(photos courtesy Z-Paintball)

Well here we are sitting in Virginia, about 900 miles north of Orlando, Florida, the site of the last NPPL World Cup in this millennium. Ironically, at around 70 degrees, the weather here in Virginia is much warmer than the weather we experienced in Orlando. It's also not as wet as it was in the early stages of the Cup. In fact, it was so rainy and windy early on that the event started more than a day later than planned. Not to mention that with all of the rain, the snakes and water moccasins decided to take over the two woods fields forcing the promoters to use only Hyperball, and Sup-Air ball fields for the ten-man event. That's pretty much all of the bad news and there's plenty of good.

First let's talk about the site. The 1999 World Cup was not held at the usual World Cup site in downtown Old Town, Florida. It was held about two miles down Rt. 192 on a beautiful track of flat open acreage. There were seven fields used in the event. Each field had a major sponsor and their trucks, displays, etc. were situated next to their fields. For example, Diablo Paintball had three huge tractor trailers outside of their sponsored field. National Paintball South had their display 5th wheel show truck and their race-cars near their field. National Paintball New Jersey was set up in their T2000 next to their sponsored field. Did you see the National Harley?

In between the seven playing fields was the vendor's tent. Companies like Benchmark Manufacturing, Bad Boyz Toyz, Morgan Trophies, etc. were in the main tent. WDP had a tent which extended from the main tent via an enclosed walkway. This is where they held their tech classes and schmoozed their dealers. Also in the mix of trade show tents, trucks, and player staging tents, were about 15 large JT Paintball and DYE Products tents set up specifically for their sponsored teams. This was quite a sight. Finally, a few companies like Pro Team Products, Scott Goggles, and JT Paintball had either separate show tents or huge show trucks set up around the site. Quite frankly, after 14+ years of playing paintball I've never seen anything close to this in terms of atmosphere. This was really awesome.

The 10-Man Games:

There were 88 ten-man teams competing in 1999 World Cup, including some from England, Puerto Rico, France, Brazil, Canada, Russia, and Japan. All of the big name pro and amateur teams brought their best ten to take a shot at the first place trophies.

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There were some great games in the preliminary rounds including Bad Company maxing Aftershock in Sup-Air Ball. The All A's II played a great game maxing Team Image in the prelims as well. The preliminary rounds ended on Friday with eight pro teams moving on.

The super competitive pro semi-finals ended with Avalanche ranked first in the pro division-- they were followed by Lockout, Aftershock, Ironmen, who would do battle in the finals. The All Americans, Team Image, Bob Long's Ironmen, and Bad Company left the Cup one round earlier than planned.

The pro finals

The pro final rounds were played more agressively than what we've come to expect with Aftershock maxing three games and Avalanche losing only to 'Shock. In order of finish the pro ten-man ended as follows:

• Aftershock

• Avalanche

• Lockout

• Ironmen

The Amateur A Division:

The Naughty Dogs dominated the amateur A division with 447 points which which was more points than the 8th place pro team. Thunderstruck also would have made the pro cut finishing the preliminary rounds with 412 points. The eight amateur A teams to make the cut were the Naughty Dogs, OBR, All Americans II, Scream, Thunderstruck, Addicted, Outta Control, and Shockwave.

In a very low scoring final round, Outta Control won the A division with a mere 169 (of a possible 300) points. The rest of the amateur A finals looked like this. Naughty Dogs (2nd), Thunderstruck (3rd) and OBR (4th).

The Amateur B Division:

The amateur B division sent 16 teams to the semi finals where Damage, B & E Paintball, SOB's, and Extreme Rage moved on to the final rounds.

The final results were SOB's (1st), B & E Paintball (2nd), Damage (3rd), and Extreme Rage (4th).

Tom Cole Suspended

Another interesting note from the World Cup, Tom Cole, President of the NPPL and Captain of Bad Company was suspended for three games for pushing Ronnie Simpkins of Aftershock.

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