A question about hired guns

[Edwards]

lads ,

please dont turn this into lets pull disruption to bits , Ryan did a job for the team and if i was ever short or in dyer straits again i would call upon him in a heart beat , nick only time will tell if we will make CPL ,there is a long long long way to go yet.

But on a side note has any of these teams won an event with these bigger name PROs yet in the SPL ...nope what wins in SPL,is hard graft and team work .

Chris

 

[Baca Loco]

Paul ,

This is not me giving an excuse to why my team had an american , given the chance i would have had an all british squad , but when circumstances arise...... i will explain

After a very poor result in Toulouse , i found my self to be a player banned for throwing his gun like a 2 yr tantrum ,2 of my younger players had to revise for the exams which are though june and july , this left me with 5 players ........then one of my other core players decided to get glandular fever for 3 weeks .leaving me with 4 core players and 1 that MIGHT be fit enough to play 1 week b4 germany ......now given this problem , i had Ryan Podesta from the Bushwackers, come on the forums asking for a game in Germany , he said he had paid for his plane ticket and just needed i bed .....so what was my decision making process .......simple, just speak to people that i knew in the states and confirm that he was a solid player ,i was not interested in a superstar player ,just someone who would be solid point after point .......now to real question why get an american in when we have a player base in england .

This is the one that people just wont like , but its the cold hard truth .

We dont have enough good players in the UK

Any player worth his salt is either playing CPL or SPL with there relevant team, why would some really good player from D1 team come and jump on my roster for 1 event and then be locked into the team for a yr,for example , i have a few young kids at the local field that are not far off being very good SPL players , but if they play for me there locked for the season , so wont be able to play with there current team at CC or Paris.

Chris

Hey Chris,
Thanks for the reply and congrats on the results in Germany. Whatever is within the rules is cool with me though I do understand Nick's position as it relates to longer term development of Euro players.

Your situation also makes sense to me in that it was a sponsor friendly choice and you had the means to get real background info. And despite Johan's claim that everybody knows all these guys I find it hard to accept as I routinely play against these guys and I can't keep track of them. Which leads back to my original question.

Maybe a better way to approach is to ask a general question about the decision-making process to sign up an American player--barring the household name guys perhaps. For example, one these boards both Mike from Strange and Alex from LTZ enquired about a Euro game and while they are both good guys and solid players how many Euros know what sort of paintball these guys really play? And if they don't really know then aren't they simply taking an "pro" to have an American pro player?

 

[PEBBLE]

?

This isnt a pop Nick please correct if im wrong

in 2003 Amsterdam didnt Ugly Duckings have Strange players and got 2nd place if i remember???

 

[Nick Brockdorff]

But on a side note has any of these teams won an event with these bigger name PROs yet in the SPL ...nope what wins in SPL,is hard graft and team work

You did

Anyway, I commend you for stepping forward when many others - that are much more obvious did not.

The point is not if you win an event or not - really.... they point is that every time a team fields 1 or 2 top level pros - in the SPL - they adversely affect every other team in the division... teams that try to get by without hired guns.

Whether that be by edging a team out of a CPL spot or putting another down in Div. 1 doesn't matter to me.... I just believe our sport should be about REAL teams playing - not that any yahoo (not meaning you here Chris ) can go hire top level Pros to play in a secondary division.

Nick

 

[Nick Brockdorff]

in 2003 Amsterdam didnt Ugly Duckings have Strange players and got 2nd place if i remember???

Absolutely!

But them were were different days in paintball m8

- ANYONE was free to enter any division (and they did)
- We played the top division
- There was no promotion or relegation in any divisions
- It only happened because 4 of us were not selected for the first team and wanted game time at the event, before playing the nations cup... and the Strange guys wanted the same thing before they played the nations cup at the event.

