CBC News Covers Edmonton Impact Clinic

Edmonton Impact recently hosted a skills clinic, and CBC News was there to bring paintball coverage to the mainstream media.  The news piece brought speedball and tournament paintball insight to the viewers right at home. 

In addition to covering the Impact clinic, the coverage also spread buzz about the upcoming CPPL Canadian Nationals tournament which will be taking place January 27-29th, hosted on the stampede grounds at the agriculture building in Calgary, Alberta.  The event will include an industry trade show, an X-ball All-Star Game, and tournament play across 4 divisions of skill levels.  Admission is free for spectators, and there will be a free webcast for the people who want to watch from home.

For more information on the CPPL Nationals event, check out the CPPL Websirte.

Day of the Dead 11 Big Scenario Game at Flagswipe

The dead are coming back to life, and they've invaded the forests on Flagswipe Paintball's outdoor field.  The living control the towns and populated areas, holding back the invading zombie forces.  Over 900 players attended this massive Canadian scenario paintball game just outside of London, Ontario on September 30, 2012.  The event kicked off as a helicopter flew into the field transporting the Living's general and the Hero For a Day winner, and the action did not stop.  Missions and objectives were set to be completed through the day, and players would stop at nothing to accomplish them.  The action saw tanks, rockets, smoke grenades, crazy costumes and epic firefights with thousands of paintballs in the air at once, battles through all terrain and all areas. A custom batch of RPS All-Star paint was made for the event with a blood red coloured fill to add to the gruesome and urgent atmosphere of the battles.

Video from Thisispaintball.ca

Paintball Industry Trade Show

To match the large-scale paintball action, there was a massive industry trade show on site.  Representatives from both local and major brands included event sponsors Tippmann, Ntensity Customs, Underground Productz, Aztek, Jaz Stands, Empire, Original SWAT Footwear, Recon, Valken, Dye, Rockstar and more.  The JT Splatmaster Experience was also on-site at the event to give visitors a hands-on look at the new low-impact .50cal Splatmaster line,which is marketed as a fun and safe way to help usher new players into the sport of paintball.  In my season of traveling to national US events, I have yet to see a paintball trade show as impressive as the one held at Day of the Dead.

 

Event T-Shirts printed by Ntensity Customs

Hero For A Day

The event included a Hero for a Day contest for players who pre-registered.  They were entered into a draw to win a VIP experience for the day: flight to the field in a helicopter, a free BT TM-15 marker hydrodipped by Ntensity Customs and a Shadow Squad practice jersey.  

  

Video from Keith and Liam from Flagswipe going on an adventure to discover the winner of the Hero for a Day contest.

Player Created Videos

Many players brought along cameras to record footage of the event, with barrelcams and mask mounted cameras a common sight for the day.  One player from THEMODASTUDIO strapped two GoPros to his barrel so he could capture both the action happening in front of him, as well as a view of himself, and put together this neat video from his first life as a zombie.  O.P.E.L. Army also captured some great footage from the human side, with lots of gunfighting action.  More videos continue to pop up on YouTube from other players who attended the event, and there is endless action to be watched.

From THEMODASTUDIO on the Undead team

From O.P.E.L. Army on the Living team

From Skarpz , featuring custom armor from Aztek Future Soldiers

Prize Toss

To top it all off, the day ended off with a massive prize toss.  Flagswipe brought out an entire skid of paintball products from event sponsors that were tossed into the crowd, and nearly everyone involved got to leave with something for free.  Prizes from the toss included all types of gear, masks, tanks and even a few paintball markers.  Dozens of pods were also tossed into the crowd, each stuffed full of useful products, tools and stickers.  To make sure the younger players got in on the free product toss fun without getting moshed by adults, they got their own section of the crowd for a special young guns prize toss.

  

  

Crowd at the prize toss with Human General Kaz from Visual Reviews tossing out freebies to the crowd, Shawn from Flagswipe tossing out a Tippmann Crossover marker, and tons of pods filled with prizes.

Video and images from thisispaintball.ca

This is one of the biggest and greatest Canadian Scenario paintball events.  Be sure to attend next year to make sure you don't miss out on any of the excitement at Day of the Dead 12!

PSP Paintball World Cup 2012 this week!

This upcoming week marks the most exciting time of year for the paintball industry.  The 2012 PSP World Cup is taking place in Florida this week and will be a time for new product launches, fierce competition and new chapters in many paintball team franchises.  In addition to bringing back 10-man to the many divisions of speedball play, PSP has joined with the UWL to bring woodsball back to national paintball competition scene.

