Another weekend of below freezing temps. The indoor field was being used by the soccer league we rented it to. Of course we wanted to play some paintball, so we headed outside to play. Three of the six guns we had froze up within a few minutes, but three still fired. We played for about 15 minutes all wrapped up in snow gear from head to toe. The paintballs didn’t hurt in all that gear and the paint just kind of flaked off. Then I started noticing the paintballs were not breaking at all. They had become frozen solid rocks. Luckily, we noticed it before one of us took a shot in the paintball masks lens. After returning to the warmth of the shop, we noticed several punctures in Marks big down coat. Frozen paintballs had actually torn through his coat. He didn’t report receiving any painful hits.

Well, as this week is winding down, we are looking forward to the 3 man cash dash at our indoor field. A whopping 17 teams are expected, and it will be sure to be a great time. No frozen paintballs at this event! It will be a comfortable 65 deg on the field. Now if I can just get Mother Nature to bring Spring in a little early this year so we can move paintball back to the outdoors!

We are trying to stock the pro shop up with the new 2009 equipment. We always get requests to stock high end paintball loaders and guns and some specific smaller products. Every year we get in the high end stuff but people come by and look at it, ask if they can “test” it, but never buy it. Then, at the end of the year, we end up discounting the heck out of it to move the stuff. This year, we are going to order mid-price(and below) paintball guns, and higher end clothing and accessories. We may get one or two big guns in, just for apperance(and we want to “test” it =))

As the year goes on, we will adjust to what people want to buy, and maybe a few things that people want to see. Some of the “totally new for this year” type of stuff, we will get. There are a few guns and a number of paintball loaders that are must haves. It’s always good to have the common stuff on hand in case of break downs during tournaments. Remember though, we are saving up for that nitrogen separator this year =) We need to reduce inventory or at least make it more efficient. I think people will really appreciate the availability of nitrogen fills.

Well, our paintball team has been skipping practices again. The Paintball Kings could be now called The Foosball Kings, lol. We spend too much time playing foos. Even though we have a great indoor field to play in 24/7, it easier to hang out at home, drink a few beers and slap the foosball around. I think we just need a break from it all for a bit. We all still snap shoot a few times a week. We ran some break drills this past weekend for two hours. Our paintball guns are all tuned-up and ready to shoot. Mark has even been adding onto his Tippmann X7, now that his grenade launcher is on(yes, I’m rolling my eyes).

The 5-man beginner tournament this weekend has 8 teams preregistered. I know most of the teams around here don’t qualify for it, and some are upset that they can’t play. These type of tournaments bring in new teams that are normally intimidated to play. They are very important for us to host and we would deeply appreciate it if the more experienced teams would show up to support them. Any coaching help, equipment advise or other constructive help could really ’spur’ these new paintball players along.

Working at the field here, we get TONS of requests from individuals and half organized teams for sponsorship requests. We love that people are interested in playing more and being dedicated to our field. However, people are asking for new paintball guns and everything that goes with it. Jungle Falls offers a paintball sponsorship program that an organized active team can apply for. When people read it and find out they aren’t getting a new DM9 with all the ups, they get discouraged and don’t pursue the sponsorship. This sponsorship agreement clearly lays out a long term relationship with Jungle Falls and is better than most sponsorships out there in addition to being available to entry level teams in both tournament and scenario play.

There are several sponsorship help articles and pages around the internet. I wish people would spend some time researching these before they come in with high expectations. A great example of an article is: Getting Paintball Sponsorships for your Team by Wolfpack Paintball Team. They have several articles about getting sponsored including links to active sponsorship applications and resumes. We know and play with this team. They don’t have a lot of sponsors, but they do have some very long term relationships with the sponsors they do have. Their philosophy is, few is better.

We always hope to be able to help out teams. There are a number of team sponsored by Jungle Falls, some that have been there for 5+ years. They participate and help out around the field regularly. These are the type of teams that we are looking to build relationships with. Please don’t let this post be discouraging, just a little bit of an education. The sponsorship  programs has the following benefits that increase over years:

• Pro Shop Discounts
• Field Paint Purchase Discounts
• Field Fee Discounts
• Help Building a Team Resume
• Uniform Discounts(Free Uniforms after 3 years)
• Exposure and Personal time with Major Vendors

Please take the time to start a team resume and have a good attitude toward the field. There are a lot of rules that go along with the sponsorship. It’s reasonable though and we want both parties to benefit.

In other news, this weekends odd man out ~ 4 man cash dash tournament went off with a bag. 17 teams played their hearts out. We are trying to come up with some way to host a reball tournament. There is currently no way to do this yet without about 50 billion refs and video cameras on every player, lol. Someday we will figure it out =)

2009 equipment is starting to fill up the proshop. We appreciate everyone taking advantage of the 2008 price blow outs. We were able to clear most of the ‘08 merchandise out in time to restock with new model year guns and gear. Happy New Year!!

