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.
