PaintballX3 Magazine Paintball X3 Magazine March 2014 | Page 31

31 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 WWW.PAINTBALLX3.COM