More Paintball!!

Ok, so way back in 2001, Rotorua put on a massive sup'air tournament and for a few years, it was the place to be over queens birthday. Well this year, it was back. Not as big as it used to be, but gotta start somewhere. Back in Jan/Feb, I was asked to play for both Phoenix, my old (2nd) paintball team and a newer team Assassinz. After much deliberations, I decided I'd have more of a fun weekend with the old boys, catching up and drinking booze, rather than a more competitive, higher win chance with the Assassinz. The best thing about playing with Phoenix, is knowing that no matter where we place, i'd be having fun.

It started on Friday morning, getting up after a relatively early night (1am). I managed to pack this time, unlike going to Akl for the Dye Tech course. So I checked that I travel clothes, sat and sun play gear and after play clothes, sleeping gear, pillow, sleeping bag, towel, etc etc. Packed my paintball gear, that i'd cleaned and sorted and checked 2 days before hand. I then put it all in the drive way for when Ryan turned up. After all that, I made a coffee and started watching Star Trek. Ryan arrived with Kayla just after 10am, which is pretty good, based on previous Phoenix road trips. Grabbed my coffee and packed up the car, said goodbye to the puppy dog, locked up and left for Rotorua.

Stopped a couple of times for noms, Taihape for Maccas and onto Rotorua to check out the field. Arriving just after 4pm, we done quite well for a cruisey trip up. It was just on dusk and the field was only barely ready. they were just changing a couple of bunkers over. First thought, SPARSE!! Yeah, it was gunna be a big paint slinging fest. Which is exactly what we'd planned for.

We ended day one in 10th spot (top 8 were div 1, bottom 8 div 2). Pretty crap, but that was mainly my fault. First of all, my gun started leaking air again, DOH!! Then in the afternoon, we switched paint and marty's gun started shredding paint. Lucky we were offered Skinny's brand new DYE NT gun, WOOT!! However, after some random issues with only being able to shoot 1 ball at a time, we struggled through 2 more games and ended 10th, instead of a possible 6th. Grrr!!! But at least we sorted out the problems with the NT and tomorrow would prove a different day!! Ooooorrrrrr NOT!

OK, so day two was supposed to be better. Over all it certainly was.. .OMG! the NT was sweet to shoot. However, all the other div 2 teams also had better days, it was great to see the girls getting more confidence. WE had some close games, again we lost games we shouldn't have. I put that down to not enough training against other teams, we needed to get into the bunkers off the break quicker and put down bigger lanes. In the end we ended up 2nd place, ready to play off 1st and 2nd best of 3. Winner would take out 1st place.I expected to do really well, however it wasn't meant to be. Both games saw us loose too many off the break, sloppy, or bad luck, say what you will. the 2nd game I knew we were toast, so tried a funky back line run, however got shot in the peak after starting to move forward.

Over all the weekend was great, thanks to the X-Men who certainly made a few people smile and a couple people scowl... however it was all in good fun and thats what this weekend was about. We had medals, but someone thought it was a good idea to give them to another team, so no bling from the weekend. :(

Road trip home was uneventfull, had a couple pit stops, I listened to music and watched a couple movies on my laptop for the trip home. Much better in the van with Link and Kayla, than on a bus.