Before the gathering crowd, the Summit Award show honored players from the men’ s and women’ s leagues for outstanding performances, teams for collaborative successes, industry support staff for innovations, and media pros for capturing it all.
The winners were able to accept their trophies on the field with their images emblazed on the JombTron. And they were greeted by a horde of young fans who came with merch, swag, posters, and signs that they held out to the honorees over the edge of the stands to solicit their autographs.
The award presentations were then followed by the announcement and presentation of the Hall of Icons inductees. Each was draped with the iconic gold, Hormesis jacket that has become the symbol of the inductees and honored by a reading of their accomplishments by Ryan Greenspan. This year’ s class of inductees was comprised of Frank Connell, J. C. Whittington, Davey Williamson, Brian LB Fow, Ed Poorman, Chuck Hendsch, and Alex Martinez.
Within a week of this ceremony, the industry lost one of the nominees who was not on this list but was honored posthumously with the Lifetime Achievement award: Greg Pauley.
Showcase Matchups
The first Pro Division prelim matches were then played inside the stadium, setting expectations and seeding the drama. In fact, the first match out of the gate was the match that would end up being the defining match of the event.
A clash of two titans, the first match was between Red Legion, the Champions of the‘ 25 World Cup, and the home team, Tampa Bay Damage, and it played as a storybook drama. After going down 6-2, Damage made a three-point comeback, bringing the match to 6-5. It ended in a 1-v- 1 showdown between Marcello Margott and Alexander Bernikov. Both players, with next to no paint remaining, were using the entire field for cover and the big screens for an advantage to find one another. Marcello was forced to make a Hail Mary break for the buzzer, and Malloy tracked him, retreating to the snake 50“ clover” bunker to keep a bead on him as he launched. Bernikov did catch Marcello in motion as he made his dive for the buzzer as time expired, making for a dramatic finish to an epic battle on the largest of stages.
Photo by John McGloughlin
048 paintball. media magazine