 Held over the long weekend on June 1 & 2, the Tracs Volcanic tournament took place in
Rotorua International Stadium... a location which has become almost legendary among
paintballers in New Zealand since its debut last year with the first Rotorua Tournament.To give a bit of background, the Volcanic tournaments have been organised and run by the Rotorua Paintball Club and a fellow by the name of Peter Mumby. Peter has been on the paintball scene in New Zealand for a couple of years, and stated at the end of this event that it would be the last one he would be taking an active role in organising. If this is the case, then I think tournament paintballers in New Zealand will be losing one hell of an asset in that respect, even if the Rotorua Paintball Club itself continues to run the event in the same manner. Rotorua is something of a tourist town in the North Island of New Zealand. It is surrounded by evidence of volcanic activity in the form of pools of bubbling mud, geysers of super- heated steam, some very nice landscape, and the ever-present sulpherous odour. For all of the apparent near proximity of underground rivers of molten rock, however, it was very cold for both days of play. Day one was overcast, though it remained dry. Day two actually saw some sun, but the temperature stayed shiveringly low for those of us more used to the climate in Auckland. There were sheets of ice stuck to the sides of the cover on the inflatable fields as the dew or rain from the night before had frozen. Last years Rotorua event also saw the Sup'Air field in the country for the first time. After that event, the Sup'Air field was purchased by Extreme Events, an Auckland based organisation headed up by a member of Team Phantom, Wayne Rolleston, and it was great to see the field back at Rotorua this year. It was accompanied by another similar home-grown inflatable field from Christchurch. The fields were set up almost symetrically, though there were significant differences between the two. The original Airball field from last year had the usual array of 'cones' and 'cans', though they were spread fairly thinly, making this field something of a paint distributors dream. The home-grown inflatable field had its own stand-alone barricades which were much larger, and was supplemented by a number of small wooden barricades to plug some of the gaps and firing lines. There were 20 teams at the tournament this year. Two Australian teams were there, albeit with a few NZ players in each, and Australian gear developers MacDev (http://www.macdev.net) were there with an impressive array of hardware which had a good number of players in the tournament drooling and checking their bank balances. It is good to see NZ events receive such notice from Australia. One of the yearly rituals followed by some of the top NZ teams is the trip to Aussie to compete in one of their tournaments. It is encouraging that the NZ paintball scene has grown to the point where Australian teams are now making regular trips over here. The Jetts, for example, have played in no less than three NZ events over the last 12 months. Not just Australian teams attended however. Teams were drawn from all over the country to attend this event, and all of the major centres were represented in one form or another. The teams attending this event were: Saints, Katipo, Phantom, Jetts (Aus), Phoenix, Flashpoint, Titans, Kamo Karzi, Rush, Damage, Diabolique (Aus), Damn Natives, Havoc, Fusion, Marksmen, Shocktactics, Solidaire, Brew Ha, Insane, Damage Inc. Having 20 teams in evidence makes this a huge tournament by NZ standards. The usual turn-out for a national quality event like this is anywhere from 12 to 16, so having 20 teams, including the two Australian teams, just goes to show how much players are willing to support an event of this proven calibre. The firm favourites for the event were Saints, who apart from a recent hiccup in regional events, have been consistent high scorers, and Australian team Jetts, who came 3rd in the 2001 Nationals and won last years Rotorua event outright. The teams were divided into four pools, which were arranged according to performance at previous events. These four pools then played amongst themselves to determine which teams would be placed in the "Upper" event, playing for the Cup, or the "Lower" event, playing for the Plate. The top ten teams from the pools went on to play for the Cup, with the remainder playing for the Plate. There was some concern as to how this was arranged. It was mentioned that the top 2 teams from each pool should play on for the Cup, with the rest playing for the Plate, rather than the top 10 teams regardless of the pool they were in. Either way, it seemed to work well, and teams ended up more or less where they usually did historically. The games were central-flag (which also caused some contention initially) and were 10 minutes in length. Games were distributed over 2 fields, and on average had about an hour of down-time between them to allow players to get ready for the next game. The venue, Rotorua International Stadium, was again superb for teams and spectators. This event did not seem to attract the same number of spectators, which was a shame and was possibly a result of the colder weather, but the spectators that did attend were vocal enough to make up for it. One thing that became evident early on in the tournament was that the usual tendency for games to be over in half the allotted time did not seem to be occurring at this event. A 10 minute game in a NZ event is usually over in 5-6 minutes, but a great many of the games at the Rotorua event either played to time or were finished with only seconds to spare. A number of teams found themselves racing to hang the flag, only to have the final whistle occur a split second before they got there. This tended to mean that teams needed to keep a close eye on how long the game had been going in order to ensure that they could at least get the First-Pull points, even if they couldn't make the final run to get the hang. Some teams made this a primary objective, in fact. Knowing that they may have difficulty in beating a well established team, they would 'camp', keeping the opposition back, working for attrition, and making a flag-run at the last possible moment, just to try to get enough points to help them against other teams who may have lost out-right. The organisers of the event indicated that the reason behind the Central Flag concept was that it was more exciting for spectators, and would make for faster games. They may not have been quite on the money in regard to the length of the games, but it certainly did make for some excellent spectating. While I personally prefer dual-flag games, having a single central flag did not hurt this tournament one bit in my opinion. Day one saw some fabulous play. The first major coup was by "Damn Natives", beating the Australian team "Jetts" in a surprisingly exciting match. Jetts were in fine form all tournament, but this early loss to them must have shaken them up a bit at the outset. Shortly thereafter, in the game between Jetts and Phoenix, a Jetts player made a flag pull only to find