PaintballX3 Magazine Paintball X3 Magazine March 2014 | Page 31
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The backdrop for this opening season event was
Cousins Paintball in Forney, Texas. There is a long
and rich history of tournament paintball in Texas,
and in the Dallas area in particular. The Ironmen
once had a stretch where they won the Dallas
Open four straight years in the early 1990s. Texas has been a stop on the NPPL circuit, the Lively
circuit and even as far back as the days of the National Survival Game’s early tournaments in the
1980s.
It’s been a very interesting off-season in the world
of professional paintball, with a ton of player
movement happening in the pro division. Houston Heat, Edmonton Impact, Russian Legion, Art
Chaos (new to the PSP Pro Challengers Division),
Chicago Aftershock, LA Infamous and X-Factor all
have seen significant roster changes post World
Cup (more on this later). The LA Ironmen merged
with Royalty and have had a huge roster turnover.
Dynasty lost their coach, Rusty Glaze. There have
been early signs that some of these player signings, moves and merges may take a while to pay
off however. One such sign showed itself during
the American Paintball League’s (APL) inaugural
event as the newly reconstructed Houston Heat
finished behind Shooters & Looters in the pro division. We would be remiss if we neglected to tell
you that San Diego Dynasty also finished behind
Shooters & Looters, the surprising winners in the
pro division in the APL’s first event.
Out of the gate Houston Heat put up a nice 7-4 win
against Omaha Vicious, a team that finished out of
the top ten in four of five events last year. Houston
Heat who lost Fedorov and the rest of their Russian
contingent this off-season, seemingly more than
made up for their losses by signing Thomas Taylor,
Tim Montressor, Ryan Moorhead, Greg Siewers and
Keith Devitt. While that looks great on paper, on
the field it was much less impressive as Houston
Heat lost their next three matches (including the
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