The first PSP event of the season is already here, and the energy is pumping. Canadian Express is playing in D3 race to 4, and helping out Infamous in the pits and running pods during their pro matches, working hard all weekend.
The PSP Dallas live webcast is being broadcast by Paintball Access, with coverage of all of the pro division games. Divisional matches will also be shown during the finals on Sunday. Here's the link for the live PBA webcast: http://www.paintballaccess.com/live/
I'll be posting again once I'm home from the event to give a recap of how the divisional and pro matches over the weekend went. Until then, sit back and watch the action unfold on the Paintball Access webcast!
This last long weekend over the Family Day holiday was packed full of paintball experience for me.
Saturday PSP Prep Grind Session
On the Saturday, the Canadian Express team hit the field at Flagswipe Paintball for the preseason grind with a special guest, Travis Lemanski of LA Infamous. The team spent the night running drills on top of drills to prepare for the upcoming PSP Dallas event next month. Expertise from Travis helped to mold our practice plans for the rest of the season, with a whole host of drills and preparation ideas, with the Race-to format in focus.
Sunday LA Infamous & Canadian Express Skills Clinic
Sunday is where the magic happened, and the local paintball community came together to learn from Travis and pick up some pro tips for their game. The skills clinic was hosted by Canadian Express and led by Travis Lemanski, with 30 players of all skill levels attending to get the whole experience. Basic drills covered paintball skills including snap shooting, running and gunning, lane control, communication and general teamwork. The day started off and ended with scrimmages so players could see how their skills improved over the day.
Kaz from Visual Reviews was also on hand recording the clinic and put together this video coverage of the event, watch it on YouTube here:
Have you ever been watching the pro matches during a PSP webcast and thought, "I want to be that guy, how do I get to be where he is in life?".. No? Too bad. For those other paintball fanatics like me out there, I have some exciting news for you!
For those who are interested in taking the next step into tournament paintball, Flagswipe, Canadian Express and Infamous have you covered! Champion from both the 2012 NPPL Chicago Open and PSP Chicago events this year, Los Angeles Infamous player Travis Lemanski is coming to Canada on February 17th to host a paintball skills clinic at Flagswipe Paintball in London, Ontario! This is a great and rare opportunity for players to get advice and pro tips from a professional on how to improve their game.
Flashback to my early paintball days:
Back in 2005, an Infamous clinic came to my local field, DieHard Paintball. At the time, I was just getting interested in playing speedball and had just sold my first marker (Tippmann A-5) and bought the brand new Ion. Being new to playing speedball, I was eager to learn but had no idea where to start. Going to the clinic and getting advice from the pros on how to hold my marker and snapshoot properly, gave tips on shooting lanes, as well as showed us how to slide and dive safely. The session was very helpful, and the year after I began playing my first tournaments in the PETS series, later getting into Xball.
Infamous Skills Clinic
The clinic is open to paintball players of all skill levels, from beginners to seasoned veterans and will include a day packed full of paintball drills to level up your game. Entry for the clinic is only $110 ($100 for Flagswipe Members), and includes a case of paintballs, and an Infamous t-shirt to remember the day. Players can register for the clinic by calling the shop at Flagswipe and reserving your spot. Space is limited to 30 players, act fast and get registered TODAY so you don't miss this chance.
With the 2013 PSP season still a few months away, teams are already well on their way to being prepared for the events. Many teams have their rosters established, with on-field practices getting underway and their season schedules and plans getting locked down, awaiting final confirmation of PSP event dates.
Although on-field experience and practice is a must for paintball teams, players cannot forget all of the off-field exercises and preparations they should be going through. The main focus of off-field paintball workouts should be cardio conditioning and burst speed, and the players who take the time to prepare their bodies for extended periods of exertion and heat will be the ones who shine as the long points and games drag on. At our Canadian Express practices, there is a huge focus on running and working up a huge sweat before even working into drills, breakouts and scrims.
In the end, all of the on and off-field training will come together at the events to show what these paintball players are made of, and which teams come out on top will be made of players who are dedicated to their paintball season.
Canadian Express hit the field at Flagswipe Paintball last Saturday for our first practice of the new year, and I recorded some GoPro footage which I edited together to show the world what Express is working on for the 2013 PSP season.
For ideas for paintball drills and workouts, check out some of the links in the sidebar on the right.
World Cup is over, Halloween has passed, and I haven't played paintball in about two weeks. Yup, it's that time of year again: the offseason.
All across North America as the weather changes, outdoor airball fields are being taken down. Our local air field at DieHard went down two weeks ago, and the airball field at Flagswipe's outdoor has been down since Day of the Dead last month. This means it's now harder to play speedball and get team practices in, all teams are going to have to fight to schedule practice time on indoor fields.
"Coming home feels like surrender, feels like we're giving in.
When the shows are over, is there any other reason to live?"
Sure it was written about a touring rock band, but this really captures the feeling at the end of the tournament paintball season. Players go from grinding practices and events nearly every weekend, down to playing once a month if they can find field time. As paintballer players, it feels like we're living two completely different lives, flipping back and forth between being surrounded by paintball where everyone knows each other, to the real working world, where your paintball knowledge is nearly useless and normal things seem to feel alien. We want to be out on the road, at the field, at tournaments, hanging out in hotel rooms with our teammates. The offseason brings this drastic difference, as we go from being completely busy and our of town on weekends, to suddenly have free time to have a normal social life. This weekend coming up will be the first full weekend I've been home in Windsor in months, and it's almost overwhelming to have this freedom again. This is the time when the paintball players return to the real world, without paintball. We head back to school, jobs, careers, families and friends, and for some of us, no matter how good life on the outside is, we just want to be back at the paintball field, grinding out points with our teammates.
At the same time as this freedom comes, there's also a brand new rush to play paintball. Although the season just ended, teams across the country are already starting tryouts and building team camps to prepare for next season. As soon as we get time off from the season, we get a whole new schedule pushed on us with tryout dates and everything for the next season. It seems almost crazy to start rebuilding so early, almost before players have even had a break, but it's what teams need to do now because everyone's doing it. Paintball players want to play every weekend, and if they can't play with their team, they'll go wherever they can.
The offseason is the time of year that makes players question everything: whether they'll be coming back again for next season, if they want to stick with the same team, who they want to be at this time next year. There's also the hard questions: can I afford to play a full tournament season next year? Am I wasting my money or should I just play rec ball? They're the hard decisions that every paintball player needs to make, and everyone needs to make for themselves.
Here's a cool video from DQ Films back in 2009 from the Palm Beach Vipers' offseason.
It's a little different down there in Florida since they have nice outdoor weather, while us Canadians are heading back indoors, but it's the same focus: playing all offseason to be a better team for next year.
The first PSP event for next season is coming up in March. That gives us five months to be get prepared for the biggest competitive paintball season of our lives. We'll be grinding at Flagswipe all winter, and we will be ready to bring it.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
