Who will be in Vegas?

[Junkie]

Take your time. I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the pics and maybe hereing about the weekend.

[Bayhouse]

I wish I had more time to take good pics of the event, but with my crazy ref schedule I just couldn't get anything worth hosting. I have a few pics of the Chronic field on Friday moring before we started the games, and a few from the System X field during lunch time.

The weather on Friday was HOT and muggy which is sort of unusual for Vegas. Everybody expected dry heat. I was on the Chronic field and games were on time for the most part, but toward the end of the day we were about 10-15 minutes behind, not bad at all really. The only complaint I had was the NPPL's planning of game times and availability of day light. The last 10 games were played in near dark conditions which made it hard to ref the players properly, and when more than 10 feet away the players appeared as shadows.

Our head ref (who also runs the site www.polecatpaintball.com) was happy with the limited amount of controversial calls at the end of the day. It still amazes me how some people who are 50 feet away and on the other side of the netting think they can tell the difference between bunker rub and a hit better than somebody only inches away. Oh well, that's paintball I guess!

Saturday rolls around and I must say it was a huge relief to see clouds in the sky :icon_bigg. The sun peeked out only a few times and it even rained for a minute or two. Players had a slightly different attitude than the previous day because they knew they had to step it up if they wanted to play on Sunday. I usually don't pay attention to how the teams are playing because I am concentrating on who is hit and who is not, so I can't really comment on who was able to take their game the next level. However I can tell you that players got very upset at calls they did not agree with! But I do understand where they are coming from.

Now on to the next subject...Players that think they are above the rules. Some teams (or certain players on some teams) think they are special and that the rules don't apply to them. Markus Nielson for example thought he was special enough to wear a pink JT goggle strap, which was AFTER Phil Dominguez specifically told him not to. So I pulled him out in the middle of a game :p --He then proceeded to call me a f****** d***. Oh no Markus! I'm so hurt!

Two players on HK also thought they could get away with the pink JT goggle straps. Before the game I told them they could not wear them, and apparently only one player complied, so when the game started I noticed the back left player with his pink strap still on...Bye bye!

Todd Martinez had head gear that went all the way down his back, so I made him tuck the part that was too long down his jersey. You should have seen the look on his face...It was something like, "You puny piece of ****! I am Todd Martinez the great one, how dare anybody tell me what I can wear." Of course he didn't say that, but it was all over his face. I really am getting sick of these guys. It's like we (refs) are their mommys and we have to dress them before every game. I don't know how many times I had to remind players to tuck their jerseys in or flip their JT flex thingy down, it's well beyond ridiculous.

On to Sunday. I was happy to know that our field (Chronic) was done at 10:30am :biggrin:, but of course my day wasn't close to over. A few of us were called to the NPPL field to ref the finals. I must say it is really cool to be in front of the crowd on the main field, knowing you will be on all the DVDs, and even TV makes it even better.

Some people on other message boards have come up with some interesting conspiracy theories. Just to let you guys in on a little secret, we (refs) don't care about who wins. We simply ref the games to the best of our ability and whatever happens, happens. People come up with these crazy theories about how a 1 for 1 was called on one team and then wasn't on another and that is proof that they want such and such team to win. It all comes down to what the ref saw at that peticular moment, and quite often, with all the confusion, the ref will see things differently than the people in the stands.

In the end I think most players thought the tournament went very well, and we will see them in San Diego.

In case anybody was wondering about my experience as a player/ref, I have been playing for approximately 14 years. For the last 3 years I have been playing serious rec ball and reffing at my local field, and have no desire to play tournaments due to the time and money it takes to play a national event.

I hope you enjoyed my "article" on the Vegas event

EDIT: Here are the mediocre pics I was able to take.

[Bayhouse]

Here's a pic I found on pbstar (I'm the ref in the pic), this was right before I pulled a 1 for 1 on the Entourage player in the pic for playing on with an obvious hit.

EDIT: I found a few pics on Miguel Cruz's site that shows when I pulled Markus Nielson out for wearing the pink JT goggle strap!

[ShadowWalker]

nice pics warped, nets are hard to take pics through...

[warpedx]

Thanks shadowwalker. I wnated to grab a mask and crawl under that netting quite a few times. I updated the gallery with the rest of my photos that came out alright. Check it out!

[Pumpster]

Nice. and i love the hair cut

[Junkie]

Originally Posted by Bayhouse

Markus Nielson for example thought he was special enough to wear a pink JT goggle strap, which was AFTER Phil Dominguez specifically told him not to. So I pulled him out in the middle of a game :p --He then proceeded to call me a f****** d***. Oh no Markus! I'm so hurt!

Two players on HK also thought they could get away with the pink JT goggle straps. Before the game I told them they could not wear them, and apparently only one player complied, so when the game started I noticed the back left player with his pink strap still on...Bye bye!

Todd Martinez had head gear that went all the way down his back, so I made him tuck the part that was too long down his jersey. You should have seen the look on his face...It was something like, "You puny piece of ****! I am Todd Martinez the great one, how dare anybody tell me what I can wear."

Man, great article covering the event. Concerning these player's who are being disrepectful, isn't there any rules that you can enforce such as "your suspended for a couple tournaments" for the outrageous treatment of the refs?

Seems these players should be setting examples instead of acting this way.

[ShadowWalker]

HK is truly to overhyped. I care what anyone says about the "loving the game" and being agg or anything, being disrespectful to ref's isn't loving anything.

[Bayhouse]

Originally Posted by pbjunkie

Man, great article covering the event. Concerning these player's who are being disrepectful, isn't there any rules that you can enforce such as "your suspended for a couple tournaments" for the outrageous treatment of the refs?

Getting a suspension is pretty difficult to do, but Phil suspended 2-3 players in Vegas so it does happen.

Originally Posted by pbjunkie

Seems these players should be setting examples instead of acting this way.

I agree 100% that they should be setting examples, but I think some of the players feel like the refs haven't played at their level, and as a result do not deserve any respect. They seem to have this, ~Who the heck are you to tell me what to do~ attitude. But then other players are really cool and follow all the rules without any question, and believe me we are very thankful for those players who keep a level head. Some players just have a problem with authority, and it doesn't matter who you are, they hate the idea of somebody else telling them what to do.

We try to go into the tournament with a positive attitude, but after awhile fatigue, frustration, and emotions set in. That is why you might hear some stories of a few refs going on power trips, they are just reacting to the crap they have to deal with for 11 hours per day.