NPPL Awards Gold Stars

For participation. What?! Is this Tee-ball? Peewee soccer? The Special Olympics? No, wait, it's Pro Division tournament paintball. Okay, I hear you. The NPPL guys probably never thought of their nice plaques in those terms and almost certainly didn't mean to suggest that everybody should be proud, and, erm, happy just to participate--but good grief, read the plaque!
By the way, the back is almost as good. It says (and I quote) 'Provided by Arrowhead Wood Inc. The official furniture sponsor of the NPPL World Championships in Las Vegas.' What a hoot.

In actual tournament news the venue has been moved to a different portion of the convention center parking lot away from the nearest intersection (which is really okay because nobody ever noticed before anyway) a little closer to the Riviera. Otherwise the layout is consistent with past event set-ups. There is new turf, which looks pretty good, though I have no idea how it will play. It's still laid directly onto the asphalt so it's gonna be hard landings for those with poor diving technique. Three elevated platforms along the snake side appear to be the principle webcast camera positions but between them it looks like they should give pretty good field coverage--and if there are any additional cameras the results could be a substantial improvement over past efforts. The action gets started tomorrow at 7am but the Pros don't hit the grandstand field until 9:30am with Damage playing Uprising and Arsenal playing Legend. Pro matches will run from 9:30 until around 4pm on Friday.