CPPS 2012 - Round 2

What better describes a day of paintballing in the cold, rain and mud than a GRUELING BATTLE! Every time I hear the word GRUELING it reminds me of the teaser of the DERDER Video of the “PSP M.A.O. (Midland Atlantic Open)” …

To the event … since Round 1 our Division had the “GRAND” opportunity to play in the cold early morning hours of the first week of March we this time “thought” we would have the advantage of playing after 1 p.m. when the Premiership B was called to the field in some warmer conditions … oh dear how wrong we were. Througout the day we had some very nice spills of water which the later in the day it was the colder it got. The most memorable situation was having a conversation with each other and during the conversation I got the chills, suddenly saw the breath of the people standing in front of me and while I was waiting for a statement of “I can see dead people.” like the young Haley Joel Osment in "The 6th sense" – then the sky opened and HAIL was falling to the ground … we just all started laughing.

We – as usual – had the first game of our Division, which started great with some great slides into our primarys (the mud was like a slip&slide) and we literally took that momentum winning our group stage dropping 2 throughout the day. In this round we played a final to determine the winner of the 2^nd Round. Although it was a very wet and cold event – it seemed that we successfully played the field and decided the final in a 2:0 for us as well – which gave is 1^st place for Round 2 at the Premiership B of the CPPS and on overall 1^st place in the series ranking, closely followed by Team Domination. So we have 2 more rounds to go to "defend" our position ...

Speaking of Team Domination – we had a great chat with them at the event and decided that we will be driving up to the CPPS site in the coming weeks in preparation for the Millennium Series – Round 2 and train with them on a Saturday in the coming weeks. We also invited them down to Bricketwood Paintball – our local training site, so we are really looking forward to that.

Here us – after the event, muddy, exhausted and happy. Next Stop … BITBURG!  

New Jerseys and Teams – Samurai Paintball is growing and growing

Besides the good old training and working on our skills in Samurai MV – there is a lot going on behind the scenes which many might not be so aware about.

The 2012 jerseys have arrived the Tuesday before the Millenniums and we finally had a chance to bring them to training and hand them out to our sister teams. They all loved them and it looks like there will be a second round of orders in the next few weeks.

Samurai Paintball, which consists of a number of teams, puts in quite some effort and time in recruiting/introducing tournament paintball to interested people and teaching people the basics of the sport.

This effort has clearly paid off – since Samurai MV for example is a team of people that all started tournament paintball with Samurai Paintball and worked hard to play together and get where they are today – instead of poaching and hunting people out of other teams we rather give new talent opportunities and match people with similar playing levels to progress together as a group.

This might not be the “fastest” way in playing in a higher league – however it does give us the advantage of a large player base and the chance to help teams out across “Samurai Paintball”. On top of that you just get to know each other as a team much better – do you pick up a new person here and there – of course – but you do have a core that has been playing together and it is a lot faster in getting a team working smoothy with each other than just throwing 5-7 talented players together … not that it doesn’t’ work (as you can see with teams like Houston Heat – it clearly does etc.), but you also GROW the sport and the player base, which we think is also partially the responsibility and ownership us Ballers.

So I wanted to take the opportunity to quickly introduce our “young” sister teams this month to you since they recently played their first round of the PPL (Paintball Players League) – which is a newbie and introduction tournament for people that are new to the sport – pictures from the teams are the teams of that round, some people are permanent member of the teams – some are just jumping in for this tournament to give it a try … so don’t wonder why you might see a few different faces in the future. =)

Samurai Rage – been around for a while and built as a feeding pool for Samurai MV, but most members left in the 2011 season, so we restarted it with some fresh blood and can’t wait to see where they will be going in the next 12-18 months.

Samurai Warriors – the 4^th team created, in 2011 – a white piece of paper with a lot of space to write stories in the future. They were a bit short this weekend - but we had 2 Samurai players that helped them out ...

 

Samurai Reloaded – Our Polish team, all members of the team are polish and some only speak polish. A really great bunch of guys, which you can talk with even with a little English - they love the game and have progressed quite a bit over the last months.

There are two more teams that belong to the Samurai Paintball family, which are the “original” team Samurai and 2011 formed team Samurai Topcats, who previously played as London Topcats and joined the Samurai family since they were struggling in getting a full roster for an entire season – which we wanted to help them out with – which has been working nicely. We have not mentioned them here yet – since we thought we’ll focus on the “fresh meat” and “new teams” today, but we’ll cover them later this year once we have some pictures and footage since they will be joining us in the CPPS playing the 5-man Championship and Conference from Round 2 onwards.

