Stop number four of the five-stop National
Xball League (NXL) tour took place this August at Victory
Sports Park, located outside of Cleveland, Ohio. More
than 160 teams from around North America and from as
far away as Moscow, Russia gathered to compete for three
days of paintball with and amongst the best teams in the
world. Like all NXL events, this one had seven divisions
from the premiere professional division to Division Four,
the entry level of the league’s play.
The weather forecast for the Cleveland area was not
looking good a few days ahead of the National Xball
League Great Lakes Open. Predictions were for four
inches of non-stop rain Friday, Saturday and Sunday. As
predicted it rained on Thursday, although not as badly as
first thought. To everyone’s surprise we woke up Friday
morning to bright sun and scattered clouds and the rains
held off until the last game of the day. And it was more of
the same Saturday morning--bright sun and no rain! Later
in the day Saturday games were stopped for about 45
minutes because of heavy storms and lightening. Games
resumed and finished as planned. Once again Sunday’s
weather turned out much better than the forecast showed
with just a few raindrops off and on during the day.
THE GAMES
Friday’s play in the pro division saw only four of the 16
teams win their first two preliminary round games, leaving
the door open for literally any of the 16 teams to make the
Sunday cut. But of course that would mean the teams with
a loss or two would need to play stellar ball on Saturday.
Surprisingly Edmonton Impact was one of those teams
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