I’m sure that everyone will agree that tournament paintball is all about competing, training to become a better team and aiming to be the best. Competing is what makes speedball fun and gives your team something to train for and look forward to.

The TOP 3 Series is an initiative that aims to create an inexpensive, well organized platform for teams to be able to compete regularly and and build a social scene around UAE paintball that makes it easy to invite new players and where new players feel comfortable to play speedball for the first time against players on a similar skill level.

The first event is on the 24 Feb so get your team entered and invite your friends who have never played before!
The UAE has been lacking an organised tournament series for quite some time now, so get your teams together, tell your friends and get pumped to play in this exciting 3 man series!

The Millennium Series has released their 2012 promotion trailer, highlighting exciting action from the 2011 season.
The Millennium Series will hold their first event of the year in St. Tropez, Cannes.

• New Fields

Two new fields are said to be opening in the U.A.E one an indoor field and the other an outdoor, the outdoor field being geared more strictly to the competitive side of paintball. Another field is rumoured to be opening in Kuwait.

• New Leagues

Both a 3man and 5man league are rumoured to be starting up for the 2012 season in the UAE, we assume both are mainly geared towards local and regional teams.

• DATIS to play PSP
  

We have had a few knowledge drops from our corespondents in Iran telling us that DATIS from Tehran are planning to make a debut in the American PSP League, what division they are planning to compete in and if they will complete a full season is unknown yet. DATIS have won the World Cup Asia title and PALS series champions for the past two years, could their  excellent performance in this league be what has pushed them to make the move to play in the American leagues?

• Palm Series to make a comeback

Shortly after World Cup Asia 2011 was held, hints and rumours started popping up that PALM Series (Paintball League Middle East Series) was going to make a comeback in the near future!
For those who are unfamiliar with PALM series, they held their first event in 2009 on the duty free island of Iran, Kish. The event attracted teams from all over the globe with such big names as the Los Angeles Ironmen and Toulouse Ton Tons travelling to compete at the event. Although the event ran smoothly (besides some complaints of biased refereeing), the location and travel options were the real problem. Almost everyone who traveled to the event from outside of Iran was forced to catch a connecting flight from Dubai, walking into the low cost terminal can only be described as a deer walking into a pack of lions and tigers, all eyes were locked on you like you had a t-shirt saying ‘stare at me and make me feel uncomfortable’, those who were there will remember this all to well. The low cost airline had no baggage compartment, all bags got loaded up at the back of the plane and half way up the isle and the cabin crew found everyone’s concerns about how safe the plane really was to be hilarious.
After this event PALM series held another event in turkey in conjunction with the Millennium Series and later planned to hold an event in Abu Dhabi but that fell through.

With the Iran National Paintball league being the most established league at this point in time, it would be great to see PALM series make a come back and allow for teams from the rest of the region and around the world to battle it out for the title of the Middle East’s best.

• Oil Tycoon to get in on the action

There’s not much to say about this as it’s pretty self explanatory, as of recent an established oil tycoon has shown great interest in funding a Middle Eastern team to grow and reach the highest level of competitive paintball.
what would you do if you were given the chance to play for a fully funded team?

Let us know what you think about this in the comments below or sign up to the forum and share the thoughts in your dome there!

www.utblive.com

• Konstantin Fedorov
• Chad “Yaya” Bouchez
• Ronnie Dizon
• Mishka Kniazev
• Sam Monville
• Nick Slowiak
• Ryan Smith
• Sergei Solnishkov
• Jon “LJ” Woodley

On the 15th and 16th of December the INPL (Iran National Paintball League) held the second leg of the series in Babolsar, a City close to the Caspian sea in Northern Iran.
The event will also saw the first Ladies paintball tournament held the day before. It was the first paintball tournament for exclusively for females in the Middle East.

Below are the results and league standings, Photos of the event will be up soon.

Division1:
1- Datis
2- Hype
3- Persian Legend 2
4- Joobin
5- Swat
6- Datam
7- Persian Legend
8- Tigers

Division 2:
1- Diako
2- Soheil
3- Tornado
4- Titan
5- Proshot

1st Leg of Women Paintball League:
1- Datis
2- Javidan
3- Roham

Group standings of Division 1 for the 3rd leg of Iran National Paintball League (Men Competition):

A:
- Datis
- Joobin
- Persian Legend 2
- Tigers

B:
- Hype
- Datam
- Swat
- Persian Legend

This past weekend saw the Paintball World Cup Asia 2011 event held in Langkawi, Malaysia.Arguably the best World Cup Asia to date, 1810 players from 152 traveled from 32 countries all over the world to compete in the 3 day event that was also host to the intercontinental cup. This year saw the move to an indoor field in Langkawi, eliminating the notorious mud that was iconic to every world cup asia in the past.

