World Cup Asia 2009 - Singapore Paintball

World Cup Asia (WCA) 2009... Asia's premier paintball event is back again... My first trip to the WCA was in 2006 when I went to KL with a friend to witness the event. The word here is "to witness"... WCA 2006 was also the first time that I was fully exposed to competitive paintball or commonly known as speedball. With zero knowledge of what competitive paintball is all about, everything I saw was new... I didnt know who Oliver Lang was and I didnt know what a dorito was and I didnt know who were playing in the event and that was 3 years ago...

In 2007, my team participated in the event and became the first Singapore paintball team to fly the Singapore flag in WCA. Well... I will be the first to admit that not all of our players were Singaporeans but still, we were playing under the banner of "Singapore" as almost all of the Malaysians playing in the team have worked in Singapore at some time of their life... except for Shaf. But we didnt really care... We couldnt care less if we were not performing in the regular league, we couldnt care less what was coming and we couldnt be bothered with who we had to play. We just want to be part of the event. Of course, reality hit us bad when we did badly in WCA 2007. We ate the humble pie...

In 2008, there were 2 "Singaporean" teams...my team, Red Sevens and a newly formed team, Team Damnation. After a few months of paintballing and a newly found sponsor with Kee Action, Team Damnation became the second "Singapore" team to play in WCA. I mentioned "Singapore" with inverted commas because they too was not a complete Singaporean team. Both our teams did fairly well... but still there were only 2 teams from Singapore. Another local team, PSG Warfreakz participated in the event too but still not a truely Singapore team.

With the November WCA09 approaching, we would have played WCA three times and yes, still in the 3rd Division. I am hearing news that there will be more Singapore teams this year. Maybe 5 teams from 2 Divisions (3rd and 4th Divisions) will be a good number to justify the development of speedball in Singapore. While Singapore speedball teams are growing slowly in numbers, scenario paintball (woodsball) are picking up the trend.

Can we grow from a mere number 5 to a contingent of Singaporean paintballers? I think the answer is YES! A national team for paintball perhaps...? Anyone?

Nominated POSB Everyday Champion 2009 - Paintball

Well done! Paintball received another recognition from the media again.

A couple of months ago, Calgar who is the current SPNS Head Referee and Secretary of the PBAS was nominated for the POSB Everyday Champion 2009 award... Although, he didnt win anything eventually, it is still pleasing to see that the media did made an effort to find out a little more about this unsung hero and about the things that he has done to develop paintball in Singapore.

Calgar, Small Ben, Ombudsman, SB are some of his given names in the paintball community. Paintballers know him as the conductor of the Basic Tournament Orientation (BTO), someone who does not hold back his feelings and is harsh with his words but he can be proud to say that he has come a long way in certifying more than 250 tournament paintballers in Singapore!

Those who have played paintball with him often regard him as a "no-nonsense" player and one who is sometimes "out of control". Many will think that this could be the after-effect of drinking too much ammo energy shots?

While he may sometimes seem a little agitated on the field, this guy is one hell of a good and nice fellow off the field, one who is passionate about the game and willing to share his knowledge with everyone. Yes, we need more of this caliber in Singapore, people who can contribute and spend their time doing something right for paintball. From the little things that you do, like talking paintball to people to big efforts such as organizing paintball games for your friends, you are in some ways helping paintball to grow and creating that little awareness for the sport. I salute you, the unsung heros!

So have you done your part for paintball today?

Thanks Newpaper for the coverage...