Ok, a busy week so it took a bit longer to get this done, sorry. Playing in Sweden always feels like a second home with so many friendly faces from over the years, and this time was no different. Overall, a super event. We started our trip straight from work on Friday driving to Turku to catch the late ferry to Sweden. A bit of poor sleep, and we could enjoy a buffet-style breakfast on the boat before it arrived to Stockholm at 6.30 in the morning. The only problem with that was that the captains’ meeting in Uppsala was scheduled at 7 am.. Luckily, with the trusty GPS and the grreat Swedish road system, we arrived on the venue at 7.45 am, a hefty 15 minutes before the scheduled start of the games. Nice.
Luckily the organization had been understanding of our pickle and our first game was scheduled as late as possible. With that off our backs we could use the full 15 minutes to read the field, which was nice. The venue was absolutely gorgeous with two full-size Millennium fields on a nice turf, a glint of morning sunshine and all. There was a lot going on at the venue, a ton of pop-up tents of diffrerent vendors, and even a proper catering area with nice sallads and the usual sausage-type grub as well. Great stuff!
Going over the game schedule, we could notice that the Icelandic Ash-hole had kept London Nexus firmly isolated on “the rock” and we’d have to kick their behinds at some later point in time. So the Open division was on with seven teams in, and our first game on a field that we had just seen for the first time would be against Joy Division. Who were playing against Chilli Peppers as a warm-up for our match. Nice.
I think the video below sums up the match quite nicely:
(video by marioswe, check out the other videos as well!)
The Joy game wasn’t all that bad. Even though we couldn’t really compete, there were a lot of elements in our own play that kept us happy considering the settings. Not the best place to learn a new field, but hey.. The best education is often served in a can of whoop-ass. The second game was against the Norwegian team Solid, who played very much true to the Norwegian tradition of aggressive play and reacted to every opening we offered for them. We did manage to squeeze out a point, but lost clearly 5-1 with a few key learnings of the field under our belts.
The third game was against DOW Brutal Deluxe, and they took an early 3-0 lead. We took a bit of a huddle and decided to amp up our aggression and take those key positions first. We got the game to 3-3, but received a 1-4-1 in the next point, leaving the DOW guys in charge for the 4-3 and 5-3 points. I need to say that playing to 5 points, man that’s something! Even down 3-0, there is still the feeling that “we can turn this around”, and it makes a world of difference in the way you motivate yourself for the points and games. Our last game was against Mashive Attack, who needed at least a 5-1 victory to get to the finals. With their great break-out shots to our packs we were left disarmed by a swarm of 1-4-1′s, the final score of the game being 5-0.
So, it was time for a few beers and watching the finals before heading out to a nice greek dinner place, Tzatziki, by the riverside. After dinner we got stuck with whiskey and war stories at our hotel’s bar with a million types of whiskey on their selection, so we missed out on the players’ party. We heard the following day that that it might have been a bad decision as the players’ parties at the Birger Jarl are typically massive events and the home of a million stories. Next time, then..
Overall, the event was an extremely enjoyable experience both as a spectator and as a player. All of the teams were on a great mood and there was proper handshakes and a bit of a chat after each game, and the atmosphere in general was enjoyable and warm. Koffe and the guys of Ignition and SugarDaddys made a great event, so a very big thank you to them. Also, great big thanks goes to Larsa from Wizeguy Paintball for setting us up with great paint for the event! We also got our new GoldHammer Paintball Shoes just at the start of the event, and man, they grip the turf like it was velcro! A detailed review is due after we get some more usage days on the shoes. Special thanks go to the other Finnish teams; RumaQ and PPW, who were absolutely priceless assistance in the pits and coaching. Thank you, guys. And congratulations to Ruma Q for winning the 1st division, great to see that!
Pics to come as we receive them from BullitProof Monkey!
