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This weekend saw Tom Cole and
the Ultimate Woodsball League
return to Bear Claw Paintball,
in Fayetteville, Tennessee, for
the second year. This year saw
teams coming from as far away
as Florida and Wisconsin. This
included Destiny Army, University of Tennessee, Master Blasters,
Southern Rage, Delta IX, Black
Sheep, Vigilante, and Black Karma. These teams came to play
hard and were determined to win.
But what came to mind for this
author was: “What is the UWL?”
I wanted to take this weekend
and only watch how the teams
played the game, but how the
game is played and how the UWL
came into existence. Don’t worry
though, I will tell you the results
of the tournament near the end
of this article.
To discover what UWL was, I
went right to the source of UWL,
the creator Tom Cole. Tom started the UWL in 2009 because he
personally felt that some of the
fun was left in the woods once
paintball went to the speedball
field. He borrowed ideas from the
SPPL and merged them with old
style 10 man. Tom has experience in tournament play. He was
president of the NPPL for 8 years
with part of that time having the
game in the woods and the rest
moving paintball onto the concept field. The UWL is currentApril 2014
February 2014
ly played in 8 countries. Tom’s
goal, through the UWL, is to get
the recognition that woodsball
teams deserve. Those teams that
showed up for the tournament at
Bear Claw proved that they deserved that recognition.
“The 5-man game has
the same objectives
with a captain, scout,
and heavy gunner and
is 10 minutes with one
reinsertion at the half
way mark.”
In the UWL rules, Tom placed
the “Spirit of the Game” section
which best describes the heart of
the game. It states: “The UWL
relies upon a spirit of sportsmanship that places the responsibility
for fair play on the player. Highly competitive play is encouraged, but never at the expense
of mutual respect among players!
Wiping, overshooting or win-atall-costs behavior are contrary to
the spirit of the game and must
be avoided by teams and players alike. Participants who do not
follow this sportsmanship code
will not be allowed to play in the
UWL.”