Paintball Magazine Paintball.Media Magazine August 2019 | Page 19

Stop number three on the 2019 National Xball League (NXL) tour was held in Blue Bell (Valley Forge), Pennsylvania, just outside of Philadelphia. Previous recent NXL seasons have seen the league’s third event held in Atlantic City, New Jersey but the league felt it was time for a venue change. Set in a beautiful residential area, the venue, a soccer field complex, offered plenty of flat green grass fields and paved parking. Heavy rains leading up to the event soaked the grounds and although it hardly rained at all during the event, the green grass quickly became a soggy muddy mess. To their credit, the league wasted no time and spared no expense to create thick plywood walkways throughout the common areas of the venue. As the event began the heavy rain would taper off to an occasional sprinkle and by mid-day Friday there would be nothing buy sunshine. Coming into the Philly Open it was a rejuvenated Moscow Red Legion team sitting atop the NXL Professional leaderboard, with a fourth place finish in Las Vegas and a first place win in Texas. Not far behind was Houston Heat with second and fourth place finishes in the league’s opening two events. A Las Vegas win and a sixth place showing in Texas had Edmonton Impact in third place. Just a few seed points behind Impact was ac: Dallas after fifth and second place showings in Vegas and Texas. For three years now each NXL Professional division event winner has come from a pool of three teams: Edmonton Impact, Houston Heat and Moscow Red Legion. San Diego Dynasty’s win in early 2017 was the last time an event winner didn’t come from the “big three.” Could it be ac: Dallas, Dynasty, or X-Factor’s turn? www.paintball.media 019