We can’t wait to see them joining into the series, since we think they have a good chance in doing very well - so watch this space ...

Millennium Series 2012 – Round 1 – “Riviera Cup”

We are back – and what a week it has been. However besides the sun, sea and fun,  which we all expected to see at the first round of the European Championship, it also was a “rabbit in headlights” moment for all of us … but let me start from the beginning.

On a side note: Yorkie from Bricketwood Paintball – our training grounds – was so nice to capture a small number of games when he had some time so I am linking this below – pictures you can see in this post are from 44Pix, since Ray from Paintballpictures.co.uk wasn’t able to make it out for this event.

Thursday & Friday

Since playing Division 3 runs over Saturday and Sunday we took an afternoon flight on Thursday to Nice, to then drive to the site which also was a holiday village we rented a place to stay in. Meeting point was the London Heathrow Airport – a quick “late lunch” at 3:30 p.m. before making our way to the gate where we had a smooth flight over to Nice and by 9 p.m. local time we were out of customs and on our way to the “Parc Saint-James Oasis” which would be our “HQ” for the next 4 nights.

Once arrived at our bungalow, we sorted out the sleeping arrangements and went to bed – the competition of “falling asleep” and “waking back up” was on. Due to freezing temperatures in the house (due to not turning on the heating … something we sorted out the next morning …), many of us were up EARLY and we decided to go shopping for the next days since the houses with kitchens were for self-catering. So off we went to the shops and bakery, which opened about 20 minutes after we got there since we so early … however the advantage no cues and freshly baked bread was the reward.

Back at the house a big breakfast was prepared and we made our way over the CPL/SPL fields to see what was going on, and sorting out our registration. The boys were all over the place and although the Millennium Series has “only” playing fields (4) and trade/refreshment stands – within minutes we started losing people in the crowed since everything had to be checked out – so we agreed to meet at the Division 1&2 fields by noon to have a look at the fields and everyone took off and did what they had to do ...

A task we had looked at and which two of us jumped into at this point was our Cystic Fibrosis Trust – Collection. We asked our sponsors to put up some of the collection pots on their stands so people can throw some money in … we specially made Flyers in English and French for the attending people and were hoping that we can get some attention – which I think we did, even if only a little – but every person helping, even if just a small number, is more than if we would have never asked and would have collected nothing.

By noon we were back together, watched quite a few games and bumped into Yorkie who was travelling with the London Relentless guys (Div 2), London Tigers (SPL) which we all asked for some pointers and also if they needed some help. All of the teams of course being more experienced and participating on the international scene on regular bases – every friendly word and advice from them was welcomed by us more than they would have known.

After lunch we caught up with our sponsors and the other people we knew at the event (incl. ex-Nexus players, Jason Wheeler , Clint Moore, etc.) but as comforting all these familiar faces were and us trying to make small-talk – a very simple fact was creeping up more and more – everyone started feeling the buzz since we knew in a few more hours WE will be on the field for the very first time in an international event abroad … so an early night was needed, especially knowing we were on first game in the morning (which seems to be a “Samurai MV” curse or blessing – however you want to see it).

Lights out was 11 p.m. – but we still had many of the boys lying in bed and blabbering all night because the excitement was just growing and growing …

Saturday and Sunday

The sky was blue and most of us were sitting outside in gear way before the alarms went off – the day had arrived. The question in everyone’s head, without anyone having said a word was “Are we going to be able to hold our own – or would we be shot down and realize that we don’t belong here yet?”.

We walked to the pit area and went by the GI Sportz stand, are our paint sponsors this year, after doing our “drop test” with the 3 and 4 star grade paint we were planning on shooting. We collected our paint and sorted out our pits with our pit crew (the miraculous Mr B! who did a 1 man show impressively). The clock was set on 5 minutes and our team name was called – we had 5 more minutes to the first point in our first match.
At the start gate we looked at each other and could see the nervous but excited smiles behind the masks just by looking at each other’s eyes – A huge “SAMURAAAIIII … M - V” broke the silence early in the morning and the “30 seconds” warning sounded … “10 seconds” … “GAME ON!”

We played 3 of our 5 group games Saturday and won 2:0, 2:1 and lost the last 0:2, which was against last year’s champions GFY Paris. Walking out of the pits we suddenly realized what just happened … we actually just went out there and won. Enthusiasm and excitement was on a peak and although we knew we had some areas we needed to improve, the fear factor of embarrassing ourselves on an international event was lifted off of us.

