Since his return to San Diego Dynasty, Ollie Lang has been relatively quiet in terms of private label paintball gear. Earlier in the season, Ollie mentioned that he and Dynasty would be focusing this year on dominating in the pro division. Now that the season has come to a close (and the Dynasty won both pro series in the United States), Ollie is preparing to introduce new paintball gear.
Ollie Lang from San Diego Dynasty on the move
According to ProPaintball insiders, Planet Eclipse is preparing to release an Oliver Lang limited edition Ego 11 and Geo 2 paintball gun. A statement relased on Ollie’s facebook page confirms the rumors and suggests the new paintball gun will be ready for sale this December — just in time for the Christmas buying season. Price is yet not known, but something in the area of 1200$ to 1600$ is anticipated.
Oliver is not the only member of Dynasty to have his own limited edition Ego or Geo. Both Alex Fraige and Ryan Greenspan have their own limited edition markers. In addition Eclipse have also made some limited edition Team Dynasty Geos and Egos, and even a few CSL`s.
New Paintball Gun from Ollie Lang
New Paintball Gun from Ollie Lang: EGO 11
Planet Eclipse have said that the final product may have some changes to what you can see in the image above.
After competing at the 2011 NPPL DC tournament, Pro Paintball writer Tim Cerruti interviewed the players of the NPPL All Star format for their feedback. Watch as Justin Rabackoff, Ollie Lang, Dave Baines, Nicky Cuba, Greg Siewers, Ryan Pruitt, Justin Schwarz and others offer their opinion on the new multi-point format.
What did you think about the NPPL Allstar format? Did you like the 7-man style of play with a center flag? What would you have done to improve the game?
The Canadian Xtreme Paintball League (official website) has released the official Central paintball event 2 video. The CXBL’s Central Conference returned to Flag Raiders paintball park in Kitchener, ON to hold another first class paintball tournament. Nick Slowiak and Chris Sosine from Chicago Aftershock and Ollie Lang from San Diego Dynasty flew in to Kitchener to compete with their Canadian teams. Ollie played with Scarborough Hustle and Nick and Chris play with Windsor Lockdown.
Dark clouds slowly loom over the flawless playing fields of Flag Raiders Paintball. Players focus only on one thing; winning at all cost no matter what stands in their way. The periodic down pour of cold rain only fuels the Xball athlete’s thirst for blood as they size up their competitors and despite the threat of violent storms, the crowds still line the bleachers at Flag Raiders. All the elements are in place for what is sure to be a crucial event. Watch as the gap between teams is torn a part in this exciting 2nd event of Central CXBL. If the elements never stop you from ballin then raise your hand and slam it down on the LIKE BUTTON!!
Today’s round up features all of the latest paintball news and rumors concerning the National Professional Paintball League, San Diego Dynasty and St. Louis Avalanche. Read on for paintball gear being sabotaged, retirements and more.
Many of you have heard and or watched the final match up between Avalanche and Dynasty at the recent NPPL 2011 Chicago Open for 1st and 2nd place. There was a fair amount of controversy regarding the game, the referees, and the arguments that ensued. Over the last couple of weeks numerous ProPaintball insiders have mentioned that a rivalry between Frank and Ollie has been building up. Here is the latest in the NPPL-Avalanche-Dynasty drama-rama.
First: Frank kills it.
Players who watched the game mentioned that Frank Connell had been playing some of the best paintball he has played in a long time. “He was killing it in Chicago” according to one source. Unfortunately for Frank and Ollie, both players will be serving suspensions for the first part of the NPPL 2011 DC Open.
Second: Dynasty was sabotaged.
Prior to the final match between Avalanche and Dynasty there was a bit of un-sportsman-like conduct that took place. According to insiders, unknown individuals attempted to sabotage Dynasty by dumping water into their Empire Prophecy paintball loaders right before the game.
Third: is Frank retiring, taking his team elsewhere, or full of hot air?
Rumors have circulated that Frank Connell is considering retirement, or competing in the PSP. Frank posted the following statement on facebook;
Fourth: Where is the money?
