Tourney thoughts...

(from T-Square's Forum page)

no tournaments are scheduled at this time.

i also want to go on record - it will be a cold day down under before i ever hold another tournament that allows electronic guns. the paintball "rate of fire" race is totally out of control.

i seem to be the only one in the world who thinks the possibility of 10 or 15 or 20 balls per second into the back of the head is insane... so i will continue my one man boycott against high rate of fire guns on my own. occasionally i will run a special event tournament such as our "keep the gun tournaments" or "hopperball" mechanical guns only tournaments.

T-Square Paintball Field is a "rec" ball field and will remain so.

i have no patience for "indy car" drivers on my "go cart" track.

hope that clears things up for you.

mick gray/t-square paintball


i should point out that i don't like feeling the way i do about tournament play.

i enjoy competition and i love paintball...but paintball is going to destroy itself if this quest for "high rate of fire" and "win at all cost" is allowed to continue.

there are "small" tournaments out there. but you will not find one that isn't SERIOUS! no matter where you go, where you play, there is always one or two teams looking to knock you on your ass with guns that ramp or bounce or magically increase in FPS.

yes it's a shame a few ruin it for the many. yes it's tempting to say, "just throw the offending teams off the field". problem is it's getting harder and harder to detect cheater boards and assisted triggers. add to that the wipers, punks, overly aggressive players and win at all cost attitudes....and, well...do i sound cynical?? maybe.

go to Orlando and watch the "PRO's" act like 4 year olds. go to a local tourney and watch the local refs throw a tourney to the local team. go to the IAO in Pittsburg and listen to rookie and amateur teams use language that would fry a sailor's hair. go to any tournament and watch the refs get treated like crap because they couldn't instantly make a call over three circumstances occurring simultaneously in a thousandth of a second.

Who's to blame? How do we return sanity to the game?

kids see "paintball" on ESPN and want to shoot like the pro's without ever knowing what "rec" ball is. Manufacturers take rec ball guns and turn them into cheap, paint slinging versions of a tourney gun cause that's what kids tell their parents they NEED! new teams cheat cause they want to be pros. pro teams insist on 26 balls per second because their opponents just got a marker that shoots 25. pro teams cheat cause they have to win to attract sponsors. sponsors put up with the cheating cause they want their logo seen on ESPN.

and all the while I’m typing this I’m realizing that on any given rec ball day here at T-Square there is always one or two players trying to overshoot a buddy, wiping, cussing, trying to get over on the ref and generally doing all the knucklehead things i can't stand tournament players doing.

the difference is these knuckleheads are just a small part of the 95% of paintball players that play because it's fun. i put up with them and deal with them (some days are harder than others) in order to bring the thrill and challenge of paintball to the masses!

the clock is ticking down for tournament players. someone is going to get hurt bad (there have already been some serious, but not "major", incidents). whether as a result of overshooting or from a bench clearing throw down it's not going to matter. what's left to find out is if paintball in general is riding on that same clock. one to many votes by your city council or state legislature could send it all down the tubes for all of us.

I’d say that's my two cents worth but i probably rambled on for fourteen or fifteen cents worth...