Wow, what a crazy holiday season for all the Paintball Kings members. I was gone for three weeks to Mexico sucking up the sun and cheap living. Mark worked almost 90 hours a week sucking up some serious amounts of cash. Jeff was helping an I’ll family member(who is doing good now). To say the least, we have not been playing much paintball lately or helping out at the Jungle Falls Paintball Park.

We plan on restarting team action after January. Things are just too darn crazy this year. Seems every year older we get, the more difficult it is to remain focused on this great sport. Soon, wives, kids, jobs and unknown responsibilities will work harder than ever to pry paintball out of our lives. With last years collapse/bankruptcy of the NPPL, it’s just one more thing to break down our established activities.

The fields at Jungle Falls are covered in ice and snow, but the indoor field is in great condition for playing. We try to keep it about 60-65deg and 80% humidity. It’s a great playing condition and keeps you running and dodging those 300fps paintballs. Also, the new air compressor we installed last summer(that got full of sand in the floods) has been working great and we are glad it survived the rebuild from the flood. We are planning on getting a nitrogen separator sometime in spring to early summer. It’s a big investment, but with some of the very large tournaments we are planning on holding this year(2009), we think it will be a great addition to the field.

2009, what’s in store for the Paintball King Team? We have loads of tournaments and some larger scenarios planned for this paintball season. We will be reffing events at Jungle Falls all season(as usual). Jeff and Mark are setting up some snap shooting areas in the back of the house. Most of their backyard is now covered with paintball netting, lol. If we can stay off of the foosball table, we hope to do a twice daily snap shooting drill. The rest of the year is open to last minute game invites and maybe a few fill in games here and there. We will probably post our schedule as it becomes more full and we can see for sure that these dates are going to happen.

Good luck to all in 2009, Happy New Year!

Almost another paintball season done for the year. It’s been a crazy year with the flooding we got in June/July. The compressor going down with the sand. And all the crazy teams events that were overbooked. Paintball has been good to us this year. I can only hope next year will prove to be as hot for local paintball teams and area tournaments.

This weekend we had 23 teams come out for the free team practice and cook out. It was a BYOP event and air + field fee was free. It was a great time and I am worn out to say the least.

November starts the series of sponsored paintball events in the indoor field. It should be a busy winter for Jungle Falls paintball field again. The field is set up and everyone agrees it should be a great indoor season.

Wow! A lot of sweaty evenings finalizing the indoor paintball field. The Jungle Falls indoor arena is ready and willing to take on some crazed paintball slinging teams and players. After a month of hanging paintball netting and our custom turf, cleaning and setting up the Ultimate Airball bunkers, and giving the 8,000 dollar compressor/cascade system, we are ready to rock.

The first tournament will be held in the 25,000 square foot arena on November 1st. We are having a 5 man cash dash. It will be only $50 bucks per team for entry(includes compressed air fills). We will be charging $60 per case of PMI premium or Draxxus Blaze. Yes, due to popular demand, we are going to try Draxxus paintballs for the Winter to see how things go. They will be orange shell with a very thick yellow fill. This is the paintball color combo recommended by most paintball gun manufacturers to help eye systems detect the ball in the breach.

This Winter we have picked up some paintball tournament sponsorships to add a little cash to the prizes. All of these cash bonuses will be offered for one tournament each month. They will require a minimum turn out for each tournament. It should be at least an extra $1,000 for each of these events added, spread out to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.

In other news, the outdoor fields are still going strong. They should be staying open through the first part of December for walk on outdoor play and all around paintball abuse. Last year we had a big Halloween paintball party with a scary costume theme and a huge grill out Halloween night. We had almost 150 walk ons and wiped out the local grocery stores ground beef abd brat supply. We partied all night and left when the sun came up.

The Pro Shop still has some paintball guns to move cheap. Egos and Dye Matrix are looking for new owners to take them home and give them love. There are a few Halos going cheap too. Stop in and see.

We spent the whole week working on the indoor paintball field. The new turf we got last spring is down. The new nets are up on the ceiling and most of the walls are covered. The staging area still needs a lot of work and the concessions area isn’t quite done yet. We’ve built two new fill stations and a test & tune area. The six web cams spread around the field will help the spectators both online and at the field watch the events safely. It should be a great year.

We need to clean off the ultimate air bunkers before we bring them in and set up a field layout. As soon as we get some dates confirmed without potential area conflicts, we will post the winter tournament schedule. It should be a full winter with affordable tournaments and team practices. We are still planning on having a once a month BYOP open play day. They will be a $25.00 half day open play. Keep in mind Jungle Falls does not allow red or pink paintballs. Also, some white paintballs have proven to not wash out. So we will be watching how that goes this year and maybe banning white paintballs as well(per other players request).

