A new revelation on speedball . . . Strictly speaking we are not a speedball team. To me, and I think most of the Raiders would agree, speedball is a game best left to field play and tournament paintball, the latter being the "predominant" version of the sport (officially anyway - I would actually differ on this point). So if we are truly a "woods" team, why do we even bother?
There are several reasons why speedball is a good way to start the day. After all, we did invest a lot of machete time and some money on building a speedball course in the middle of our home field . . .
Paintball markers work differently depending on temperature, air pressure, etc. Cold weather tends to make your marker less effective, and it is rarely the same type of weather from game to game. By playing in a more or less open field, you really get to see how your marker is working – at all ranges. It’s much better to figure this out in the start of the day, then during a really heated woods game.
My favorite reason for the open field speedball games is to get the “first” tag out of the way. I have always felt like I played better after I got tagged at least once. Sometimes the anticipation of the hit is worse than the actual hit, and once that is over – I am much more relaxed and ready to get into the day’s games.
However, we've always dealt with a few issues in our speedball games:
Keeping the teams even: It’s hard to divide up the teams in such a way that makes everyone happy. Too many “good players” on a team makes the other team unhappy, but experienced players tend to want to stick together
Keeping environmental factors to a minimum: No matter how we try to stack it, there is always one team that ends up looking a little more towards the sun, wind, etc.
Keeping it fun and energetic: If the name of the game is to see how your marker is working, what if you get tagged out before you fire a single shot?
Last weekend we tried something that we’ve done before a few times in the past and it really worked out great. In fact, I think this is going to be the new standard for our speedball games moving forward.
We only had 5 players, which makes it hard to divide up the teams for speedball (for woods games, uneven teams seem to work better – but that’s for another rant). Instead of putting 2 players on one team and 3 on the either, we put 2 on each side, with the 5th player on the side of the field. When the first player – on either team – was tagged out, the player on the side of the field ran in on that side. We continued the game this way until players ran out of paint (we played with hoppers-only, no pods).
The other rule we added into the game was having a “center line” for the field that neither team could cross. This also kept folks from rushing the opponent’s side of the field (which we all love to do) and kept us focused on the goals of the game - getting those markers and ourselves warmed up for the rest of the day.
I think this is going to be the new way we play speedball, no more than 3 players on each side and everyone else in a line on the side of the field – waiting to jump in and take the place of their fallen comrade.
It certainly makes for a more active game with less focus on worrying about getting out and more focus on getting that equipment in the zone.
Labels: paintball
