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.

Monday Night Speedball @ Windsor Rush

This past Monday night, I had the chance to throw down some practice with local Windsor paintball players.  We played on a modified speedball field at Windsor Rush Paintball, which is for the most part, a rec field with air bunkers in the middle.  For ease of setup, we simply started the matches farther up which took the majority of the wooden bunkers and buildings out of the playing field, with the exception of two huts on each side of the field.  A good turnout of 16 players came out, with us running a lot of back-to-back 4 on 4 matches and a bunch of 5 on 5s.  

I brought my GoPro to the field and got some video, but I didn't fully charge it before going and it died about halfway through the scrims.  As usual, the videos have been uploaded to my YouTube channel.

I let my friend use my GoPro barrel mount for a few games, here's a quick run through.

Good news for the future of Windsor speedball players, Rush is ordering a new NPPL field and these speedball practices will soon be held on a full tournament-style airball field.  To find out more about playing speedball nights at Rush, check out their website or talk to their staff and find out when you can come out for some competitive practice.

2012 Recap & Wrap Up

The New Year has come and gone, and 2012 is now written in the history books.  I want to recap how many times I've played paintball this season, and a few lessons I've learned from practicing across Ontario and playing NPPL in the states.

In 2012, I have played:

• Played paintball 30+ times at 7 fields.
• Attended Day of the Dead 11, one of Canada's largest scenario paintball games
• Refferee'd and setup 5 tournaments in the ESPL series as well as Flagswipe's annual Blizzardball Tournament. 
• Travelled to Chicago, Washington DC and Las Vegas to compete in D3 NPPL Events, and pitted for Los Angeles Infamous during their Pro matches in DC and Vegas.

Markers of 2012:

• Dangerous Power G3 (sold)
• Dynasty SFT Shocker (backup)
• Canadian Express edition Empire Axe
• Proto Matrix Rail PMR (beater/backup)
• Tippmann Triumph (Fun-gun for rec ball)

GoPro Setup:

I got a GoPro Hero3 for Christmas this season and I'm putting it to work to record paintball footage from paintball practice, rec ball days and tournaments.  I'm starting to learn video editing, so I hope to upload a mix to my YouTube channel soon.

Thanks to all my readers for giving me a reason to write this blog, I'll be sure to keep it up through the 2013 season.  

First GoPro Videos are up on YouTube!

I played some rec ball yesterday at Windsor Rush and got a chance to try out my new GoPro Hero3 camera to get some paintball footage.  I spent a few hours at the field and switched between using my Axe, setting up my PMR and playing around with the Splatmaster.  

Before the first game, a guy's gun went down and I let him borrow my Axe setup so he could play this game, and I used my Splatmaster.  This was my first GoPro footage for paintball and his reaction to shooting my Axe for the game is awesome.  

I also turned the GoPro around to record behind the gun and a different perspective, it's cool to see the rest of the team moving around behind you.

Subscribe to my YouTube channel and I'll have more paintball videos coming up soon!

Parents, Let Your Kids Play Paintball!

With the holiday season here and parents looking for fun ways to spend quality time with their children, parents should really consider playing paintball with their families.  There are many benefits of playing paintball, including getting kids active with physical exercise, being social and playing together with others as a team to achieve a common goal.  Paintball isn't dangerous, it isn't really violent, it's overall a fun and active sport for anyone who is interested in playing.

To dispel some parents' fears about paintball, another Canadian parent and blogger has created ParentPaintball.com and a series of YouTube videos to help inform other parents on the fun and safe sport of paintball.  He focuses on the overall safety statistics of the sport, the benefits of spending active time with your kids, and the great attitudes of paintball players in general.  It provides an opportunity for father, son, mother and daughters to all participate together in the same game while everyone is on the same level.  If any parents are reading or have kids who have said they are interested in playing paintball, these videos are a great resource for giving them insight into what their children will experience during a regular day of paintball play.

Parent Paintball Videos:

Also, he has a series of videos of headcam footage that will show him and his son playing paintball, including a bunch of Father Vs. Son videos.

Be sure to check out his blog at ParentPaintball.com and watch his videos on his YouTube Channel.

Reddit Secret Santa Exchange!

First of all, happy holidays leading up to this year's Christmas!  I finished school for the semester on Thursday, ending off with a half hour marketing presentation, and I am really looking forward to enjoying some time off before school starts back up again in January.  So I signed up for the 2012 Reddit Secret Santa gift exchange this year through RedditGifts.

