The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
On the July 21, five local paintballers left Flin Flon to compete in a three-man speedball rookie tournament in Dauphin. Being short one person for the second team due to a change in holidays, the guys had to rotate the brother team in, and convince other teams to play for them when they had to confront each other. They arrived Friday night, set up camp and tried to fall asleep over all the excitement in the air. Some members awoke at 6 a.m. to start studying the course and walk through the enormous inflated air balloons Ñ planning strategies and maneuvers. The others, getting up somewhere closer to the 8 a.m. mark, were still up two hours prior to check in. Games started at about 10:30 a.m. after all five of the teams had shown up. Teams from Dauphin and Brandon also attended the tournament. Each round had a maximum of 100 points, seven points for each elimination, three for every man your team had alive, 20 for the first to grab the flag from the center, and 50 points for the team to hang the flag on the other end of the course. After the first set up of prelims, Flin Flon Fury came out on top of everyone with a score of 397 followed by Shellshock with 218, a team that regularly attends the course. Coming in third with 145 was Ambush who came out from Brandon to attend the tourney. Next came the other team from Flin Flon, B3, with the score of 128. Last place was the local Bushball team called Camo, who attended the tourney to try speedball for likely the first time, with a score of 28. The second set of prelims was a little more intense, with everyone thinking about making it to the finals. B3 pulled off a huge come-back, pulling themselves up to second place with a score of 502. The only team ranking higher was their brother team, Flin Flon Fury. Coming in third was Shellshock with 479. Ambush came in fourth with 416 followed by Camo with 28 points. Entering the finals was Flin Flon Fury, B3 and Shellshock. After a vicious round robin and totaling all the new score, B3 came out on top with 115, followed byÊ Flin Flon Fury with 111, and Shellshock with 48. Playing for B3 were Robin Mandes, Sheldon Rachuk and Danny Springer. On Flin Flon Fury were Richard LeSage and Tanner Boutieller. The following players substituted for Furry: Danny Springer, Gilles Brouzes from Camo, Braiden Haigh and Matt Janzen from Ambush. First place took $500 and golden paintball key chains. Second place took free admission to the next tournament and silver paintball key chains. Both teams decided to split the prize money and pay off everyone's trip. After the six hour trip back, the teams dropped in at the Sunday Bushball game to spread the good news, and then headed home and to bed after an exhausting weekend.
