Avalanche breaks up!!! Dave Bains and Glenn Takamoto to play with XSV. Brandon Mayo is supposedly heading back to the Philly Americans at a hefty pay rate. Stay tuned for further updates.
Smart Parts drops ultimate, the kids switch to Ecockers.
Dynasty backs out of the Miami NXL franchise spot and Doc’s Raiders slides in. Now powered by several X-Detroit Strange players and a plethora of ringers from numerous other pro teams, Doc’s roster is quickly filling out. I imagine this means quite the boost in sponsorship for Doc as well considering he is a full fledged SP team now. Look for big things from these guys in 06.
Miami Raiders 2006 roster:
Captain: William “BJ” Jolley
Coach: Paul Richards
Billy Banachia
Chris Bell
Paul “LP” Everett
Brian Giliotti
Dan Holliday
Thomas Mantoni
Ross O’Rourke
“Dirty” Dave Pastore
Matt Richards
Bryan Smith
Kyle Stall
With that said, what will come of Dynasty? They will either buy their own franchise or occupy one of the 5 invite slots?
Look for a final press release from the leagues during these next few weeks describing the new happenings and schedule for the up coming season.
Russian Legion buys out Chicago Evil’s super 7 franchise spot in the NPPL Pro bracket.
Do to a slump in industry sales; PMI has been making an unusual amount of employee layoffs.
Miami Dynasty, that’s right look for Miami Dynasty in the NXL during 2006.
Well it sounds like the NPPL/PSP reunification is a flop. Imagine that.
Look for a press release concerning the NXL league expansion soon. Word is you won’t even need a franchise to play, so it won’t be a locked league.
Word on the skreet is paintballs biggest outside company Crossman is looking to pull out of conventional completely. If I had to guess, I would say they will continue the Game Face project only to sell paintballs and low end guns at Wal-Mart. What will come of the Detroit NXL franchise?
Well as far as the Detroit franchise goes… I would bet Richmond Italia (owner of Procaps and father of the Xball game type) takes over and makes Team Strange the next Procaps marketing pilot.
I have heard a buzz about Zap paintballs closing their doors due to money problems as soon as two months from now.
I don’t know if anyone noticed but that new Empire paint looks a lot like Evil without an “E” printed on it. I would be willing to bet PMI is producing the entire Empire paint line.
On the other hand, most people know that National no longer carries Draxxus paint and the PMI merger is rumored to have flopped. With that said, I believe National has turned to Blue Arch (a local Tampa company) to help produce the Diablo paint line. I imagine that National may buy out Blue Arch some time in the near future for convenience alone.
Sounds like Chicago Aftershock may be losing one of their best players… Stay tuned.
Finally some solid insight on what will be happening to the NXL in 2006. Word is, the league will remain locked but they will be expanding from 10 to 16 teams. You can expect Dynasty, Avalanche, Naughty Dogs, XSV, Infamous, Bob’s team, and whoever the new Pro-caps team will be to be first to get spots. Jockeying for any open positions will be; Doc’s Raiders, Joy Division, Rage, and Ultimate. NXL is rumored to be adding a finals round to each event and 30g’s cash to the winner. If that doesn’t make it more interesting I don’t know what will. Teams will play a lot more matches; I’m assuming they are going to adopt the double elimination style bracketing system to declare the winner.
Now here is some news that might piss off a few of the divisional Xball teams in the PSP. The NXL is supposed to be the ONLY place to play true unabbreviated XBall in 2006. PSP divisional teams will be competing in a new style of xball called “Xball light”. This game type will be a 15 minute race to 7 points. This will be much shorter and faster to accommodate teams with smaller budgets and rosters.
There are a lot of new rumors coming out of the Avalanche camp, some say they are loosing or dropping WDP and will be picking up Eclipse and shooting egos during the upcoming season. Others say half of their team will be leaving, but there is a lot of talent in California and the legend of Avalanche will live on. This may be just what Ed needs to take his team to the finals. If they loose Glen and Dave however, uhhh oh.
Another huge splash in the WDP pond concerns the WDP poster team Arsenal. Supposedly WDP will not be renewing their sponsorship during the upcoming season and this will cause many of the personally sponsored players to look else where for teams to play on. They are also supposed to be making some big cuts too.