I shipped my match's gift out last week, and then sat and waited for my Secret Santa to deliver.  I was woken up this morning by Canada Post delivering a package to my door.  I took off the shipping wrap to reveal some nice red wrapping paper with some Christmas decorations, and then I tore in to see what my Secret Santa sent me.

 

Opening the package, I was pleased to find a set of two Empire barrel swabs, a bag of Evil paintballs (only the best from Reddit!), accompanied by a note and a picture of my Secret Santa and her sister playing paintball at TNT Paintball on the island of Vancouver, British Columbia.  With their recommendation of TNT as a great recreational field, I'll include their promotional video here for anyone from the west coast of Canada who may read this and want to check their field out.

I would like to say huge thanks to my online Secret Santa for making this year a successful first experience with Reddit Secret Santa for me, and I encourage more people to join in and participate next year.

B/S/T: Thoughts on Buying Used Paintball Gear

How Much Paintball Gear is Too Much?

Something happens at the end of every season as paintball players settle down for the winter.  It seems like everywhere you look, somebody is trying to sell their used paintball gear.  This happens every year, as the new product lines come out, players buy into them.  You can only wear one set of gear at a time while playing paintball: one jersey, one pair of pants, one mask, etc. and as the newer gear gets put to use, players old gear begins to get neglected.  Eventually, we realize that we don't need our old gear anymore and put it up for sale, or adoption.

This isn't even all of my paintball gear, and it keeps adding up.

There are a few types of sales threads that go up from paintball players:

• Testing Waters: Just looking for offers, seeing if they can bait a good price out of interested buyers
• Example: Set price at $10,000obo and wait for people to offer.
• Tournament Players: These are the kind of people that have more paintball gear than they could ever use, and are looking to clear out some space.  Many of these players will post up sales of whole gearbags loaded with everything you need to play paintball at the end of the season, as they are usually the first to buy the newest gear.  
• Recent noted examples of this would be Thomas Taylor of XSV posting his entire gearbag up for sale including his custom XSV Axe, but it's not always the pros.  There are tons of local tournament players who would love the opportunity to pass on some of their extra gear to players in need, and will usually offer a good deal to buyers.

• Just Wanna Get Rid of It: Whether they be players who decided to quit paintball, looking to get rid of a problematic marker, or have too much gear, they could offer you great prices to take this gear off of their hands.  You may end up getting high-end gear that is in great shape, or other times you could need to do some repairs that the seller didn't want to deal with.  These deals are usually great in favour of the buyer, and can help you get good paintball gear for a fraction of the retail price. 
•  Recently, I found a local deal and picked up a leaking Proto PMR, an Empire Magna loader and an old Evil jersey all for $75.  By simply using the HPR from my backup marker on the PMR, I was able to get it working within minutes, and I now have another backup marker and loader to use or lend out to friends, picked up at a great price.

I picked up this leaking PMR for a cheap price and fixed it up quickly for a backup marker.

• Non-Paintballer: The people who don't regularly play paintball who are posting ads to buy or sell gear.  Prices from them can either be ridiculously high or low, depending on the person and how much they know about paintball.  You may find some good deals here, but it's usually on low-end gear.  These ads are usually posted on general sales sites such as Kijiji or Craigslist.

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of B/S/T

Wherever you look for used paintball gear, the condition of everything will depend on the seller.  You'll get gear in great condition, you'll get gear with a few scratches, or you can end up with gear that costs more to repair than you paid for it in the first place.

The absolute best practice when buying used gear is to make sure you know about any issues before buying, and even better is if you can meet up with the seller to test out the marker or gear in person before handing over your cash.  When buying online and not having the opportunity to meet the seller, just make sure to ask about any issues you should know about before buying.  Many paintball exchange sites such as PBNation and TDOTBallers have feedback systems in place, so you can check if the person you're dealing with has a good track record.

Websites and Groups to Buy and Sell Used Paintball Gear

Sometimes the hardest part about buying used gear is simply finding what you're looking for.  Here are a few resources for finding people to buy used paintball gear from or to post yours up for sale.

• Your Local paintball field's online forum message board or Facebook page
• PBNation's Massive International B/S/T Section
• TDOTBallers B/S/T for Canadians
• The Canadian Paintball Exchange Group on Facebook
• The Toronto Paintball Exchange Group on Facebook
• Reddit's Paintball B/S/T Subreddit

Good luck on your paintball B/S/T adventures!