It was also a good year for Middle Eastern Teams, Datis from Iran had a successful 4-1 victory over Reaper from South Africa in the final match, giving them the titled for the second year running.
UAE Massacre lost part of their lineup half way through the event but managed to pull it together and took 4th place in Division 2, whilst Daiko from Iran secured the first place win in Division 3.

Below are the final scores

Intercontinental Cup
Ton Ton’s
Team USA (Ironmen)

Pro / Am Paintball Division
Datis (Iran)
Reaper (South Africa)
STK (Australia)
Infernal (Thailand)

Division 2
Alien 11 (Thailand)
Hellbourne (Thailand)
Mamba (South Africa)
Massacre (UAE)

Division 3
Diako (Iran)
Rogue Assassins (Australia)
Golden Dragons (The Philippines)
Tension (Australia)

Division 4
Armada Shooter (Malaysia)
Vindicated (Malaysia
CMX Badai (Malaysia)
Jogja United (Indonesia)

Angel Paintball has been a well established company within the Paintball industry for many years now and were the ones who put Electronic Paintball Markers in the spotlight, but sadly today news has come out that they have closed their doors. Angel was the makers of the Angel Paintball Markers, Fat boy pods, Angel Air System and the well anticipated Angel Eye Goggle System.

Below is the Message sent out by Jay from Angel Paintball Sports today.

A Sad Day

I learned that Angel Sports is ceasing operations.  I don’t know all the details, not sure it really matters.  I have been assured by the UK office that parts will be available to service your markers.  The details of this arrangement should become clear in the near future, and should be announced by the UK office.  For the near future, both myself and Bob at Fix My Angel (www.fixmyangel.com) have parts in stock in the US for your markers.

Many of you have become friends, and I feel an obligation to you.  I’ll do what I can to help you and your team going forward.  I have some items in stock personally, and will be willing to honor your team discounts (or give you an even better deal) where I can on those items.  Anyone looking for accessories, or especially clothing, please contact me asap and we’ll see what we can work out.  I will be offering these items to my dealers as well, and once it is gone, I am not sure I can get more.  I also have some casual clothing and banners, and I would like to see those items end up with teams if possible.  Call or email me for details.

Many of you may know, I have an interest in a retail paintball store, PB Sports.  I am going to pass this email along to the guys there, and ask them that they look after you when possible.  If you have a good relationship with your local store or field, continue to shop there and nurture that relationship.  If you would like to start a relationship with PB Sports, you can reach them at www.pbsports.com, 260-471-4334, or sales@pbsports.com.  I can assure you that they will give you good service, and should be able to help you on pricing and/or work out a sponsorship deal with you and your team.  I know some of you have already done business with PB Sports, and hope that continues.

Because I feel an obligation to the teams and dealers I have worked with, I will continue to monitor and use thejay@angelsports.com email.   I have been assured that it will work for some time.  If that turns out not to be the case, I have set up a personal email account, pballjay@gmail.com that I will begin to monitor if the angelsports.com email fails or ceases to exist.  I will continue to maintain and monitor my mobile number, 260-438-9760 so that any of you that wish to reach me will be able to do so.

Jay

Below are the results of the event, thanks to propaintball.com

Professional Paintball
1st Tampa Bay Damage
2nd Russia Boston Red Legion

3rd Dynasty
4th Vicious

Division 1
1st Upton 187 cRew

2nd T1 Topgun Union

3rd VCK
4th New Jersey Jesters

Division 2 RaceTo-5
1st Distortion
2nd Boom
3rd Grad Moscow
4th Static

Division 3 RaceTo-4
1st Revo
2nd PR1ME
3rd Atlanta Breakout
4th Royalty

Division 4 RaceTo-4
1st Revo II
2nd Central Florida Paintball
3rd Imperial
4th PG Rise

Division 2/3 RaceTo-2
1st PR Crew
2nd CCS Fusion
3rd New Jersey Jesters Silver
4th Infusion

Division 3 RaceTo-2
1st Lastcall
2nd Plan B
3rd Gainesville Gridiron
4th Seek and Destroy

Division 4 RaceTo-2
1st TKO Blackout
2nd 406s Finest
3rd POSTAL
4th DBS Supersonics

Division 5 RaceTo-2
1st Sick n Twisted
2nd CPz!
3rd Average Joes Blues
4th Edge Army II

Masters
1st Fluffy Bunnies
2nd Capital Edge Hitters