I Was Wrong !!!!!!!!

[Manning26]

Tyger, I think you misunderstood all of us other punks. We're all clamoring for pro refs that CAN lay the smack-down on the players who get out of control. It needs to be controlled, but not completely banned. Anytime people are competing, they're emotional. Stuff will be thrown, cross words will be spat, sissy-like pushing will break out, it all needs to be punished, AND WE NEED PEOPLE TO DO IT! None of us want to see fist fights breaking out all over the place, I'm sure we all hate hearing those captains that whine about something after EVERY game, but we don't want the game castrated of it's passion and drama.

 

[KillerOnion]

Well, I think that paintball and other high level competition allows people to really show what jerks they can be at times, with the added element of the paintgun itself. Pro footballers (American football) can cheap shot someone, but not 15 times a second from the other side of the field. They can't get up after the play is over and keep tackling people and impact the game. Once a field goal is kicked or a pass thrown, it's either good or no good with less room for grey areas. There is instant replay.

Also, with pro players it isn't realized or stated enough that you can kick people out and they will be replaced. No one wants to do that, though, because there are connections. I won't name names here, but do you think someone gets hired by a major company that everyone knows and plays for their teams, acts up ridiculously, and their owners and captains will want to admit they hired a complete immature jerk, without hesitation fire them on the spot, hire someone else, and go through the whole process again of getting them into the team, replace all the ads picturing the previous guy with ones with the new guy, rename their products, and get the public to think that they are credible? Of course not. That's expensive, ego killing, time consuming, and can point fingers in directions they don't want pointed. We would be rid of some of the bad, but wipe out the infrastructure that puts forth the good games, products, and events that we see. Some moderation is definately needed, but it should be done with a surgical scalpel rather than a chainsaw or blowtorch.

 

[Tyger]

ok, fine...

Originally posted by Phoenix
Paintball is one of the most extreme sports, with it you get extreme emotions.

Ok, then let's go with the theory that paintball is an extreme sport. Ok, then let's look at other extreme sports.

Skateboarding. Yes, let's look at that. In hte X-games, I failed to see a skateboarder take his board and smack another skateboarder in the head with it. I've seen more than a few of them lose thier board trying a massive stunt, but never intentionally swing them in anger becasue they lost a comp.

I have seen street lugers get in each other's faces after a run for dirty racing, but it's never gone to blows. Usually it's one rider saying to another "Shut the hell up and learn to race." And some time down the road they get retribution.

And I've never seen an inline skater lose an event and throw an opponent off teh halfpipe in anger, then jump on top of them. You can't tell me that the top riders and skaters aren't passionate about thier sport. And you can't tell me that they don't wear their hearts on their sleeves. And you can't tell me that they're not letting everyhting out on the line.

Now in paintball, I've seen players throw guns, bunkers, fists, and all sorts of other stuff at opponents and referees when they lose. And they're passionate too, but that passion is allowed to not only run over, but allowed to run out of control. And the punsihment for losing your temper is a slap on the wrist. 3 game suspensions are meaningless in a tournament where you're guaranteed 8. It just means that you sit out and your alternate plays a while.

Passion is good. But who will have to be injured or die before someone has to be held accountbale for unbridled passion that flows over? I'd also like to see accountability for the referees too, but that's another thread.

I don't care how extreme paintball thinks it is, you can't rationalise behavior. Not anymore, not when the world is watching.

And Manning : It's not about castrating the game to remove it's passion. It's about players and refs being held accountable for their actions on the field. Unless you want paintball to be totally unaccountable like other sports entertainment, like WWF...

Am I making sense here?

-Tyg

 

[KillerOnion]

Well, as much as I hate to find it a part of human nature, people like the sort of WWF element in their athletes every now and then. Eye catching is something that elevates interest. Totally off the wall quotes and scenes get etched in our minds rather deeply, and though we remember winners and good games though vaguely and forget scores and the majority of instances that produced them, but both feats of astounding skill and astounding stupidity we don't forget and somehow whether we do or don't express it or lead ourselves to believe we want to, we remember them and look for them. Something about the beaten to death saying about a guy that builds a thousand bridges then does something else just rings of transcendant, timeless truth...

Granted the one in a thousand is there and sometimes shouldn't be, but you Tyger seem to be so fixated on it that it's to the point of not only nausea to most but really slashes through your credibility at times. Yours is what should be said and we do read, understand, and appreciate and we should not ever be without, but honestly it does at times unless you actually bother to tell us names AND THE REST OF THE EVENT SO WE KNOW THAT YOU WERE THERE INSTEAD OF HEARING IT SECONDHAND OR ASLEEP FOR THE REST, it gets to be a tin horn that is blown to the point we hear it and want to smack you over the head with it. SPILL THE SPECIFICS OR SHUT UP.

