National Pro Shop's Celebrity Big Game
May 17, 1998
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National Pro Shop's Celebrity Big Game May 17, 1998 |
The St. Louis Big Game is always a pleasure to go to. Why? Well, it's Tim, it's Fred, and it's St. Louis. I was looking forward to going to this game, but a lot fell out from under me. As a side note, my life seems to consist of having the floor drop out from under me a lot of the time. I'm thinking of making some kind of "real life bungee cord" or something. I'd have a lot of takers on it. That and "Mental Floss". I think there's a market for that.
| Anyhow, this game was punctuated in the beginning by a lack of my girlfriend. Before the event she ran out of money, and I couldn't find enough for both of us to go. So I'm goin' in alone. Then I get wind that Robbo's mom had a heart attack (which I was told later was a "False Alarm") so he wasn't going. Seeing as I'm writing for PGI (A decision I made after the "genius" thing...) I volunteered to write the article in Robbo's absence. A little more stress. Like a lot of things so far this year this came together at the last conceivable minute. And the decision to bring Comet was from the beginning. Tim Schloss gets a kick out of Comet, and I like to play as Comet. I showed up early to the event. Shives was late. We're convinced it's a sign of the apocalypse. (He's usually there REALLY early, and I roll in around 10 AM or so...) I brought the Autococker with me, with the toys. Collin Thompson of Lapco fame noticed my barrel plug wasn't a good one, so he sent me a Lapco barrel plug which I hung my Lively Masters keychain off of. It's cool. Freddy had to bail out early, his wife's birthday was on the 17th, and I understand that one. So "Paintball Dave" Rudig stepped in as captain of Fred's Reds. Simon Cole (too many UK teams to list) had the blue team. Other notables at the event were Tim Schloss (Pursuit Products), Sal Brugillo ("Total Grief" paintball team and Paintball News Writer), Bill & Dawn Mills (Warpig. Duh.), Marty Tripes (Scott goggles), and a few other people who I wasn't formally introduced to. Myself and Matt were listed as celebrities, but I don't see why. |
We finally got to play, most of the smarter celebs stayed under cover. Why? HEAT!!! It was HOT!!! Really hot! I had paint forming clusters in my loaders, and what would shoot was a jelly donut. Paint was bouncing so badly it was like superballs. I actually CAUGHT paintballs in my hands that were shot to me. It was obvious that overshooting would be the norm. This made people slip into the "Tournament" mentality of "Shoot 'em till they don't move, then shoot 'em again." (Not my words, mind you...) so keep that in mind.
Game 1, uneventful with the exception of being a bit mad. I was mad all weekend actually, and I couldn't figure out why. (figured it out but it's not anything I'm wanting to share.)
I like working with Matt up a field. but, when a tide shifts we go to look, and the other hangs around to keep the line steady. That's what happened, and that's what we did. I was shooting across the way and hearing solid hits, but nothing. this wasn't illusions, it was solid hits! It wasn't just me, this was happening all over the field. There were guys getting hammered and nothing doing like saying "Hit" or "bounce". That annoys me. What torqued me off the most was I saw "PINK" paint coming at me. Field paint was WHITE. this always makes me mad. (My theory is simple. Celebs shoot what we all shoot. If they bring their own, then I better be allowed to do the same.)
So I got mauled while telling a ref where the cheater was. Tim told me later he had screwed up and handed pink paint to a "Few people". Ok, fine. Game 2 all the orange "Wax Zap" and the pink stuff was removed. Now we can play.
Game 2, Dave's plan was great. We all slam straight down the tape, and catch them off guard. Nobody else would sprint forward, so I did. I caught the first guy off guard and shot him up. (all but 1 bounced) Then their front line found me, and started shooting. I stopped counting at 30 bouncers. A ref was kneeling 5 feet from me, and he will vouch that none broke.
We did reel up and make a powerful slam forward, however. But they all decided to "Reincarnate" with a minute before the reincarnation time was up. So with ten guys shooting at me keeping me down, a player came over the top, put the barrel of his gun on my head, and pulled the trigger 5 times. The whole while he screamed "YOUR DEAD! YOUR DEAD! GET THE F--- OFF THE FIELD A--HOLE!" This is tourney speak, not big game speak. (Deleted for RASCII)
None of the balls broke.
A second player did the same thing to me as I was rolling semi-conscious off the field. his didn't break either. I was verbally and physically assaulted by people who claim this is a "Friendly" game. Uh huh, yeah. I don't buy the adrenaline thing anymore, they were totally out of control. To me, that's unacceptable.
I brooded this all the way back to the lot, where I had an hour and change to mull it over. Shives kept telling me to "Relax". I was relaxed, just very, VERY mad that someone would do such a thing to anyone. There's no check on the flags, there's no reason for this acceptable brutality. I know I shouldn't be ranting here, but it's something I feel very strongly about. But that's just me.
After waiting a long, LONG time to get back on the field, the temp climbed higher still. Our game plan was simpler. Hold back for 15 minutes out of the 45. After 15 minutes, the reincarnation period would be over. Then we'd whittle them down and make a move up. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was dehydrating. We all were. In that game I sat down and did nothing for 15 minutes. I just didn't have it in me.
Someone was shooting at me, but he was so far out of range it was disgusting. I yelled at him not to bother, and he stopped. Again, it's amazing what people will infer. Eventually, we had them down to a manageable size and began a push forward. One guy bounced one off my... ahem... it was close enough. My anger spilled over and I started shooting. I didn't stop until I was satisfied, about 50-60 shots. I was out of control, and I knew it. But when you shoot at "Mister Happy", be prepared for me NOT to be very pleased about it!
That's when I knew I needed a slowdown. The game finished out well, we won it. But it didn't seem important somehow. I took time between games to calm down a lot. I needed to.
 | Game 4 was actually what I wanted to do. Very calm, very casual. Everything falling into place mentally. Doing calls, longballs, and crawls. I took off the jersey to help with the heat. I also had a bottle of cold water in my harness which helped even more. Got some decent pictures that game. Sal took a few for me. It was decent. We stuck to the game plan of "Hold before Push". And it worked again. We pushed them back to their area, and advanced up as much as we could. I got taken out near the end of the game, unfortunately, but it was ok. It was the game that was more calm, at least in my mind. |
So it was a push. Both teams won 2 games for the first time in the National Pro Shop's Big Game history. So we're just gonna have to get back next year and try it again. As for Comet... I got to play a "Cool down" game of two on two speedball in the sweltering heat. I actually felt kinda bad for the other two guys. I walked up on them and got them both to surrender. (I heard someone in the staging area commenting "Oh, he's gonna get the other one too..." as I rounded to close in on the second player...) It felt kinda good to play one last game before going home for the night. Even if I never shot a paintball the whole game...
Next year... I'm hoping there's going to be a next year. Hopefully, Freddy will stick around. Much more entertaining that way, actually. Hopefully it will be bigger, more than the 50-70 that showed up in '98. Comet will be back. Either I'm a masochist or I'm just enjoying it too much... Either way, I wonder if it'll be COOLER in'99 (like we hoped in '96) or if it'll be a scorcher.
And as a final note the suit is really, REALLY retired now. I'm gonna have to make a new one. It's amazing it held this long. Seams are trashed, the knees are about to go, and it's only held together with faith at this point. So, we start construction on Comet v 2.0 now, and learn from old mistakes. Stay tuned. Next planned outing is... unplanned.
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