Shooters Paintball Pro Shop Launches Canadian Online Store

For any regular paintball player from Windsor who has played at Windsor Rush Paintball, you've met or dealt with the friendly staff of Shooters Paintball Pro Shop.  Shooters has been helping out local Windsor paintball players with finding the paintball gear that they want at prices they can afford, and now they are gearing up to provide the same service to paintball players all across the rest of Canada.

New Canadian Online Paintball Store

Shooters Paintball Pro Shop has now launched an online store,  based out of their Windsor, Ontario location, and is ready to ship orders all across Canada.

If you're from the area and haven't checked it out yet, stop by Shooters Paintball Pro Shop inside of Windsor Rush paintball to check out the new products and deals, or gear up to play some paintball!

Check out the website at:

http://www.shooterspbproshop.com/

Flagswipe House League 2013

Looking for a fun and cheap way to play tournament style paintball in 2013?  Flagswipe has you covered!

The 2013 Flagswipe House League is series of 5 events at the indoor field.  It is a 3 man speedball format, with a twist: players can only use basic gravity fed hoppers and loaders.  This helps even the playing field in many ways by limiting firepower, which keeps the players paint costs low and the attitude friendly.  Flagswipe provides a great atmosphere for both new players getting into the sport and learning to play speedball, and also experienced players who want to play in a more relaxed setting than serious competitive tournaments.  The FHL is also a great way for young guns players to prepare for the ESPL league.

Sportsmanship Bonus!

As a fun bonus, the Head Referee will be giving out poker chip rewards for game wins, ties and sportsmanship!  These chips can be used to win free prizes at the final event auction.

Five Event, Low Cost Paintball League:

Costs are cheap, with the team's league fee being $100 for the 5 events, $10 per person per event entry, and cases of paintballs for as little as $55 for whitebox or $65 for Premium grade paintballs.  Players with Flagswipe memberships will also save $10 off of their team's league entry free.

The five events will take place on January 20, February 10, March 3, March 24, and April 14.

For more detailed information, visit the FHL Facebook event page.

http://www.facebook.com/events/295160777261913/

Teams can register for the FHL at the BuyPaintball.ca website, or by calling the shop at Flagswipe Paintball.

Saturday Rec Ball at Windsor Rush

I stopped by Windsor Rush Paintball, the local indoor field on Saturday. I was having quite a busy day, but I did get the chance to stop by to hang out for a couple of hours and played two games of recreational paintball.

Since I've only played tournament-style speedball all season, it was refreshing to play some relaxed paintball. Rather than using my Axe and electronic gear, I played low-tech using my trusty old plastic Tippmann Triumph marker and a gravity feed hopper. Rush's field setup is a large field with a mix of wooden walls and huts, as well as a bunch of air bunkers. Since I've been playing on air bunkers all season, I decided to blow right past all of the wooden bunkers and head straight for the airball bunkers that I know how to play properly. I focused on movement during the games and getting good angles to pick players off, and I shot a couple of players before getting shot out in each game. In total I shot about 100 balls in the two games I had the time to play.

My Tippmann Triumph marker, complete with a custom Dynasty Ion body as front grip.

The mix of players was great, with a few renters, a few couples, a few employees, a bunch of members and field regulars. It was definitely cool to have a chance to reconnect with local recreational players, and see that paintball is thriving in Windsor, since my team practices are out of town in London and I rarely have the chance to play locally because of my busy work and school schedule. From the large player base that Rush has, there is definitely the potential for these players to become successful tournament players. I would really enjoy seeing a Young Guns team of local players from Rush playing in the ESPL next season, and it would be a great compliment to their successful Rookie division team.

I also had the chance to speak with the field owner, who told me that they are planning to order a brand new air field setup to cater to tournament players, and they are planning on hosting a tournament in the coming months.  When details are finalized, I'll be sure to share and help make this a successful event.  I would really love to see Windsor host a speedball tournament, as it has been years since there have been any local tournaments in the area.

All in all, Windsor Rush Paintball is a great indoor field environment that is great for paintball players of all skill levels.

A video from Windsor Rush Paintball's summer paintball drill camp, which helped teach newer players the basics and finer points of playing paintball.

For more information on Windsor Rush paintball, check out their website, and their YouTube channel for fun videos and a look at the field setup.

