NPPL Kansas

[Magued]

Problems in Kansas.

I'm very sad to see the state of paintball right now. I feel that the right persons
isn't in the right spots. First of all, the reffing issue starts to get ridiculous.
We don't seem to develop at all and I can only assume that the wrong people is at the wrong place.
who ever that is coaching and training the refs is clearly not doing a good job. And that is the
first thing NPPL needs to handle. Mistake after mistake mixed with disastrous calls. Pure ignorance
and then a lack of common sense seems to be happening almost every game.
I'm getting sick and tired of the excuses I hear every time, the Millennium have been able to produce good reffing, the NXL have
excellent reffing. So why cant NPPL do it? Fire somebody, make some calls and get the right people on board now!!!

I ended up arguing with the refs and Dave Zinkham after almost every game. Its getting to a point
where its not worth it anymore. Its giving the entire sport a image of ludicrous.
I think most of you have heard what happened to us in NPPL Kansas. We needed a win in the last
game at the quarterfinals against Image. A flag hang with 1 player alive would have put us 4
points ahead of Image and a spot in the semis.

The Angel field had a retarded setup witch made it extremely hard to push over the 50 line.
Whoever that's doing the field need to stop. either its no snake at all or a broke up snake that makes it very hard
to do the aggressive moves.
Anyway we shoot out all the Image players, and we have 3 player alive and with 20 seconds left on the clock our players arrive to their
flag. Only to find that's its no flag there! Brian ask the reff where is the flag? And he gets
a "I don't know" shoulder shrug! Now Brian start to get really stressed and scream to the ref "WHERE IS THE FLAG?"
And my other players scream to Brian to just run back a "imaginary" flag. But when he do the reff says
no you have to have a flag! Witch is not there...
Brian then run back and pick up a empty pot and start run back with it. And when he is 3-4 meters
from our flag the reff calls it game over!

So when that happen we just called Dave Zinkham directly. The reffs explain that because we didn't actually
run a flag back we couldn't get the transit or hang! I argued that its their job to make sure its
a flag in place as it will be extremely hard to hang a flag if its not there... I think
you understand now the degree of stupidity that we have to go thru dealing with those morons.
Not only are they so lazy that they don't check flags before game start, but the lack of common
sense is exactly why they game after game make huge mistakes.
And for us it meant that we missed the semis, with a hang we would have had 12 point more than Image.

Now try to explain that to a player that have been practicing, taken time of family work and everything
and puts hes heart in to making the team better just to taken away from a guy that don't know **** and don't know whats
hes doing in a split second. I had to do it after OC and now I will find it even harder to keep them going.

My argument was that as we have to spend over 10 seconds at their flag station trying to find a flag or getting
a okay to run without one chances are that Brian could have covered the last 2 meters in 10 seconds..
I didn't get any arguments against that but Dave said that "hey they didn't even want to give you the transit" So basically we should be happy
with that. Us missing the semis and a chance to win the event wasn't a issue.

So that was it but he said that they would try to fix it in the future...
Later we saw the finals with Impact and Ironman. Apparently Impact won the first game and in the second game the last ironman player
played on and got a 1for1 giving the hang to Impact. The finals was done and both teams signed the sheets. But apparently the NPPL didn't want it to end that
way so they took away Ironmans penalty.Beacuse they wanted to give the fans a game! Then when it was time for a 1 on 1 to crown a winner
playing the games wasn't important anymore.. Its was just a big slap in the face for us, the spectators, the fans and paintball.
The most pathetic thing is that NPPL still claims that its not bias against non US teams. But the only 2 non US teams in the league just happened to be the 2 teams
that have been robbed from a win. In both cases its proven without a doubt.
Its just ridiculous, the entire thing is just F**king ridiculous.

Magued Idris

 

[TalieBun]

wow... just wow!

 

[Robbo]

I'm not gonna defend the NPPL here but obviously what happened to Joy is yet another injustice laid at the feet of the Euros and it's no wonder cries of 'conspiracy' or 'bias' are reverberating across Europe.

I don't think it is a conspiracy i.e. intentional bias, but I do think there was a default bias and it will surface in the following way:-

In any contentious situation with teams screaming at the judging staff, I feel, and have witnessed, American judges being less likely to be sympathetic to a European team's cause.

I realise that whether it is intentional or not doesn't really help Joy (or any other Euro team for that matter) because the result is still the same, it at least gives us a better handle on the problem if we are made aware of the real situation instead of any knee jerk response of conspiracy.

There is however some mitigation here in terms of the NPPL.
Shawn Walker as we know, has effectively taken over the management of the league (not ownership, as far as I know Bruce Friedman owns it, or at least the major part) and one of the many problems Shawn would have inherited is that of the judging staff.

When I think about the problem of judging I am always reminded of a sobering comment somebody made to me when I started teaching a long time ago, he was another maths teacher at the time and he told me, 'Pete, those who can do it, they do it, and those who can't, teach it'.

The best judges are gonna be the guys who have played the game at the top level, not always I concede but for the most part, it's not a bad principle and so....we are left with guys who need to be trained..and trained well.
Any paintballer worth his salt is gonna wanna play, who the f##k wants to ref????
Damn, it's thankless job for the most part and in one sense will attract people who are the very people who should not be given a position of authority..much like some traffic wardens.. we are trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear and the only way we can hope to get responsible, professional judges is to pay them well.
The NXL has proved this principle, leastwise to my satisfaction anyway.

