PSP Phoenix 2008

Hello and it’s time again for another event review from yours truly. This season started off great with probably one of the best venues I’ve ever been to and it was in the middle of the god damn desert. Yep, that’s right, the first event of the year was held in Phoenix, Arizona at the practice fields outside the University of Phoenix stadium and it was almost perfect. The grass, yes actual grass, was excellent and the weather couldn’t be better, a little windy at times but really nothing to complain about. So for those of you, who will actually read this, let’s get this thing started.

Wednesday – Flew out of Houston and a couple of hours later make a bumpy landing in Phoenix. I grab my bag, wait outside in the nice weather and get picked up by Jim from Paintball Zone. We drive out to the venue, drop my stuff at the Boneyard and already there is Marlene, Ol’ Dave, Porno Paulie, Marcus, Tim and several others. I go and check out the vendors, which are lacking and then go look at the field. I haven’t reffed paintball in a month and a half and haven’t seen the layout in person much less played. I’m a little nervous about this fact but I’m not going to let it bother me. Ray from Chicago arrives, he and I go eat then try to find the hotel we’re staying. At this point in time I’m no longer surprised by the surrounding area that the hotels we stay at are in and this event we’re in the middle of Vatoland with prostitutes and crackheads abound. Seriously, it’s pretty nuts. Everyone else arrives; we go to a Wafflehouse and get ready for tomorrow.

Thursday – Back on the D1 field and returning as well are Amos, Drew, Jeb and Smalls. The "new" guys and girl are Drew from Kansas, Pig Pen, Alan, John, Andrea and Porno Paulie as the head ref. This was probably one of the best crews I’ve been a part of and things went real smooth for us. We started the day with D1, which the league has changed from two 16 minute halves to the same format as D2, which is basically the first to seven in 15 minutes. The first game was between Damage and Vicious and we finished up with D3. Nothing too exciting happened but once again I got to pull the first penalty of the event for my field and it was the wrong penalty as well. I threw a minor when I should have thrown a major but at that point in time, it didn’t really matter. Went back to hotel, cleaned up and ate at a place called El Pollo Loco, which is basically a Taco Bell. Afterwards we went to Marcus’ hotel and sat by the pool and had a few beers while talking about what happened on everyone’s field. Good times...

Friday – This day we started with several D3 matches, which we ran through real fast and then jumped back into D1. Because of the layout at this event there are pretty much no blowouts in any of the D1 games so almost all of them go to time and we start to run behind schedule. Thankfully, this event is different from the rest in that if we have to play the games after the sun goes down its no big deal thanks to the lights for the football field. Our last match of the "day" (I’m using quotation marks because it was played at night) was between Ultimate and United. This was a match that should have been easy to get through but no, it didn’t happen like that at all. Since neither team had a chance to make semis, I guess they collectively decided to do whatever the hell they wanted. First, there were a couple of playing on penalties, then an overshooting penalty thrown by me and probably the most ridiculous thing of all, players shooting at each other from six feet away when the game was over right in front of me, awesome.

During a point the last Ultimate player gets shot out of his bunker and I pull him. He catches a few extra from a United player but apparently it was something to get upset over. So the eliminated Ultimate player turns and shoots his gun several times at the United player. The guy from United retaliates in the same manner because it’s only "fair" to do so and the Ultimate player is about to shoot him again when I grab his barrel and push it towards the ground. Paulie comes over, asks what happened, I explain and Paulie gives each team a major when it should have been much worse. At this point in time I’m pissed and the game moves on with teams continually being penalized for some stupid shit till the game is over. Paulie pulls us altogether, tells us we’re doing a good job and to keep up the good work and continue to be consistent with our calls. We all put our hands in and break with a resounding "Fuck Scott!" as our cheer. Everyone laughs and we had back for the hotel. We go eat at Olive Garden, which took forever to be seated at but ended up being a great time.

Saturday – Getting close to the end of the tournament and that means semifinal time. We run a variety of D3, D2 and D1 semifinal games, which all go rather well surprisingly. I catch some crap from a player playing for Dark Legion aka the Caste about how "not everyone on the team is Russian." I’m still not sure what he was implying by that but it was probably the most ridiculous statement said to me at the tournament. After all that is done, we start our bracket of D3 5-man. I know what you’re thinking, "Oh no! Not 5-man!" but really, it was easiest thing we did all tournament. Each team was respectful and there were no attitude problems that are notorious in X-ball. If a player had a question about a call they asked politely and then thanked you for your answer. It was like something out of the Twilight Zone because this has never happened to me before, ever. We ran through the games real fast and the best part we weren’t picking up any games from any other field like usual, awesome.

Then after all of that the best thing ever to happen at tourney did; a ref game. That’s right; the refs got to play some paintball on our field after the day was done. This was probably the most fun I have ever had at a tournament. A bunch of teams gave us paint they didn’t want and Jerry from RNT All-stars loaned us their guns to play with, thanks a ton Jerry. The best part was probably the insane amount of cheating taking place on the field and ever better was that we actually had a crowd coaching, yelling and laughing. In one game, I got shot in the face, which I proceeded to wipe then run down the field only to get shot in the face again but managed to bunker out another despite being able to see. This went on for probably a good hour till we were kicked off the field by some complaining cleaning crew guys. That night we went to Golden Corral but I missed the "Fuck Scott" toast, which I wasn’t too happy about.

Sunday – The last day of the tournament and that means finals. We started the day with some D3 and D2 semifinal stuff then jumped into the D3 consolation game followed by the D3 finals game, which were both good. Then the same thing for D2 and D1 and everything went fine. I was kind of irritated during the Vicious and CDR game as at one point Vicious was up 6 – 2 and was close to winning but in true Vicious style, the decided to let CDR come back and tie up the game. Thankfully, Vicious scored a 30 second point and was able to win the match with 4.6 seconds left in the game. The final match between Damage and RNT was a rematch from an earlier prelim game that RNT came back and won. This was not the case in this game because RNT laid a beat down on Damage and won 7 – 1. When that last buzzer sounded and RNT ran on the field cheering, my tournament was officially over. I walked back to the Boneyard, turned my jersey into Tim, picked up my check from Marcus and then headed back to my hotel. We ate at McDonald’s, grabbed a few beers, stayed up late messing around and then went to bed.

Monday – I said good-bye to everyone leaving and grabbed a ride with Dave Baker back to the airport. I sat around the airport, had a beer at around 11AM (it was St. Patrick’s Day after all) and then got on the plane to fly back home. Drew and Dave Baker were on the same flight as me but sat in different parts of the plane. We get off and I said good-bye to them and head to baggage claim to pick up my bag still feeling real happy about how well the tournament turned out. I really hope the PSP decides to go back to Phoenix and the stadium complex will have us.

Well, that’s it, another PSP tourney done and gone and another review written by me. For those of you who actually read this, I hope you enjoyed it and to everyone who was there, hopefully I can see you at MAO in May. Later...