Since we had the first game Saturday – we had the last group games of Sunday, which has the advantage of “if you make it to the finals” you at least already are in the pits and “playing mode” – instead of playing points early in the morning and then just sit and wait for the other group stage games to come to an end. Coming on the field Sunday – against the 2 teams that lost all three games on Saturday, we were maybe too confident – maybe the removed “fear factor” relaxed us too much – but we lost both games 1:2 which gave us a 3^rd position in our group and we did not proceed to “Sunday Club” (for all non-paintballers, that is the name of the knock-out stage in a paintball tournament – which normally is played on the Sunday – Fri.&Sat.=Prelims/Groups, Sunday=Knockout & Finals … Division 3 doesn’t work like that … but we still call it “Sunday Club”, even for Division 3).

Although we were disappointed for not making it through to the knockout stage – I think for a first event we battled our way through our own fear of not performing and embarrassing ourselves to believing we have a chance to knowing we can make it if we work harder. We received some comforting words from the veterans (including the Relentless guy – who had won a deserved 2^nd place in Division 2) – and our sponsors also complimented the 16^th place for a first event out of 30 teams wasn’t a bad result at all – question was – “What did you expect?” and looking at it that way, I also believe we did alright.

The aftermath … Sunday night and journey home

Did we celebrate? … Oh yes we did, but it was more a getting together than a victory celebration.

We had some very open discussions about what we think we need to work on and where we could have done better. Ulrich Stähr, one of the Millennium Series officials, also approached us and asked if we would be interested in changing our name to “London Samurai MV” – since they would like to invite teams to add a city name into their team name so there is an affiliation to what city/country you are representing, which we happily accepted.

After dinner and all these conversations we had some dinks and went to the bar in the center of the resort where we had a nice entertaining evening.

Next morning, Monday, we took the car to Monaco and drove along the coast for some sightseeing – which ended in Nice where we caught the plane back to London.

Family and friends were expecting us at the airport – it was a really funny feeling – almost like a “welcome home & well done” reception. The team said their good-bye’s and one thing is for sure … we all can’t wait for the European Masters in Bitburg. See you all in Germany!


P.S.: Once we got home and counted the money – we actually collected £35.17, which was a little more than what we collected at the Round 1 of the CPPS … let’s see if Round 2 of the CPPS will be even more successful … feel like donating now … just go to: www.justgiving.com/samuraimv2012

Last preparations & Riviera Cup 2012, here we come!

As we had our first CPPS we also have started our first initiative in putting up collection boxes for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust @ the CPPS event, we now are still in the process in ordering our flyers for the events, they costed more than we though they would - but hope they will bring attention and donation in tenfold ...


Cystic Fibrosis Trust – Activities

Donna, the CF Trust fund raising coordinator from the greater London area, came to Bricketwood Paintball to say hi and have a chance to meet the team. We had a good chat during the lunch break and heard some absolutely fantastic news … the clinical trials for the new gene therapy have been approved on the 16th March!

120 patients will be trialling the new medication – and if that all goes as we all hope; approaching the pharmaceutical companies for mass production will be the last step – we might actually have beaten this illness in the next few years.

On the 20th March, in 2007 - so exaclty 5 years ago - Martin passed away. We send our love and thoughts to his family and friends. He is sorely missed and thought of often - especially today.

If you didn't have the chance yet - please donate today. You can find the link to our justgiving.com page on the top right corner of the page.



"Leaving on a jet plane …"

We are leaving on the 22nd to France - finally the wait is over ... Millenniums 2012 - Riviera Cup here we come.

It has been quite a ride so far – our last training was on the 17th/18th March and we are now on our way to the to play the first Round of the 2012 European Series. Confidence has been boosted with some good trainings and not so bad results @ the CPPS, however people are getting nervous since they want to perform well in the first event.

Ant Newell, who has been so kind in supporting us as a Samurai MV coach, has been working with us and trying to give last pointers to build more confidence – but we know there is more training needed, if we want to get somewhere this year. There will be a lot more than a weekend prior to the Germany event for sure. We have been trying to iron out some issues we had and worked on some alternative breakouts. So we have put in a fair amount of work into this – now we just need to see if the preparation was enough.

Thursday, 22nd March (so in less than 48 hours), our journey to France begins from London (Heathrow) to Nice and then another 40 minutes by car to get to the location.