that the flag was firmly attached to the pole and would not come free. He apparently took the whole pole with him, but ended up dropping it on the way to cover. As the flag was considered to be part of his equipment from the moment he touched it, he was eliminated for stepping too far from it. After some confusion and concern over this, the game ended up being replayed and the Jetts won it outright. A couple of other teams mentioned that they had difficulty pulling the flag initially, but this seemed to be sorted out fairly quickly. Shortly before the end of play on Day 1, the first round ended, and teams were sorted into the Cup and Plate groups that they would stay in for the rest of the tournament. Day One ended after only a few more games, and there was the customary Rotorua flood-lit walk of the field by a large number of players, picking up paint to help clear the way for the next days play. There was a better turn out for the after-game clean up this time than last year, possibly due to the reaction from the players to those who didn't bother to stay and help out last time. Rather than spend the night in Rotorua, necessity dictated I take a trip back to Auckland. The roads between Rotorua and Auckland can get horribly foggy, but the trip back was fairly quick. The following morning the trip from Auckland to Rotorua was a little slower, as there was more traffic on the road, but it was the first time in years that I'd driven to Rotorua in the daylight, and the view from the road as the sun came up was impressive. Day Two saw some even more startling play than Day One. The teams were playing harder than ever, but there were some significant unexpected upsets. Kamo Karzi, a team that has had some patchy performance of late, had been playing very well and ended Day One in third place. They started Day Two with a resounding win over Saints, having lost to them the previous day in the preliminary rounds. The game started with early losses to Kamo Karzi and there were cheers from the Saints supporters in the grandstand as it seemed that Saints were going to clean up yet another game. Soon, the scores were equalised, and the cheering started to come from the other end of the grandstand as the two final players on the field, the captains of either team, slugged it out at the end. Kamo Karzi team captain, Alan Gatland, tagged Saints captain Rik Goldsworthy in the hopper and went on to hang the flag. For those players who were concerned that Rik apparently shoved a referee when the paint- check decision went against him, it was explained after the fact as a mis-understanding and there was no animosity involved. The loss was a hefty blow to the Saints, and the game would come back to haunt them later in the tournament. The Jetts were in fine form throughout the whole tournament, and smashed through the Kamo Karzi lineup only a few games later. Throughout both days of play there were two representatives of "St Johns", a medical and first aid service, on the sidelines. These were the same two representatives who attended the Rotorua event the previous year, and a lot of players were happy to see them back again. The event was not marred by any major injuries, and these two showed great professionalism as it progressed. One of them, after last year, has since become a paintballer, and was kind enough to loan his Spyder to a player who had marker difficulties in the final few games. A film-crew was also on site for part of day two, filming local team "Damn Natives" for a Maori TV program. A game was staged for them to film, but they appeared reluctant to record any live games. Either way, positive publicity like this is always a bonus. The other two rumoured TV crews (including one from Australia) were not in evidence this year. When the final scores for the tournament came in, they were reminiscent of the event last year, as the top three spots remained unchanged. The scores were as follows: Cup Final
Plate Final
While it is vaguely embarassing for an Australian team to consistently win a New Zealand tournament, the Jetts all seemed to be a good bunch of guys, and having them at the event helps New Zealand paintball grow, rather than hinders it. Play overseas, for all of its politics and legal problems, is a different animal to that in New Zealand, and I think that it is good to get a reminder of this from time to time. The after match prize-giving was held in the grandstand overlooking the flood-lit fields about half an hour after the last game. Cups, Medals and Trophies were awarded for the top teams, spot prizes were awarded for a number of different things, and free merchandise was thrown into the crowd. Jetts, of course, received the Cup as the prize for winning the event outright. Team Rush was awarded the Plate for their efforts in the Plate Finals. Along with the Cup awarded to the Jetts, there was a product prize awarded of a complete team uniform package. The Jetts kindly donated this prize to "The lowest scoring amateur team", which was Solidaire. Solidaire, having only just clambered out of negative points at the end of the tournament, were obviously very pleased by this and the rest of the crowd were very vocal in their support of the gesture too. Other prizes of note was the NeoTech ProGear (www.neotech.co.nz) best "Up and Coming" team cup, which was awarded to Titans, and the Players Choice awards. The Players Choice awards, a first for NZ Paintball, involved the players voting for the players and the suppliers that they felt deserved recognition at this event. The winner of the top supplier for the event was Tony Witheridge of NZ Paintball Supply. The winner of the top player for the event was Rik Goldsworthy of Saints. Rik sounded as if he was choking up when he thanked the players that had voted for him, and said that he felt that this was the greatest honour he had attained from paintball in New Zealand. As the players packed up to leave, and the flood-lights were turned off, it became apparent that this was something of an end of an era in New Zealand paintball. Without the influence of Peter Mumby it is possible that the next Rotorua event will never occur at the International Stadium again (though I hope this is incorrect) and while the other venues around the country are mostly excellent, there is little that can match the feeling that you get walking out from under the grandstand to the field under the eyes of the spectators with "Eye of the Tiger" playing far too loudly over the sound-system. I didn't manage to get to the Players Party, but it was held at a restaurant/bar not too far from the field, and apparently had a well organised and convivial atmosphere. Peter Mumby later said that it was "Great to see teams that were hard out at each other sitting and relaxing and talking about paintball. The players at the party were the winners on the day, no matter how they played during the day. It was one big family with no aggression or animosity." It is hard to expect anything less from NZ Paintballers. Needless to say, anybody who was not able to make it to this event will be kicking themselves. |
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