Some History...
The game of paintball started in the woods of Henniker, New Hampshire in June of 1981 and was played almost exclusively under trees until the advent of the arena game, first seen at SC Village ' s“ Speedball” field in 1989 and a few other one-off events. A few years later Splat-One ' s Indoor Championships became an East-coast must attend event as well. But the game of tournament paintball didn ' t truly come out of the woods until the advent of Hyperball, Airball and the now famous mounds fields in Pittsburgh in 1996. And by 1997 there was barely any evidence that tournament paintball was ever played in anything but spectator-friendly arenas. The National Professional Paintball League( NPPL), Paintball Sports Promotions( PSP), Great Western Series, Carolina Field Owners Association( CFOA) and just about every regional and national level series were exclusively running airball tournaments beginning in 1998 and for eleven years thereafter.
In 2009 there were a scattering of regional woodsball tournaments beginning to pop up. Later that season Tom Cole created the Ultimate Woodsball League
( UWL), reintroducing paintball in the woods to the tournament scene. In 2018, Tim Montressor ' s first Iron City Classic happened and the throwback woodsball game comeback was in full swing. Here we are 28 years after tournament paintball came out of the woods and classic mechanical paintball is as big as it ever was. www. paintball. media
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