

For example, were the reffs getting wise to such grey area tactics as the superman slide to wipe a chest hit, or the run with the hand in front of the face? Was there obvious playing on after a hit? Most importantly, did the reffs see this and do something about it?

I would ask that you please stay on topic here and not have this thread degenerate into a rant or flamewar. I just want to see what "the man on the street" saw.

Ogre

[dmonahan]

This was hands down the best tourny I have ever attended. I have played other majors in the past and world cup. It was the best organized cleanest and nicest venue I have ever been to.

As far as the reffing. We only played on 3 of the 5 fields (Angel, Raven and Nppl) Most our games were on the Raven field and the refs were very tough. They would pull a 2nd player for playing on at the drop of a hat. So for the normal tourny player if took a little adjustment. You could not take a hit and keep playing until the ref pulled you. It is nice to see the NPPL making a effort to clean the game up and I think it is very positive. If the rest of the season goes as well as the H/B event it can do nothing but good for our sport.

If you get a chance to attend any of the super 7 events I do not think you will be dissapionted.

See you in Vegas.

Darren
Team Relic.

[DiRTyBuNNy]

Darren, are you going to doing the PSP ten men next month? (Ken Docken works at a store near my house)...

[ogre55]

Thanks DBunny, you just gave me another idea.

To dmonahan and/or anyone else who wants to contribute: if you go to a PSP event and were witness to an NPPL event, can you contrast the two bases on the criteria above?

I would love to see if PSP without the NPPL to even try and keep things somewhat high class will degenerate, or if they will try to compete.

Ogre

[dmonahan]

DB,

No, The only PSP we are going to play is World Cup. We will be at all the Pan-Am 7 man and the Vegas super 7.

Ken has been in the hospital for the last 2 weeks. I don't how well you know him but you might want to drop him a note. If you need his e-mail address pm me and I'll fwd it to you.

[leopardhead]

I went to HB NPPL 7 tourney.

I had never watched tourney play live before.

The HB event was impressively done. Lots of firelds meant lots of games to watch.

I have nothing to compare to but a couple things suprised/disappointed me:

1) I heard a tourney player whine like a 6 yr old to a ref "I got him before he got me." This brought out my worst fears for the sport --that it would devolve into cowboys and indians. If you want this to be a real serious sport: Grow up. Accept the refs calls even if they are wrong.

That was only one player all day but it bugged me.

2) I was suprised how long a paint check could take. I'm not saying refs were slow. But it could tie up a player for a minute or so. That was suprising to me.

I have some pix I'll try to post soon.

[ogre55]

Please post any pics. Should be interesting if nothing else.

As for the player wining, that's par for the course. It looks bad, but no worse than you see in other professional sports like baseball and football, where refs have to make subjective calls. I am surprised that a paintcheck could take as long as a minute myself, at least here. The NPPL stated that they would have about one ref for every two players. What took so long?

I am curious though,
leopardhead, did you see any obvious and serious rules infractions, like playing on with obvious hits, etc. If so, how did the refs respond. Did you see the reffs make any penalty calls?

Ogre

[leopardhead]

I didn't see any clear cheating but there were a lot of superman slides (wipes?).