Getting into Tournament Paintball - Living the Dream

So I've noticed a lot of new players out at the local airball fields that have the potential to compete in tournament series, but may not have the means or connections to play.  Although it seems complicated from the outside, playing local series is as simple as going out to the local field for a regular walkon day, with slightly more planning.  These events are usually 3-man, 4-man or 5-man, and do not require teams to commit to a whole season of events.  

You really only need a couple of friends with paintball gear to easily throw a team together to play at these local paintball events!

There's nothing holding you back from playing tournaments but you.  Just DO it!

Ontario: The ESPL Series

The ESPL Series is hosted by Flagswipe Paintball and Canadian Express in London, Ontario.  We offer two divisions of tournament play:

• D3 Young Guns, 16 & under: 3 man format
• D2 Rookie, all ages: 5 man format

 Events are held on Sundays, with the Young Guns division playing in the morning and the Rookie division playing in the afternoon.

Prices are very reasonable too:

• Young Guns Entry: $100 per team
• Rookie Entry: $300 per team

Blizzard Ball

A separate event from the rest of the ESPL Series following the same rules, Blizzard Ball is a yearly indoor tournament at the end of the outdoor season that has been a favourite for years.  Same rules, prize structure and great reffing as the ESPL series, but at the nice indoor field!

Prizes for these local events are great, cash or gear which will help players get more into the sport.  

If you're looking at getting into paintball tournaments in Ontario, Blizzard Ball on the 18th is a great place to start!

The first paintball tournament I ever played was a local 3man tournament at DieHard Paintball back when I was in grade 8, and my teammates were two classmates.  We lost every single game against the more experienced locals, but the event was a blast.  We were undergeared and outgunned compared to the regulars, but everyone was friendly.  Our team won the sportsmanship prize, and got some free gear for coming in last place.  On top of that, other players were quite friendly, and one older player even let me borrow his A-Bomb Intimidator for a few games when we had some marker problems throughout the day.  Sure we lost, but it was definitely worth the experience and rush to get into the sport!

A few months later, we put another team together and played a PETS event at Flagswipe, and our new team came in fourth place in Young Guns, winning some free Halo loaders.  These local tournaments are a great way to get started in competitive paintball as there is literally nothing to lose, and only great experiences to be gained!

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.

NPPL Vegas Media and Webcast Coverage

Back by popular demand of paintball enthusiasts around the world, the NPPL provided a live webcast of the main field for the Vegas World Paintball Championships.  Coverage was hosted and commented on by professional players Davey Williamson and Danny Miller.

Preliminary matches took place on Friday and Saturday, with the finals taking place on Sunday.   Games featured on the webcast were the D2, D1 and Professional divisions, playing the 7-man race-to-5 15 minute format.

A teammate and I even got a few seconds of screen time while helping out and pitting for Infamous on the field, by running pods between points.

Be sure to keep an eye out for one of our custom Canadian Express Axes being used by Infamous player during the pro matches.

Friday Webcast Link: 



Saturday Webcast Link:



Sunday FINALS Webcast Link:

NPPL Las Vegas Recap

Well, I'm back in Canada and it feels good to be home in Windsor. There's no place I would have rather been last weekend than where I was: Playing paintball in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Event Setup 

I've attended the last three of the NPPL Super 7 Series this year, and I must say that Vegas was the most impressive event that reminded me of why we travel across the continent to play paintball. There is a massive amount of work that goes into preparing a field from an empty parking lot.  The event ran smoothly, with three fields being built within the course of a couple of days: rolls of turf laid out in the Riviera's parking lot, posts and netting being setup around the fields for safety, and the air bunkers and posts being staked directly through the pavement. 

  Paintball Industry and Sponsor Trade Show 

The trade show at the Vegas event this year was interesting, but no more impressive than any other event this season, with the usual vendors attending. As usual, Valken was there as the main paint sponsor for the league providing their Redemption and Redemption Pro paint for divisional teams. In the league, all divisional teams must shoot Valken paint as they are the league's paint sponsor, with the only exception being teams in the Pro division who can shoot their respective sponsors' paint. 

 Other vendors included MacDev at the Aggressive Sports trailer; HK Army selling headbands, pod packs, and their Shredder cleats; KM Straps; Bob Long brought their show trailer out selling soft gear and their new G6R line of markers; Custom Products with their show truck full of aftermarket parts and dealing the DLX Luxe; Valken had two huge tents selling gear of all kinds. Raza Paintball was there as well, offering a slick looking line of clothing and jerseys designed by top paintball players.

