Paintball Sports Promotions released their schedule for the upcoming 2008 season. The new schedule appears to favor more East coast tournaments, as South Carolina, Pennsylvania and Florida all have their spot on the list. Illinois and SoCal make up the Mid and West events.

With the 2007 season being a great success with lots of suprises, we can only hope to see what 2008 will bring.

Updated 2008 Schedule

In our ongoing endeavor to bring you the most prestigious and successful events, Paintball Sports Promotions released our 2008 schedule earlier than ever before. In doing so, we hoped to generate talk about the schedule and have done just that. You spoke and we listened. Many of our teams and players voiced concerns over potential scheduling conflicts for several of our events. After reviewing the feedback concerning the schedule we have decided to make the following adjustments for next season.

Event #1
Dates: March 6th-9th
Location: TBD - Phoenix, AZ or Southern California

Mid-Atlantic Open
Dates: May 8th-11th
Location: PBC Sports Park, Rock Hill, SC

Chicago Open
Dates: June 25th-29th
Location: Bolingbrook Recreation and Aquatic Center, Bolingbrook, IL

Northeast Open
Dates: August 14th-17th
Location: All American Paintball Park, Greensburg, PA

World Cup*
Dates: October 20th-26th
Location: Disney’s Wide World of Sports® Complex, Orlando, FL

Please note that the dates listed for each event represent the dates of actual play. Onsite team registration will begin one day prior.

Stay tuned to www.pspevents.com for more information about the 2008 Season including event schedules, directions, great hotel deals, and much, much more!

*Actual dates of play for the 2008 World Cup have not yet been confirmed.

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Paintball players today are more demanding than ever. We want markers that can get 2000 shots per fill, paint that is of ultra tight tolerances, and loaders that can unjam themselves. As of lately however, there has been a large demand in the industry of batteries that can stand up to the rigorous demands of paintball equipment. Batteries, plain and simple, are not cheap however. Especially considering you have to purchase name brand in order to get maximum performance. I’ve spent countless dollars on Energizer, Duracell, and other brands searching for the best battery for the money. Boost Hoppers has stepped in to fill that need with their high output 250mah rechargeable 9.6volt battery kit.

Boost Hoppers has made a name for themselves recently by being on site for tournaments and supporting players by repairing, and upgrading their loader systems. Their motto is that players hardly consider playing with a stock paintball marker, so why should they do the same with their loader?

The rechargeable kit Boost sells comes with two high output 250mah 9.6volt batteries, and the appropriate charger. The instructions are very clear in operation. Once I received the Boost kit, I setup the charger to work overnight and was ready to go the next day. The recommended period of time for the 250mah batteries is twenty to twenty four hours of charging time to work at maximum potential. The test subject I experimented on was a Vlocity loader that was previously giving me some loading problems due to weak batteries. I removed the 3rd party 9volts (Walgreen’s brand) and installed the Boost kit and immediately the loader came back to life and fed perfectly.

At the end of a days play, I had shot close to two cases of paint during practice and the Vlocity was still feeding strong as the batteries were brand new. This surprised me greatly, as I knew from previous experiences that my Vlocity was very harsh on batteries. Normally I can get barely a case from Duracells or Energizers.

The Boost Hoppers 250mah 9.6Volt rechargeable battery kit is available today from the Boost Hopper’s online store for $24.99.

Pros

• Cheap price when compared to brand name 9volts
• Comes with charger
• Good life when used in high energy drawing environments
• Easy instructions

Cons

• No car charging capability

Final Rating
4 out of 5

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Paintball is a physically and psychologically demanding sport to play and perform well in. It seems that one of the more important things that divisional teams forget to remember is that physical conditioning is just as important as slides, shooting, and communication drills. While the optimal thing to do is acquire a team gym membership and schedule daily workouts, this isn’t always in harmony with all the members. People may not like the idea of hitting the gym together during the week, as it may interfere with certain “other” things. So what is a good captain supposed to do?

The first thing that you need to do, is create a workout regime that fits your schedule for team practice. If people are resistant to committing to daily workouts during the week, then you need to enforce the policies that you make when the team is together for practice. Everyone has to practice. This is a universally accepted idea in the sports world. Just as running game drills will improve your performance, exercise and physical training will help the skills required to compete adequately in tournaments.

Step 1: Begin by looking at the core skills required to be a good paintball player.

1. Speed
2. Endurance
3. Recoverability

From here you can devise a plan of attack in order to get your players into shape and performing better on game day. Being as you aren’t on the gym membership level, you will want to look at exercises that work off the person’s own strength, weight, and endurance. Some of the best workouts that you will find are some of the simplest and can be performed at any location and in any environment.

maXRof’s 3×2 Team Workout Regime

Pushups: Start your workout by doing 1 set of 20 push ups. These must all be done in correct format (no knees), and must be full reps. Start with your arms fully extended as a starting point and your stopping point will be when your nose touches the ground. Upper body strength will help with endurance and speed in marker movement and positioning. Also it will help to prevent injuries that are prone with superman slides.

Situps: Follow your first set of push ups with 1 set of 20 sit ups. Make sure your arms are crossed over your chest. Also, when coming back down, try to get as close to the ground without touching and then continue into another sit up. Middle body strength is important as it helps in stability. Snap shooting, wrapping, and reflexive movement all work primarily off the abdominal section, and improving this area will help further with said skills.