Come to think of it, the fact that 4 players NOT selected for the first team, could enter a "for fun team" (it really was, we were drunk every night ) with 3 Strange players, and take 2nd after Dunasty, kida proves my whole point in the current debate - that teams are unnaturally augmenting their quality

Nick

 

[Fisz]

Its all about Chris Edwards, isnt it tricky?

You wouldn't believe... At Centurio Bratislava Chris played really well alongside Glenn Takemoto and the rest of the gang from Team Ranger. He was so good, that a team that I know asked me to get Chris to train them.
Him being a modest a shy guy means I had to use my personal charm and wits to convince him to consider it - We're currently trying to set up a date at which he will come over to Poland to make that team into killers

 

[Buns of steel]

Nick is your problem with the hiring of players or just the players, would you still have a problem if players wanted to play just because they wanted to play for that team?

Just asking no real reason.

 

[PEBBLE]

Absolutely!

But them were were different days in paintball m8

- ANYONE was free to enter any division (and they did)
- We played the top division
- There was no promotion or relegation in any divisions
- It only happened because 4 of us were not selected for the first team and wanted game time at the event, before playing the nations cup... and the Strange guys wanted the same thing before they played the nations cup at the event.

Come to think of it, the fact that 4 players NOT selected for the first team, could enter a "for fun team" (it really was, we were drunk every night ) with 3 Strange players, and take 2nd after Dunasty, kida proves my whole point in the current debate - that teams are unnaturally augmenting their quality

Nick

Nick i actually agree with you on all this about ringers etc actually

im not saying you have said this or anything but im going to Defend if people say Disruption only won cus of the yank we had

i think we deserve respect that if we were gunna do it wrong by gettin "yanks" then do it right by gettin best players like for example Jon Richardson etc or whatever (it wud have to be an ego shooter), Ryan Podesta plays semi pro and he was one guy compared to 2 of the best players in the world that play for one of the best teams in the world (Dynasty) that we even beat

and Bngi -d you think that Ryan Cud of got his kills if we would get easily shot out of our bunkers etc- it was team and we ALL played good , and maybe alot of people wud of seen that if the finals of SPL was played on the CPL field

We will not be gettin anybody to play for us in London as our banned player shud be unbanned and the other players exams hopefully shud be over and all of the other excuses that Mr Potatoe head mentioned, so its not like we are using Ryan Podesta to the end of the season

and in London say Disruption didnt come 1st , and people are like "its cus they didnt have ringers" shud shoot them selves in the balls cus....

as i think SPL is a hard league to dominate especially with all these "ringer teams", so lots of teams are capable of comin 1st so its gunna be about consistency for the promotion me thinks

thank you

 

[Christian-Malera]

Paul ,
We dont have enough good players in the UK
Chris

This is the core of the problem, who has enought players, Norway for sure doesn't, even France doesn't according to Ton Tons even if the field 3 teams in the Millenium.

This is "solved" in other sport by carrying more players than you can play and developing your own players.

Doing this will cost you more money, paint&equipment and dealing with the problem of not everyone playing.

This is called running a team.

We have choosen this path but we may reconsider for next year.

Have 5-6 Norwegian players, compared to 12 now, go to all the tournaments with all five, no complaints from players, fly in 2 US players for each event rooster 3 US players that way you have a rooster with 9-10 players.

This way will cost us less as a team!!!!

Is this the way to go? I don't think so but it seams like many does.........

 

[Nick Brockdorff]

Nick is your problem with the hiring of players or just the players, would you still have a problem if players wanted to play just because they wanted to play for that team?

I'm not sure I understand the question Steve???

My problem is with players with no real affiliation with a team, just showing up and playing events for them.

I understand that there may be special circumstances at times - like Disruption at Maxs - but speaking generally, I would like to see that European paintball teams consisted of players that were actually ON the team - not just hired to come play events.

i have absolutely NO problem with - say Ryan Greenspan - playing for Instinct, if he is actually really on the team.... but if he is just flown in for events, to help boost the teams quality and qualify them for CPL, then I have a problem with it.

Nick