 In addition to the companies selling gear, Empire and Planet Eclipse were at the event to provide tech support for all of their markers and gear, providing fast and helpful service for all players.

  Canadian Express 

 As a team, Canadian Express had a great time in the tournament although we were plagued with small problems during our Friday games that led to our demise. Penalties took our bodies off of the field, combined with the heat affecting our paint so that none of our shots were breaking on target, leading to frustration and lost games. We regrouped after our games to fix our plans for the next day, and worked out a couple of strategies to improve on the rest of our games Saturday. The Saturday went better for Express, with an early start and 7am games, we were ready to roll. Although our tough luck continued in the morning, we had strong performance against the top team in the division, until a major penalty on the snake side dropped half of our team and lost the game for us. Knowing we now had no chance of making Sunday, the mood turned from serious business and game plans to tons of jokes between games. As we put it: "Wins are down, jokes are up!", and the rest of the trip was a great time. We rallied back for our last game and won it with five players alive, and everything was well with the team. Running the flag in for the win on our final game was what made the entire weekend worth it for me.

 

Canadian Express player Shawn Henderson reloading during a match at NPPL Vegas.

Rolling out to NPPL Vegas!

October 2nd, 2012 Getting ready to roll out with Canadian Express for NPPL's World Championship event in Las Vegas this weekend.  We're playing Division 3 7-man against teams from all across the world.  These are our team event t-shirts made by Shawn at Ntensity Customs to represent our sponsors in style.

Five days in Vegas, staying at the Riviera, balling in the parking lot on these epic turf fields that the NPPL just rolled out.  This will be a great weekend: paint will be shot, money will be spent, drinks will be had and good times will be had by all players.  It's a great chance to get to see how players from different parts of the world have similar experiences, and how this great game brings people together across all barriers.

Huge thanks to everyone at Flagswipe and Empire Paintball who make it possible for us to travel and play these great events!

A Canadian Paintballer Abroad

Hello and welcome to all of my new readers, followers and fellow bloggers.  I'm starting up this blog to keep people informed on paintball news and events around the world. I'm a local paintball player from the Windsor & Essex County area so no matter where I travel to play around the year, my focus always goes back to my roots at the local fields.

A little about me: I'm Shane Carter, I live in Windsor, Ontario, and attend St. Clair college.  I've been playing paintball since the end of gradeschool, began playing local tournaments through high school in Flagswipe's old PETS series (now the ESPL). For local fields, DieHard Paintball's outdoor field in Cottam has always been my number one choice for speedball, and the players are always make it a fun time.  Indoor, Windsor Rush is in the city and has a great facility with a fun rec-ball field and friendly staff.

I decided to go all-in to paintball with the Xball format in 2008 when I joined up with Sarnia Ntensity in the RXL division of CXBL.  Afterwards in 2009, Ntensity made a huge move and shifted sponsors to Flagswipe our of London, and we had the chance to practice with London Express CXBL for the season to get a stronger and more convenient practice schedule.

After the 2009 season, life picked up and paintball fell to the wayside.  I got a car, started university, ran out of money to play ball and ended up quitting for a couple of years.  Work, school and a social life kept me busy, but something was always missing.

Flash-forward to this year: I worked full-time factory jobs for two summers, built up some cash, and wanted something to do with my weekends and summer.  I started playing locally again and began my team search.  I ended up contacting my old team camp at Flagswipe, attended the Canadian Express tryouts and joined the team for the 2012 NPPL 7-man season.  I saw this as an opportunity that would do everything I was looking for: to play paintball (almost) every week, to help the community by running local events, to travel across the continent with a team of friends, and to experience the world of paintball as few others from Ontario get the chance to do.

In the 2012 season, I've followed the Express tradition of running the Empire Series Paintball League (ESPL) to give back to the paintball community.  Our team doesn't just play paintball, we make paintball happen and go through all of the work that other players may take for granted when they show up at the field: gridding field lines and squaring the field; cleaning, storing, and setting up bunkers, and setting up netting, staging, chronographs and all of the little logistics that go into maing a paintball tournament run.  We have had 5 events at Flagswipe's outdoor field this year, giving hundreds of players the change to play tournament paintball in two divisions: the 3-man Young Guns division and the 5-man Rookie division.  It has definitely been a successful season for the ESPL, and coming next will be Blizzard Ball at Flagswipe's indoor field on November 18th.