As most of you know, the indoor field is attached to the back of the showroom and the outside field staging shelter. The paintball compressor connects to the inside field as well. We will still be filling to 4500psi and have plenty of CO2 on hand. The showroom will be open 5 days a week again this winter, but the hours will be reduced to 2pm to 8pm wed-thur, 2 to11pm fri, 8am to 11pm sat, and 8am to 5pm sun. Obviously it will be closed mon and tues.

As winter approaches, Jungle Falls is clearing out their inventory of paintball guns. The 2009 models are coming and there are some new models they want to carry. Last weekend they sold several Tippmann A5’s and one 98 Custom. Most of the Cheap paintball guns that are selling are the medium to lower end items. There are two DYE DM7’s and one DM6 waiting for new owners. The Rangers team walked in and said;

“Cheap paintball guns? Sign us up and let’s make a deal!”

Those guys are always in here trying to barter down and trade in some of their stuff. It’s a riot. We also have a HUGE collections of used cheap paintball guns to sell or trade.

As the 2009 models come, they will be getting in new markers and probably lower the prices of the used and left-over stuff even more. There is a good chance that the guns will move before long.

In current news, the 5-man cash dash went well two weekends ago. We(Kings) were responsible for reffing again. Last weekends team scrimmage was a fun time too. Several teams stayed late and we grilled out and kind of partied after the practice.

We have been working to ready the indoor field for some serious paintball play, practices and tournaments. Snow will be flying before long! Get ready to get cold and play on artificial turf!

Remember those cheap paintball guns won’t last long. Get into Jungle Falls showroom and make your best deals now. There are some clothing – jersey, pants and t-shirts too. I believe he maybe selling some compressed air tanks and a few loaders cheap too.

You can always buy cheap paintball guns from our friends over at Wolfpack too. They have some kind of 30 day money back guarantee.

Lets hope this coming weekend will bring a large turn out of players and some serious paintball sales so we can get the indoor field up and spanking away! Woot! I’m excited to play inside tournaments.

Well, the Fall paintball season has deffinitely started. Last weekends 5-man smash event went off great and we are scheduling group paintbal outings like crazy. It seems that paintball goes from feast to famine and back to feast. The tail end of March things pick up and go into full swing in May and June. The they come to a complete screaching halt July 4th weekend and it’s a ghost town of randomly scatered paintball shells and well assaulted bunkers until the start of September. Now it’s once again nuts! Everyone wants to play. People just show up here like an old Diner with social atributes of a VFW on steroids.

This weekend we are overrun with scheduled group outings and I’m sure we are going to have more walk ons than a Ghetto strip club giving away cash on amateur night. Not that I’m complaining, it’s great money for the field. I just wish it would be a more even type of traffic. It would make it more manageable and we could provide our players with more opportunities and options for play. We are still planning on having the 3-dude trophy dash Sunday morning. We already have 15 teams signed up and over half have pre-paid and several have ordered paintballs for the event.

BYOP – OMG, what can I say about BYOP. Everyone wants to bring their own paintballs. I see these kids shooting white box paintballs and throwing half of them away because they broke in their hoppers, pods or they were all smashed up when they opened the box. WE SELL PAINTBALLS CHEAP! I sell PMI premium for $60 a case, WPN Toxic for $45 a case. How can you find a better deal than that? Yet most people who come out here complain about buying paintballs from me. OK, I’d better stop, this is starting to turn into a bitch session =) We have BYOP days and events. Check the Jungle Falls Paintball Field schedule for those days.

Not much happening this last weekend for us at Jungle Falls. We spent half of Saturday out boating and water skiing. The rest of the day we did some snapshooting and break drills. There was only 5 of us so we kept the actual scrimmaging to a minimum. Sunday I cleaned my markers and washed down some of the paintball bunkers.

I spent a couple of hours Sunday cleaning off our Sup-Air and Ultimate-Air bunkers. I gave them a once over with the pressure washer and some Simple Green cleaner. It’s amazing how nasty some of those bunkers can get in such a short time. The dirt collects around the bottom two feet when you get paint on it. Probably from people sliding into the bunker and kicking up the dirt.

Tonight I patched 3 bunkers that had gotten torn. I know one for sure was hit by someone wearing metal cleats. We strongly enforce a NO METAL CLEATS policy. Yet some people dont give a rats butt. Seems some paintballers think the world revolves around them =)

The lower “junk” bunker fields needed some mowing and filling in of spots. Some of those low lying areas seem to never dry out. Some people enjoy getting extreemely drity. I for one am not one of those people so I filled in some of the holes with pea gravel and sand. Believe me, there are still plenty of places to get yourself filthy on those lower fields. The one side a person could of course choose to slide right into the river.

September 7th’s 5-man event seems a long ways away. I know that time will go fast and I should be enjoying some time off but, I’m used to being more busy all the time. Before you know it, I’ll be cleaning out the indoor field in preperation for the long Winter!