World Cup Product Launches & Vendors

PSP's World Cup has always been an important launching point for creating market buzz in the paintball industry and releasing new products for the next year's season.  It is arguably the largest paintball event in the world, with the most players(over 300 teams), the most fields, and the most vendors attending.

List of Event Sponsors,Vendors and Rumours:

Athletes Joined Against Spondylitis

BLAST

Bud Light
Carmatech Engineering:Their new SAR12 Tactical marker is an exciting looking First Strike compatible milsim rifle that is sure to draw a lot of attention.

Circus Spectacular
Contract Killer

Custom Products
Derder

Dye: Dye's new D.A.M. Tactical marker is expected to be released at Cup, as well as the new DM13 to continue the Matrix legacy.

Empire: A new mystery Empire marker has been spotted in the hands of a couple of Infamous players over the past weekend.  Appearing wrapped up in tape to hide the looks of the marker's design, not much is know about the marker, but rumours on PBNation suggest that it is a brand new high-end marker that will be released at Cup.  Hopefully we'll get more details this week.

Exalt Paintball
Fat Sam’s Concessions

GI Sportz

GOG

HK Army

Hungry Howies Pizza
JT
KM Straps
MacDev

Ninja Paintball: Ninja's air system's have been top-quality since their introduction to the market.  Their new Pro Regulator has the useful feature of having a rotating collar, which allows the user to rotate their tank reg to change placement of the gauge and fill nipple.  With this regulator, you'll never have the fill nipple in the way of your wrist again!
NXe
Paintball Media Group and Social Paintball
PBLife.com
PbRack Clothing

Planet Eclipse

Procaps Paint Trucks

Raza: Raza has plans to release new products at cup this year including a new line of polo shirts, jerseys, gloves, shorts and headbands.

RPS Paint Trucks

Sup’AirBall Bunkers
Tiberius Arms

Trade My Gun
Ultimate Paintball
Understood
UWL - Ultimate Woodsball League
Valken

Virtue

Canadians Playing World Cup

I want to take this opportunity to wish good luck to all of the Canadians from Ontario traveling down to Florida to play World Cup.  New Canadian teams of note include:

• Toronto Force D1:  Force is a brand new PSP team that is made up of veteran Canadian superstar players from the CXBL. Take a look at this Outside the Mesh Article for more info regarding this new powerhouse team.
• Alliance D3:  This is a new camp that will be making its premiere at PSP World Cup this week.  Made up of players from the Cambridge/Kitchener area including many from the CXBL and MXL divisions.  Alliance is planning on creating a camp for next season which will have teams ranging across most of the divisional games.

Alliance's World Cup jerseys, printed by Ntensity Customs

• SportsAgressor Moscow D3:  Although this is a Russian team, there are Canadian players on the roster and it is possibly the most exciting team in the division.  Coming together at the previous PSP Mid Atlantic Open event, two of my Canadian Express teammates joined up with the Russians to take on the American paintball scene.  After narrowly missing making the Sunday cut for finals, SportsAgressor Moscow is returning to shoot for the top this event and will definitely be a team to watch in D3 at this event.

SportsAgressor Moscow at PSP MAO, pic from PaintballPhotography.com

PSP Paintball World Cup 2012 Webcast From PaintballAccess

Continuing their great series of live webcasts for the 2012 PSP season, PaintballAccess.com will be returning for World Cup to bring live paintball to the online digital world. 

The live webcast is starting off this Wednesday with a World Cup Pre-Show.  This will feature paintball legends Matty Marshall, Todd Martinez and Chris Lasoya to get the latest behind-the-scenes news on teams, roster changes and player injuries.  You'll also get some analysis of the past PSP season to see what teams are expected to be on top and who to watch out for during the games this weekend.

Coverage for the rest of the event will include commentary from professional paintball players, interviews with players and of course intense paintball action during the event.  Webcast coverage will begin on Thursday and continue through Sunday's finals.  Pro team coverage will take up most of the webcast time, but we may get a chance to see divisional teams' games being broadcasted as well.  Be sure to watch the webcast this weekend if you've got some free time at home, wishing you were playing paintball in Florida!

Using the simple taglines, "Watch it. Love it.  Live it." 

Paintball Access is the place to be for everything paintball this week.