Practice May 4, 2008...running some drills

I just got back from practice at All Star, and the team had had a small meeting to get confidence up and high hopes. It was exactly what was needed because practice was never this good. We ran some simple basic drill, nothing to special, but the way every team member went about it was just awesome to see. Every guy went out and just played with such tenacity and energy, it was very intense. These are the kind of practices we need if we want to win, and after today there is no doubt in ym mind that All Star Kidz can go out and win every event we play. Today was a great day for the team, every body showed up, we practiced hard, it was fun, its days like today that really make me love this sport. And honestly seeing the team practice like this, makes me really proud to be part of this organization. Our first event is right around the corner, in June, and as of now I think we all have high hopes and taking that podium and walking off with that first place win.

Practice on 4/28/08

The team practiced today at Allstar...we ran 4 man-40 second drills and 5 man-50 second drills. These drills are basically designed to train you and your teammates to move quick, think quick, find the bodies, eliminate the opposing the players, all as fast as possible. These drills went really well today, everyone started slow but as practiced progressed everyone picked it up and things started to look good. To be honest week by week the team is getting alot better and everyones confidence is going up which is exactly what we need right now, being a new team and entering a rough league. Right now the teams main concern isn't even practice, the team really needs to just pick up the intensity and start being more tenacious...I guess what I'm trying to say is everyone needs to have just a strong desire to wanna play this game. I'm sure it will click soon because practices have been going really well.

I think its about time I explain what X-Ball is...

X-Ball is considered to be the most popular form of paintball, its fast paced, high action, and also considered to be a blood sport. The format of xball is 2 teams play each other, each team has a 12 man roster, with any formation of lines. Lines is a combination of 5 guys from the roster to play a point, a point is 1 game against the other team. The idea is to win as many points as you can as fast you can because the games are time limited, you play 2 20 minute halves. At the end of the match the team with the most amount of points wins the match. During the games, the lines are being coached to help win that point. And even with a coach telling you everything you need to know it still takes alot to win that point, you always have to be on your game in order to win.

4/20 Practice

As I said before the team is looking to enter and play the GXPL, do well, and work our way to World Cup. We are on a high stakes road to World Cup, and right now the only way to get down that road is to practice, drill, and work hard. So practice was on 4/20 at All Star and we decided to do 1 x-ball line versus a young gun line and play a little 5 man. We played xball style, which meant ramping guns and fast paced movemtents to sweep the feild as quickly as possible. The day went extremely well, especially since my line basically beat up on the young guns crew. But its still to early to tell how we will do in the GXPL. As more and more practices go by only then will we be able to mark a point at where the team stands.

THE GXPL

The GXPl folks, The Global Xball Paintball League, its the newest Xball league in the nation right now, and it seems to be like it is going to be very popular, considering this year will be the first release of it. The team is doing everything it can to build up sponsors and raise money, save money, and gather money to enter the team and pay for everything to play these series of events. The theory behind us playing this league is that if we do well, we can see where the team is at in comparison to the teams that play nationally. The idea is if the team places top 5 in the first 5 events, our first national event will be the PSP World Cup, which is the worlds biggest and number 1 paintball venue and event. Over 300 teams play this event, not including the pros, and whoever wins World Cup is always considered to be the best team through out the world. Our goal as of now is pratice and train as hard and as much as we can to get prepared for the GXPL, do well and enter World Cup.

Top Gun Tourney April 12, 2008

It finally came, the teams first tournament, just a local one thats it. But alot of really good and strong local teams from all around N.J. showed up. The first line was composed of Matt, Joe, and Ryan and the second line was composed of Vinny, Justin, and Tom, the second line was a group of kids from the young guns team. The young guns unfortunately didn't do well because of lack communication and not being prepared enough for the competetion that layed against them. The other squad of Matt, Joe, and Ryan did extremely well. They went 8-1 in prelims only losing 1 game and went into the semi's in first place, during the semi's however things fell apart. I don;t know what it was bt they lost their groove and ending up taking 4th place over all. However this team is still very young and growing, so 4th was not that bad considering the circumstances. I have alot of confidence and faith in this team.

Sponsors

So as I've posted earlier the team has finally come to get a set roster, things are going well, and the team is looking relatively strong. However, in order to compete nationally, sucessfully atleast, a great team needs great sponsors. Paintball is not cheap and events are extremely expensive. Each event is 1500 dollars just to enter the event, then you need paint which is roughly about a 1000 dollars, hotels and food, thats another 600, and then theres team items such as jerseys, pants, etc. So a good estimate would be around 33oo dollars to compete per event. So far we have picked up 1 solid paint sponsor, Sterling Paintballs, but theres still alot that needs to be done. The team owner and captians are sending out the team resume to all major paintball companies. Hopefully we can find some good sponsors to support All Star Kidz this upcomming season.