 

[Phoenix]

Well, ummm, KillerOnion was pretty blunt. I am not condoning behavior that is excessive to the point of harmful (or deadly as you put it, Tyger). I think there is a time and place for people to go ape****, though. I have done it, I have seen people do it, and I am sure you (Tyger) have done it. So to chastize all of it in a blanket statement(s) is pretty unenlightened. Now I just want to tag on the fact of you mentioning skatebaording. It is a competitive sport, but you are not directly competing against a person or team. They may have their round, and then you go, but there is never duels (like in paintball). It envokes different emotions. I have seen people huck their boards, and I am sure there have been fist fights over competition, but to compare skateboarding and paintball is to compare Powell Peralta to WGP.

 

[Heimdahl]

Skate and several of those other sports are indeed solo type internal things. Most skaters i know are competing against themselves more than against others...and the adrenaline of watching an opponent going thru his set is more of the anxiety variety than you find in paintball

in paintball your body spends all of it's time in a game gearing up for fight/flight ....your lizard brain KNOWS that having things shot at you is bad...and it gets scared and amps the juice thru the roof.... and you are playing against an opponent that wants to win jsut as badly as you do...and when you get people on both sides all of them charged up enough to fly without wings stuff will happen....especially when you are playing for what some of these guys are playing for....not so much prizes but more in that as long as they keep playing at level X they get to keep playing for free.
When i play in a tourny i play as hard as i can ,but i don't want to get penalized and sit out because that's money out of my pocket...you guys know how much it costs to go to these things. I have spent as much as 2 thousand U.S. to go and play.

And maybe therin lies an answer. Perhaps instead of sitting out games maybe they can also pay a fine out of their pockets. Not the sponsor,but the player....now i know that pro sports often times do that ,but i wouldn't know how to enforce something like that here.

Well i will be quiet now

YMOS
Bill

 

[Tyger]

Originally posted by KillerOnion

Granted the one in a thousand is there and sometimes shouldn't be, but you Tyger seem to be so fixated on it that it's to the point of not only nausea to most but really slashes through your credibility at times.
...unless you actually bother to tell us names AND THE REST OF THE EVENT SO WE KNOW THAT YOU WERE THERE INSTEAD OF HEARING IT SECONDHAND OR ASLEEP FOR THE REST, it gets to be a tin horn that is blown to the point we hear it and want to smack you over the head with it. SPILL THE SPECIFICS OR SHUT UP.

First, what credibility? I'm the laughing stock of paintball, at least that's what I'm told. It's not mia culpa, it's what trickles back to me.

Second : Specifics? Ok.

1999 Skyball. All Americans Vs. Aftershock. Ref goes in to call a player eliminated. Player sees the ref, shoots him point blank in the goggles, springs up and bunkers a 'Shock player. Then, after the game, Bill Gardner threw a bunker in disgust (Now if he threw it AT a ref or not, I don't know. But I saw an inner tube bunker fly.)

Wasn't there also an incident of benchclearing at Boston that same year? I forget the specifics, but I know it involved the bushwhackers and shockwave. And it was downplayed.

You can read the official report findings here

Most everyting else would not be admissable in a court of law, so it's invalid to bring it up. And, even if it is 1 in 1000 behavor, isn't that too much?

And to answer Phoenix : I walk away, becasue I try to at least act professional enough not to throw fists. Also becasue I don't go to a paintball event to fight my oppponents, just to play againt them.

-Tyg

Nothing to lose, so to hell with it.

 

[KillerOnion]

Thank you. I don't like getting off on rants, er wait, that's what I do sometimes anyway sometimes to my liking, most often to hammer home a point, but it got at what we both pursue, or at least if I know you halfway as well as I have: the truth. I'm rarely ever trying to be hostile or malevolent, but rather wanting what is said to be believable and not speculative or appearing to be so.

 

[Phoenix]

Tyger: I never said anything about throwing fists and fighting your opponent. Sorry, if it came off that way, but that is no where near what I meant. Hell, if someone wants to throw their marker, go ahead, if you wanna shout, go ahead. That's how I feel.

 

[Tyger]

problem

Originally posted by Phoenix
...Hell, if someone wants to throw their marker, go ahead, if you wanna shout, go ahead. That's how I feel.

Call it nitpicking, but there's aproblem.

Paintball guns work on compressed air. That botle of air is held on in a small joint that's not meant to withstand impact of high velocity anger. Which means that someday, someone will throw a gun in rage and snap the bottle from the gun. This bottle is now a missile.

I repeat. Who will have to die before someone is held accoutable for their actions on a paintball field? Likelyhood? Minimal. But, as long as it's a liability, promoters need to squash it.

-Tyg