NPPL Jacksonville...

[CKY_Alliance]

Well I thought I read that the Huntington Beach reffing was a huge improvement over last years reffing.

Well if that was the case, what happened to those referees?

I did not play this event, but I drove up Saturday night and spent all day there today (Sunday). I had a couple of friends playing one of which, his team did not go onto Sunday and one who's team did.

So we get there at like 6:30 a.m. (we were with the team playing that day) and my friend who was not playing went to sign in so he could get in the pits. Well trying to get an ID to get into the pits was not possible since his team was knocked out. I guess this could be considered an issue to some and not to others. But if I pay the price that they payed to play I want to be able to get back in the pits if need be (he needed to get his gear from another team). Well we never got clearance to go in.

Well then we try to go and watch our friends first game. He had his wristband from the day before which gave him acess to the spectator sections. Well not on Sunday, he had to buy another wrist band. They did give him half off, but still he has already payed 250 dollars in entry alone to these people.

So we finally get in to the spectators section. Now throughout the day we would go to walk somewhere taking a path we took earlier in the day with no problem,but when we would go that way again maybe 30 minutes to an hour later we would be stopped for not having the proper wrist bands. Let me explain the situation as best as possible.

Entrance A was on one side of the grandstands. We walked to the grandstands, went up, looked for some people, came down and came out on the backside of the stands and tried to exit through entrance/exit B. Now Exit A and B were 30 feet from each other and took you to the same place. But we weren't aloud to use entrance B. We had to walk all the way back around the stands and go to entrance A just to go right back where we were just denied entrance.Doesn't make much sense to me? There were constantly changes being made.

Anyway enough of the petty stuff and on to the Refereeing !

It was horid. I watched games on all fields, but the one that stuck out the most to me was the Spyder field. I don't think the ref's went one game without calling a 1 for 1 or a 3 for 1. And that's fine if it's deserved. But one ref would call someone out then another one would call the a penalty on that person. To my understanding the ref whom pulls the player is suppose to make the penalty call. Not just that but someone would fill corner and get shot in the pack. They would slide in (I mean there are some laws of motion that prevent you from stopping on a dime especially on turf), NEVER raise their gun, ref would run over and pull a 1 for 1 for playing on. I saw this numerous occasions.

Another situation on that same field. I guy took a hit to his hopper he turned his gun over to check it and was called for playing on. Never shot a ball.

There were bad calls all day and I heard numerous teams complain that the ref's calls were deciding games. Like when they call a one for one or three for one and instead of pulling the closest player they go to the opposite side of the field to pull a player with superior field positioning.

As I said above I didn't even play and I got the feeling that the NPPL doesn't give a damn about it's players or spectators.

My little review...I guess.

[Z-man]

I read this kind of stuff and I don't feel I am missing out on the tourney scene. Far less hard on my stomach and conscience playing small group games. There is never perfection in every aspect of a sports game or tourney but in paintball tournaments it seems it's rare to find one that people are generally happy about.

[CKY_Alliance]

You're going to have your teams that complain because they felt that they had bad calls. But in NPPL it is more then one team and they are always bad calls. PSP reff's have their off days, but you generally don't hear near the complaints as you do for nppl.

Something I forgot to mention in the first post.

I've been to the first 2 MAO's that were hosted at PBC ( couldn't make this years) and both MAO's I went to had probably 3 times the amount of spectators that the NPPL event had today. World cup, same thing but even more people. But I don't see that a fair comparison.

Not to mention I was bored watching 7 man today. Xball and even PSP 5-man is much more entertaining and exciting.

[RogueFactor]

I gave up on the NPPL the year before last. After having gone to the previous 3-4 years West Coast events I was finished. Every year kept getting worse.

Its supposed to be entertainment for spectators, and it was anything but. A spectator used to be able to watch any game on any field if there was room. Nowadays they squeeze you for every dollar by charging you for chicken-°°°° stuff. °°°° them. Paintball is not that exciting that Im going to pay to watch a few games. Id rather use that money to go play myself.

The stupidity is, the people who watch the games are the people who PLAY the sport or friends/relatives of. There are in fact very few that watch paintball because they follow the sport and its players.

[CKY_Alliance]

As a customer to the nppl I felt very mistreated and I only spent $5.00 dollars to get in...well that and the 90 dollars in gas to get there and back.

I would have been very °°°°ed if I played that event and was treated the same way. There was a team playing from New York. They took 4th so they payed for there paint. The next event or one of the upcoming events is in Buffalo. The team coach was telling me it isn't even that far from them and they are not going to attend. They traveled all the way down the east coast to play an event and it was so bad they won't travel within their own state to play another one. That is pretty bad.

Oh and the food prices...for °°°°s sake. $6.00 cheeseburgers! WTF..$3.00 water and soda,it was ridiculous. Even World cup's food was cheaper and their prices were dictated by Disney.

[Ares]

I have considered going to one of these until I read reviews like these

[sandfreestyle]

To start off, I am not for or against the NPPL in anyway.

Being an NPPL ref myself, I can assure you that some calls are really hard to make. Harder than you would think. We also can't look at everything all at once. But the thing that kills me is when I'm not on the field working, I'm looking the other way, and I hear a hopper hit opposite of where I'm looking and NO ref goes to check. I know that everyone who has played paintball just a tad, knows what a hopper hit sounds like. I don't even know these people on the field and I scream at the ref to check 'em or get 'em out.

But from the sounds of things, the reffing at HB was way better than Jacks. I'm not saying that HB was perfect in anyway, but not that bad. I did not work HB so no one can blame me for bad calls.:D

The only real reason for me to go to HB is for the trade show. Everything in one place.

[CKY_Alliance]

I assume each ref is assigned a zone to watch?

Well my friend was playing snake and has a white battery door on a black hopper and to the ref on the doritto side of the field it looked liek a hit. So he signaled to the ref by the player in the snake to check under his hopper. (I assume that's what the signal was for. He got his attention and twirled his hand in a motion that seemed to mean look under.) Well the ref checked his hip and never looked at the inside or underside of his hopper...the ref who the "hit" orignally knew he did not check the right place because he signaled him to check again. The Ref on the snake side shrugged I believe or used some sort of body language to communicate "I don't see the hit".So the dorrito side ref continued to stand there and let the game go on.

He never ran over to check for himself. He did check after the game, but what good was it then. And again they may have zone assignments, but I assume he could have alerted another ref on the dorrito side and he could have ran over to check it himself.


Even if the referees weren't that bad and I wasn't treated so °°°°ty I don't think I would spectate another event. It is not very exciting; at least compared to PSP. I get much more enjoyment out of watching PSP. I do believe they are showing the wrong format on television. But that's a whole other debate.

[sandfreestyle]

The scenario you just said is a perfect example of one thing the refs are trained to do but don't do. They are suppose to take a look at the players gear and what not as they walk on the field. This should give them an idea of what colors they are and if anything is a tad out of place.

They are also suppose to keep an eye out on what color paint each team is shooting in each game. That helps spot a hit much easier. Sounds to me like these refs were not properly trained and didn't use a lick of what they were taught.