Rebels in Spain....

Sun, beaches, paintball at the Coast of Spain, it sounds amazing right?
  

But wait- haven’t we tried that before? 

I know I’ve been around the Millennium series a lot longer than most of the players nowadays so I can understand the innocence; loving the idea of paintball at the coast of Spain. Me, I still remember holding on to a leg of a tent trying to make sure the Eclipse booth didn’t fly away, the heavy rain so hard it was not possible to play, the mandatory diving certificate for snake-players, the postponing of games to the next tournament cos of weather and last but not least- the 43 hour bus ride back to Scandinavia when the ash cloud was a fact. And no, all these things did not occur at the same tournament..

Yes I know the first Malaga was fantastic, unfortunately it was not like that every time.
So as u can understand the Barca event was an event with mixed feelings for me. I would love nothing more than it to be the best and sunniest event ever, but I had my doubts. It is winter in Spain.

We arrived Wednesday night and the weather had already started taking a turn for the worse. We had an insane wind that made our cottages shake, and the forecast did not look good for the rest of the weekend either.

During the weekend the weather stole our fieldwalking, cut down training or cancelled training, gave us over 2 hours delays and threw the net in the air more than once during games, but what can you do – you just have to focus on the games ahead, it’s the same for everyone. 

Thursday practice, Rebels practiced against RMG and it felt good using paint again, even though the training was cut down to 30 minutes. Not everyone was so lucky. At the field where the Norwegian national team were to practice, the net blew up and it couldn’t be fixed so their practice was cancelled. Since there is almost no chance of shooting paint before the first Millennium for the Scandinavian teams, Thursday practice is an important part of preparations.

The turf on the site was great, the same was (as always) the Eclipse techs, they didn’t have much to do, but just the fact that they were in the pits make the team feel safe and taken care of.

The Rebels guys were very excited before the tournament. Questions needed to be answered, had the reball practice this winter had paid off and how the new additions to the team would fit in. Only one way to find out :-)

Rebels started off against Phoenix St.Petersburg, and everything went according to plan. 4-0 win, and with a good feeling towards next game.

Next up was a hard opponent, Union Five Moscow, a great team with some really good Russian players. The game started well, 3-0 to Rebels, but then the Russians figured out Rebels gameplans and capitalized on that. When they finally started to figure out the Russian plays again it was a bit too late, the game ended with a 4-5 loss.

Last prelim was Assala Libreville , an old Millennium team filled with crazy guys who love paintball. In the last few years it looks like they prioritize practice before Jungle Juice and they bring a strong game. Assala and Rebels had exactly the same score so the winner would be 2^nd in their group. They laid down some crazy good lanes and the fight was a good one, but Rebels won 4-3 in the end and was ready for the Sunday-club! Never get tired of the taste of that :-)

Sunday club and the Bad Boys Oss team was the drawn opponent. These young guys really bring everything. The game went back and forth every point. The last point the reffs called a 2 for 1 point swing, and the scoreboard said 4-4. It looked like both teams were happy that they could play another point in overtime proving that they were the best team, but after a lot of strange calls and disagreeing between the reffs they altered the scoreboard putting the score to 5-3 to Bad Boys.. It felt like a really tough and wrong call, but what can you do, all Sunday-club games are hard and they need to make it a bit less exiting next time.

If mother nature was on our side and a few small tweaks to the layout this could be an amazing venue for players and families with a few extra days thrown in down the beach for good measure, and the odd cocktail :-)

And then it was the airport issues.. 

Late last year Spain enforced a new gun rule saying everything that looks like a gun should be treated as one,so a lot of people got stuck at the airport for a lot of different reasons. There were flights missed, guns threatened to be destructed, expensive tickets and luggage bought, it was a total chaos.

Some of the guys decided to stay for some holiday-days to explore Spain, but Eirik and Sigve had to get back to work so they were to leave on Monday. They had heard some rumors from the day before so they arrived over 2 hours before to be in time for delays too. It was a lot of angry paintballers queuing around, no one knew anything, people got different information. Despite the planned it wasn’t enough, they got sent through the safety check , but when the plane left before they were checked through all the places and they got sent back again. The airport personnel and the crew of the different airlines were not very cooperative. After a lot of time they had to buy a new ticket for the night to get home for school and work :-(

The preparations towards Bitburg have already started, getting in some good practice at the field against Solid and Blast and reffing the first Norwegian League tournament

The Rebels want to thank our sponsors for having our backs and believing in us: Planet Eclipse and Virtue Paintball for awesome equipment, Anthrax for rocking cool jerseys and coffee in their booth. Blitzed Media for making us look good. We would also like to thank: Fight Back Design, Energima ,Actionshop, RVS, JKS rør and Proteinfabrikken.

And a  thanx to everyone who helps us out in the pit, especially Simon and Edvin.

Love from Kristine Myhre Andersen