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The inaugural event of the Carolina Cup tournament series was held April 6, 2014 just outside
Charlotte, at Glory Road Paintball in Monroe,
North Carolina. While a five-man competition on
an airball field like many others, what made this
event and the league itself different is its unique
take on competitive paintball with a goal of
“getting the band back together” and allowing
high and lower-level divisional players to compete together inside the net at the same time.
Rather than promoting numerous divisions of
tournament paintball at the same event and
preventing players in different divisions from
mixing it up, Motes and company are trying
out a new concept centering around a roster
points cap. Players from the professional level
on down through the many divisions of tournament paintball are welcome on the same roster
and inside the net at the same time, so long
as the team’s combined player ranking points
total doesn’t exceed a league-set cap. In simpler language, what this means is that players
who compete at the highest level are no longer
locked out of local and regional competition at
their local fields with their friends and forced to
get on a plane to compete against other professional or upper-echelon players at major
events. This unique concept, combined with a
mix of five-man scoring and Race-To matches,
enables players from “the old days” to get back
on the field and play modern paintball with an
old-school twist, and this is precisely how the
Carolina Cup’s first event played out. Newer divisional players battled with and against former
and current professional players and some competitors who had played tournament paintball
longer than many at the event had been alive.
Seventeen five-man teams entered the Carolina
Cup’s first event. While this was by no means
a massive number, it was more than enough to
satisfy Motes and Ultimate Judge Steve Burkett
who expressed excitement at the number considering it was their league’s very first event,
and the first event promoted with their new
format. Referees from the event were the most
experienced in the Carolinas, with both current
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