This has been in the coming for a couple of months now, and it's finally here. Windsor Rush Paintball now has a new airball field to add to their collection of bunkers. The field is complete with a full snake side, a dorito side, and more bunkers in the middle including cans, temples and car washes. This opens the way for more speedball style paintball to be played in the Windsor area, and gives new teams a field to practice on during the week.
There are still some huts and walls on the field, but for the speedball purists, don't worry! The huts are set on wheels, and can be rolled right off of the field to make a wide-open, purely speedball field for team practices. If you're interested in team practices or playing speedball with the big boys, talk to the staff at Windsor Rush and ask them when their next open airball practice will be.
I had to check the field out for myself this past Saturday as it had been almost a month since I had last played paintball, and I was feeling the itch to play. I made sure to try playing the entire field, spending games in the snake side, dorito side and even up the middle. My GoPro was along for the ride, and I took some barrelcam videos of my games.
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.
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.
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.
