Norwegian Championships 2011

 http://slagenbandits.net/site/

After winning the Norwegian series the team only had a few days to savior the victory before it was back to the grind. Even though the series was over, the biggest tournament of the year was still approaching: the Norwegian championship. For the first time the tournament was going to be held at our home field Slagen Paintball. Much of the infrastructure was already in place but we needed to build a brand new field to accommodate a record breaking number of teams.  Battling through heavy rainstorms in the days before the tournament we managed to erect the new field just in time so that when the 74 participating teams arrived on the site they were greeted with the sight of 2 pristine field, one on grass and the other on astroturf. The field layout was a well kept secret and designed by Tampa Bay Damage coach Paul Richards and it turned out to be a very well designed field with endless opportunities. Play began early on Saturday with some of the night chill still clinging to the ground. That`s Norway in September as some of our foreign guests Cassidy Sanders and Brandon Fort of HK Army fame discovered.

Hired Swedish refs meant that everybody had the chance to become Norwegian Champions in either the X-ball format, regular 5 man paintball or 3 man paintball. The event was set up so that it was possible to play several different formats during the weekend if you wanted to, this was especially popular with teams that traveled a long way to get to the event so they really got to play a lot of paintball before they packed their rain soaked paintballgear and headed home Sunday evening.

 Saturday had decent paintball weather, overcast but no rain.

Slagen Bandits went undefeated in the prelims. 3-2 against Ratpack, 3-0 against Pbgear and and a strong 3-0 victory against Oslo Paintball Members which really turned out to be veteran Menace players rounded out with one Joy Division player. There was some unexpected results in the prelims and one of the biggest favorites Drammen Solid were knocked out early.

In the quarters waited Oslo Paintball Kids and as it was two evenly matched teams who slugged it out, but in the end the Bandits was able to kill the clock and win 2-1. Semi-finals was a match against Stavanger Mayhem which we are getting to know pretty well by now as they have become a regular contender in the finals this season. Another very thight match, but this time Mayhem came out on top and won 3-2. Disappointed we headed into the bronze final against our old friends and rivals Drammen Sabotage. Its never fun to play the losers finals, but this time it was not a problem to get fired up for this match and in the end we secured our place on the podium with a 3-1 victory.

Norwegian Champions turned out to be the Menace guys once again after a crazy last point against Mayhem which ended in a tense one-on-one with former Joy player Carl "Scandal" Samuelson snapping out the last opposing player.




Christian from Menace contacted Planet about there win and had this to say " Just wanted to tell you that after a 3 year break, we gathered the Menace team again. This time to see how old we are and to compete in the Norwegian championship. After 1 practice we won the title in the top division X-ball. Again we used the best equipment in the busines, Planet Eclipse! Again it felt good representing the best in the business, this time free of charge, ha ha.  Christian ....Oslo Menace

 A heavy rainstorm hit the filed during the night causing the small stream next to the field to turn into a raging river and this is what awaited us Sunday morning.

But the turf field was playable after some heroic work by the refs and staff and play was resumed with only a small delay and the event finished well before dark. Considering the challenging weather conditions the event was a success and the biggest in Norwegian paintball history!

Big thanks to everybody who makes this possible:

Planet Eclipse for our great, great markers, clothing and padding. We love you guys and really appreciate the support you give us!

Dark Sports and Game-On for the great paint all season!
Globe Souldiers for the tremendous Spines, Columns and the Blackstar butts.
Goldhammer for the awsome shoes.
Hybird photo for making us look good all year long.
Tanked for the great jerseys.
Slagen Paintball our home field, the place were we lay the foundation for our sucsess.
KM straps for our own custom Slagen Bandits straps
Snøservice.no for believing in us and what we can achieve together

http://slagenbandits.net/site/