We wish all UK teams going out there all the best: CPL (pro) teams London Nexus and Birmingham Disruption, SPL (semi pro) teams London Tigers and Manchester Firm, Division 2 teams London Relentless, London Defiance, Newport Laysick VIP, Manchester Firm2 and Durham DV8 and Division 3 London Impact.

Wish us some luck too ... =)

P.S.: Another impressive thing I almost forgot to mention ... Our jersey sponsor "Tanked" has worked day and night to get the jerseys done which had been "finetuned" - and we will have them personally delivered to France, now if that isn't some kind of service I don't know what is!!! Big thanks from all of us for making this happen. 

CPPS - Round 1

(MORE PICTURES WILL BE ADDED AS SOON AS AVAILABLE!!!)
So I we took a trip to the North on Saturday the 3^rdMarch, to our first CPPS for Samurai MV. After a great evening together with some proper dinner and some drinks we had a team meeting to discuss tactics and last questions people had. Everyone was in bed by midnight and not many slept through the night – a lot of tension and excitement since we didn’t get the amount of training in which we were aiming for.

Sunday morning – RAIN & COLD, which surprise on a early March day in the North of the UK – but we had a warm welcome from John who was running the LiPS and GI SPORTZ stand! We sorted out registration and our paint, making our way over to our field … first game 9 a.m. was us, somehow a tradition for us, we normally always have the first game of the day.

2:0 – 0:2 – 2:0 – 2:0 were the 4 games we played. There were no finals since there are series points accumulated and we will play of the series finals in the last round, first 2 events will be for seeding purposes. Result in our Premier B division was joint 2^nd, really was a nice result to start the 2012 season. So, with frozen feet and heated up enthusiasm we made our way back to the LiPS tent to check on our Cystic Fibrosis Trust collections – which our sponsors are supporting us during the events. Unluckily we didn’t have the opportunity to print the flyers yet to send people to the sponsor stands – due to budget and time not being our friend on this one … however, we heard some rattling in the collection boxes. We left the collection boxes with LiPS until the end of the event – since we left midday … however we received them from LiPS and collected £34.44 @ the CPPS Rd1!

Thanks to Rich Harris & his CPPS team for the event and of course not to forget LiPS, Planet Eclipse, GI Sportz, Tanked, Paintballpictures.co.uk and Bricketwood Paintball for making this all possible! Looking forward to Round 2 … but first we have some traveling to do … Millennium Series 2012!!!

ON A SIDE NOTE - A big thank you to Gavin from 44Pix and Birmingham Temper for their support @ the event and for the 2 shots.

Fire and Ice

My Goodness – its almost March I have not posted anything since early February!!! SHAME SHAME SHAME … since so much has been going on.

Although things were heating up towards round 1 of the domestic tournament called CPPS, the temperature has dropped and Bricketwood Paintball Center had to shut down for two weekends due to the pitches had frozen with so much ice we would have needed some skates to play … interesting idea for the future of the sport … however not a great idea in preparing for the CPPS or the Millenniums.

We had a Samurai MV training weekend over the 25^th/26^thFeb which was needed before the CPPS next week – where Saturday only 5 of us were on the field doing some drills, SUNDAY was crazy absolute fortunate and crazy. Sunday we unluckily didn’t have the chance to train at our home ground Bricketwood Paintball Center, since there was another tournament going on – but we found an alternative and although there was no new bunkers or 2012 layout – we had another group of guys there, small number of "old" Shock and SPL Tiger players which will be playing the SPL next year and they asked us for some games. This was a godsend – we lost every point, our best effort was a G3 … but boy was that a learning curve. A big shout out to the SPL Tigers (which are "rocking" Planet Eclipse in 2012!!!) for the games again and see you @ the Millenniums.

Sad news … NSPL taking a break in 2012

Although this thread is about our journey, I think a big part of our journey is the UK Paintball scene and the NSPL being a pillar of this scene deserves a moment of our attention.

The NSPL is sorely missed this year and I wish Syd and the NSPL Reffs & Supporters a good rest this year to have an even stronger re-launch in 2013 – maybe under a new national flag or UKPSF driven initiative supported and funded by the players that understand that quality events can not be financed by discount price models – the more you give into the bidding and pricing war of the organizers the more you will join in and destroy the tournament paintball scene … something too little of us understand or have been made aware of.

My motto for this coming year will be on the lines of …
“One Queen, One League –Demand a BPL! British Paintball League”
Demand it – then play it – and be loyal to it. We will be able to grow this sport larger than you can imagine. I hope people will find a way to put their differences aside and make this finally happen … the UK scene deserves ONE national league.

Feb 2012 - Press Release