Shawn will have realized the real need to get the judging staff right but it's not a short term problem as most of us will acknowledge.
Of course we can all scream, 'Well, he's took our damned money, he should have had it all nailed before he took our money'.
In an ideal world this is what should happen but we don't live in one, we inhabit the paintball world and it's f##ed up on many levels.
I know for a fact, Bruce and Shawn will want to put this right and I have little doubt they will but it takes time, just as it took time for Joy to become a world class team, let's hope it doesn't take as long as that though.


This won't help Magued swallow yet another huge injustice he and his team have just had rammed down their throat and I have every sympathy for him coz faced with a similar situation, I think I might have inflicted a significant damage report upon those who had decided against that win.
It's just insane and I would be ashamed if I were part of that decision and I can only commend Magued and his team for acting the way they did under such injustice.

If this situation can be put right, then I believe Bruce and Shawn will do it.

 

[Echowitch]

NPPL in Kansas, last year vs Dynasty, Joy definitely seem to be getting the rum end of the stick So Magued you and the rest of Joy have every right to be p*ssed off.

Even if there is no conspiracy it certainly looks to us fans that the pride of Europe are being cheated out of their just rewards because of atrocious calls by incompetent ref's. We don't expect ref's to be absolutely perfect, and thankfully they are not the half-blind tin pot Dictators you find on a football field, (so Im told.) But a professional level of reffing is required, and expected, and agree with Robbo that they are going to have to get it sorted. Training, bringing in better ref's from elsewhere, whatever it takes.

We can only hope that Shawn and co get the Ref's up to the level that they should be. And we'll be looking to Magued and the Joy boys to be winning the next NPPL event (Next Millenium event as well tbh)

 

[Echowitch]

Now try to explain that to a player that have been practicing, taken time of family work and everything
and puts hes heart in to making the team better just to taken away from a guy that don't know **** and don't know whats
hes doing in a split second. I had to do it after OC and now I will find it even harder to keep them going.

Magued, I know it may not help, but just remind the guys that despite the crap calls from this NPPL, that their fans are rooting for them. We feel their frustration and annoyance and we are proud of what you and the rest of Joy have achieved and continue to achieve.

That there is nothing better for many of us than to see Joy play in the NPPL and bring a piece of Europe over to a US dominated league....and win.

We appreciate the hard work, time and effort you guys put in to training and playing, and tbh its an inspiration to many of us to push ourselves harderand iron out the wrinkles in our own gameplay. Joy are role-models and heroes to many people.

So try to shrug off the crappy reffing and remember there will be other events, and other chances to win, and Europe will be behind you guys

 

[Magued]

Magued, I know it may not help, but just remind the guys that despite the crap calls from this NPPL, that their fans are rooting for them. We feel their frustration and annoyance and we are proud of what you and the rest of Joy have achieved and continue to achieve.

That there is nothing better for many of us than to see Joy play in the NPPL and bring a piece of Europe over to a US dominated league....and win.

We appreciate the hard work, time and effort you guys put in to training and playing, and tbh its an inspiration to many of us to push ourselves harderand iron out the wrinkles in our own gameplay. Joy are role-models and heroes to many people.

So try to shrug off the crappy reffing and remember there will be other events, and other chances to win, and Europe will be behind you guys

Thanks man!

That means alot and I will make sure the guys see this. Knowing that people back home is watching is giving us alot of energy. And in the same time thats what also hurt when you cant be there for them beacuse of things like this.

 

[Fisz]

Sorry to hear that Magued, I missed that part of the semi finals.

One team I would add to the list of the ones that got their asses kicked by refs is Farside in my opinion. Now, before anyone starts flaming me, listen me out.

I know only one person on that team, and I happened to work with this guy in the past and I'm 99% sure he would not BS me (what's the point, I'm too low on the food chain). They were given very severe penalties on the field due to ref seing the player hit (paint drops in the air) and he didn't see the spot exactly but declaring that "if it's not there he must have wiped it" and proceeding with assesing a 3-4-1 penalty effectively putting Farside out of the chance to compete in the finals.

Something needs to change, but unless the pro team owners don't create an event that will make the league bosses wake up and scramble, it won't happen anytime soon.

 

[Rider]

totally agree with echo here.

it is totally ridiculous that you guys got shafted by blatant incompetence. can't someone use some commonsense in a situation like that and just say "pretend ot pick up the flag and carry it back, cause we've f**ked up a bit here..."

i'd have like to see what would have happenend if it had been one of the american teams coming up against this......bet they'd have thought of something......

 

[Echowitch]

Thanks man!

That means alot and I will make sure the guys see this. Knowing that people back home is watching is giving us alot of energy. And in the same time thats what also hurt when you cant be there for them beacuse of things like this.

I watched via the webcast, and I was at the Campaign Cup in the stands watching the guys take 1st place. (I was even one of those that cheered and applauded when Joy double mugged that Moscow Phoenix player in the centre M.) Even saw you running up and down along the side line with your makeshift loudspeaker lol

So long as the NPPL continues to do a webcast, we can still watch you guys. Even if we aren't there physically we are still there in spirit But can I suggest one thing.....update the Joy website. Its woefully out of date and needs a bit of a makeover (Although now saying that I can't find the link for the website anymore lol)

 

[Echowitch]

He he never mind Magued, I found the proper website I must have been looking at the really old one.

http://www.joysthlm.com/