Squats: After your set of situps, the next exercise is 1 set of 20 squats. Many people have different methods of performing this, but I find that the best is to extend your arms directly in front of you and squat until your legs are bent at a ninety degree angle, and then return to normal position while keeping your arms extended. Lower body strength is needed for running, dashing, jumping, and helps with stability when kneeling. Any improvement here is a direct improvement upon these skills.

After you complete the squats, return to the push ups and continue through until you have performed each exercise three times. After you have completed the exercises, finish your workout by jogging for a minimum of ten minutes. Each week, increase each exercise by five reps.

Step 2: Now that you have a workout, you need to implement it into your team practice. The best time for this is before anyone even unpacks their gear. Gather the team together and express to them that in order to enhance everyone’s performance during game day, that you want to begin practice with some physical training in order to boost everyone’s core skill set.

Remember, that you are the team captain and decisions that you make are designed to help the team. Also, you should express that individual members themselves must be responsible for their physical condition when they aren’t practicing. Try to emphasize that you would like them to continue workout out during the week. The team members that don’t follow this will certainly be noticeable on practice days as compared to the ones who are following, and can be adjusted as needed.

Step 3: Adhere, adhere, adhere. Now that you have a solid training plan, you need to stick to it like glue. Just as if you practice in any weather, you need to follow your workout plan in any weather. Think of your body as just another part of your equipment. If you don’t keep it working correctly and to its maximum potential, you will suffer when the time comes.

Physical conditioning also helps strengthen the body against injuries as well. Paintball can be a very demanding sport depending on your position, and you are potentially one slide away from disaster if something should go wrong. Muscle and tone helps protect vital components against injury, and tends to recover faster. With the bar being raised in performance every day in tournament paintball, no longer will team members be able to compete with the same “weekend warrior” skills that were acceptable ten years ago. If you are ever going to be taken seriously as a team, you need to have your members put down the BigMacs, Marlboros, and start meeting physical goals.

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Tadao Technologies has been in the game a long time with their upgrade boards for various paintball markers. Tadao is most famous for their Musashi line of boards.

Recently, they’ve announced their plans for a new style OLED upgrade board for Dye’s line of Ultralite frames. This means that the new style board will fit in pretty much anything that has an Ultralite for it.

Yes, I’ve been working like crazy lately. I finally finished off the latest Yakuza series prototype for the DM8, which will also work in most Ultralite frames. Like our Universal Ultralite board, the Yakuza will also have ribbon and wired eye sockets so it can work in the Proto, PMR, and older DMs without any adapters or modifications.

The OLED screen is placed on the left side of the frame, near the power and eye switch, as shown in the following pictures:

We’re working on grips to come standard with each board, with a window in the appropriate location.

Additionally, I also finished assembling the new SLG prototypes:

The SLG board will be Musashi 7, not Yakuza, which is obvious in the pictures (no OLED screen). It does feature a 7-color super-bright LED to replace the stock 3-color. The large capacitor is necessary because the SLG uses a coil to actuate a sear, rather than a pneumatic solenoid.

As with our Marq and Ego Yakuza boards, the prototypes will be on display at the Commander’s Cup NPPL in San Diego at the end of the month.

For more information, check out the Tadao Technologies website.

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Wow. I can safely say that I did not see this one coming at all.

It appears that this year, Hoppers are the new sensation. I’ve seen more releases this year than in previous ones. Nxe just issued a statement on PbNation, hyping up their new HOPPER. Thats right, Nxe…makers of soft goods will break into the loader marker at the NPPL San Diego Commanders Cup (Nov. 29th - Dec. 2nd). The new loader is named the “JRNY” (Journey), and is apparently what Nxe was talking about in all of their latest advertisements that said “The Journey Continues…”.

The press release is as follows:

Dear NXe Members,

How are you? I hope all is well.

We are very close to making some announcements to the industry. As members and loyal customers, I feel you should all be hearing our announcements from us directly and not through a secondary source. We appreciate your continued support and thank you.

As many of you know, we have already released and are shipping most of our new ‘08 line-up. Our team here has done a great job on the new line-up and if you have not seen it yet in person, just go to your local shop and check it out.

As you just read, I said “most” of the new products have been released. For those of you who have been following and seeing our advertisements in all the top paintball magazines, you may have noticed our tag line on the bottom of the ads that says “The Journey Continues. . .” Many customers have asked us what that means. We didn’t really answer them, but now we will let the cat out of the bag.

At the upcoming NPPL Commander’s Cup in San Diego, Nov. 29-Dec. 2, we will formally introduce our newest introduction, The “JRNY” (Journey). The JRNY is the first NXe item outside of the soft goods category.

Our team of electrical and mechanical engineers have taken 2 years to develop what will become “the Best Hopper in the business.” We will introduce it at Commander’s Cup and no pictures or other information about the “JRNY” will be released until then

Please come on down to San Diego and experience a great paintball event as well as the hottest new product to hit the paintball industry in a long, long time. We will have the NXe trailer there as well as a VIP area that will overlook center court. We want you to be a part of this so we will hold a contest and have 10 winners who will be invited to come and hang out with us in our VIP area, meet the NXe team, as well as most of our Pro Teams and industry dignitaries.

Hope to see you there and don’t forget, “The Journey Continues. . .”

All the best,
John Bosch

The only picture that they have released is this one. They are claiming that nothing else will be released to the public until the San Diego NPPL Event.

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