The answer is RAGE… They will be one of the only teams left in 2006 to be carrying angels on to the field. Look here for some Arsenal stars next year.
PBDojo’s latest little birdie speculates that Daryl Trent will not be coaching at all next year. The big wigs at Smart Parts are making calls to all kinds of people to coach Philly next season. Tom Zawadski (old school pro from a team called the Nobodies and ex-captain of newer team Viewloader All-stars) is now on the list of potential coaches for next year.
As reported by anonymous source, Brandon Short from Legacy has resigned and is going to be playing with Dynasty Dynamics for 7man and Dynasty for Xball.
I have heard a few people talking about a few of the San Diego Legacy players drinking and driving. Apparently there was an accident in a rental car preceded by a fight between Mark Krenngle and Anson Hong. From what I hear Anson ended up with a fractured cheek bone resulting in the complete loss of one of his eyes and a short comma. Mark is now rumored to be in jail and will not be released until after trial. If any or all of this is true my prayers are with the players and I hope at the very least this teaches the paintball community a lesson about the dangers of drinking and driving.
Philly is offering up big bucks to 2004 team member Brandon Mayo, who quit the Philadelphia Americans after the 2004 season to play with Avalanche in 2005. They dealt up 7 guns to get him back for world cup and offered much more then that for him to play with the team again in 2006.
Nicky Vegas quitting XSV? Supposedly Nicky is pretty frustrated with the lack of play time he is getting on XSV and is now exploring other options.
Alex Lunquist, Bart, and Matt Blonski to quit New York Xtreme and Play for Chicago Aftershock. These guys have been seen playing with a number of teams recently, including New York Xtreme, Joy Division, and Aftershock. Word on the street is that they will be making a new full time home with Chicago Aftershock for the 2006 season.
posted 11/14/2005
Dr. Draper from Doc’s Raiders to buy out the New England Hurricanes… With the rumors of vast sponsorship cut backs in 2006, New England is franticly searching for new ways to fund their NPPL Pro team during the up coming season. Doc has offered to pick up some of the expenses if the team agrees to push the Raider name.
Some speculate that the NPPL and PSP will be merging during the upcoming 2006 season and the leagues have decided to adopt the XBall format.
Like every year, Smart Parts is making major moves with their teams in order to stay on top. My sources indicate that during the off season team Miami Effect will be completely cleaning house. They are fishing in a few different talent pools in order to create a winning team for 2006. There are offers on the table for a number of Dynasty, Strange, and Avalanche team members. Also, there will be some management changes in the pit area for the two Smart Parts owned NXL teams. Ex Detroit Strange coach Toney Mineo will be coaching for Philly and former Philly coach Daryl Trent is planning to take over the struggling Miami franchise once he signs a powerhouse of new players. posted 11/13/2005
I have also heard some rumors of Strange player Dan Holliday signing up to play under Russia’s flag next season for a substantial amount of cash. $75,000 for three years? They must really want to win next year…
The rumor is, ALL… That’s right ALL, of Legacy’s players are quitting the team after world cup and combining with HK division 1 team due to their pure hatred for authority, Gary Shows, and the NXL. Some of them may try to jump back on their former team, LA Ironmen.
From what I gather there is trouble in Florida, Doc’s Raiders is supposedly making some big pick ups from the long time FL power house Team Strange. Paul “LP” Everett and Brian Smith have both left the team and there are rumors of their other pals joining up with them on the dark side after world cup. Some say it’s for political reasons, others say money, or maybe is all of the political nonsense… I guess will have to wait until after world cup to find out.
posted 10/16/2005
Insight on the NXL (Life or Death)
At this point who really cares, honestly? The league hasn’t done much in its 3 years of existence. After how bad last years cup coverage was on ESPN2 half of us probably wouldn’t watch it again anyway. Teams are all changing their rosters, some teams players are quitting; other teams are leaving the league all together. Word is, the there is supposed to be an NXL next year but I would like to see them pull it off if all the teams leave. Maybe the refs can play each other.
Other rumors speculate that the NPPL is trying to buy rights to the NXL, this is slightly more interesting. If the NPPL were running the show, it would probably get done right.