There is a $5,000.00 prize purse for the winner of the pro division. According to ProPaintball insiders, San Diego Dynasty has not been paid the winnings for the NPPL 2011 Chicago Open and there is said to be internal disagreement regarding the issuing of the check. Rumors suggest the “check is in the mail” and others offer that its not coming at all. The team won the final match and the winners were announced, Dynasty being one of them. What gives?
Is sabotaging your opponents paintball gear part of the game or taking things too far? Is money tight at the NPPL or are politics at play? Will Frank retire? How well would Avalanche transition into the PSP pro division?
Okay, last video, we promise. But this one is good, its a up close and personal look at a very controversial match at the NPPL 2011 Chicago Open. Cassidy’s footage puts you right in the middle of the action and gives you a first hand look at what all the fuss is about. Watch as Frank Connell from Avalanche and Ollie Lang from Dynasty battle it out.
In case you want to see a video of the entire match, be sure to check out our earlier story here.
In part 1 of our Pro Update Series, Ryan Greenspan of San Diego Dynasty shares his thoughts on NPPL 2011 Chicago Open. Last weekends NPPL Chicago paintball tournament marked San Diego Dynasty’s 4th consecutive victory in the 2011 paintball season. All across the internet players and fans have been discussing the possibility of Dynasty earning their 4th Triple Crown Championship. There is also discussion surrounding the controversy that took place at the NPPL 2011 Chicago Open finals between Avalanche, Dynasty and Uprising.
“Here we go again.” Those four words are becoming more common between Dynasty’s veteran members than the actual codes used on the field. For more than a decade, we have been playing this game, and for more than a decade, Chicago has been an important mid-season stop for all tournament paintball players. “Here we go again,” Yosh said to me at around 6am the morning we are heading to Chicago from San Diego for the second NPPL event of the season and, more importantly, the fourth event for us as a new revamped Dynasty team. We have won 3 tournaments in a row before, but not for a long time. We have had a lot of down time since our last event and we want to keep our fans and sponsors happy with another good result.
We went into Chicago excited to get back together and ready to dominate. We played on Saturday, so that gave us a full Friday to watch the other pro teams and figure out that some of our game plans weren’t going to work as well as we had thought.
We went 5-2 in the prelims on Saturday, but we were still struggling with the field and how to play it. Individually we were playing well, which was enough to get us to Sunday, but we still didn’t have the field figured out.
We did a better job on Sunday, but if you were in our pit you probably would have thought we were losing games instead of winning since we still weren’t happy with how we were playing as a team.
We know everyone wants to know what happened with Avalanche and Frank and Oliver. The basics are that it was that there were 4 Avalanche players left and 2 Dynasty players with Glenn in the snake corner and Oliver in the snake. They didn’t know Oliver was in the snake and Billy dove in right in front of Oliver who shot at Billy. Billy shot at Oliver once he realized he was there, but the refs said Oliver had already shot Billy and left Oliver in. While this was happening, Frank ran to bunker Oliver. Oliver and Glenn both shot at Frank and Frank shot at Oliver. The referees said that Frank was shot before he got to Oliver and left Oliver in. Glenn got shot while this was happening and it was now a 1-on-1 with Oliver and the Avalanche player in the dorito corner. Oliver won that and went and pulled the flag. Frank came over from the dead box as Oliver was pulling the flag and they exchanged some words and some contact might have been made. Both Frank and Oliver were suspended and neither played the last game in the finals. It’s unfortunate that there was controversy in the finals, but unfortunately sometimes that is part of sports. We consider Frank and the rest of the Avalanche players our friends, and nothing that happened in Chicago changes that.
Avalanche played great all weekend, and we’d like to congratulate them as well as Uprising and Impact on making the top 4.
Everyone keeps saying Dynasty is back, Dynasty is winning again, and yea, that’s true. We know the past couple years we haven’t been unstoppable but we have won a couple of events here and there and we have had success. This year we made some changes and we have a new fire that is pushing us in the right direction. With the addition of some new younger talent and more hungry players, we are able to reignite what we used to have. Plus having new young guys like Dalton Vanderbyl and Alex Goldman to run around and do all the hard work makes it easier on the guys who have been coming to these events for over a decade! I want to take this time to thank first off our AMAZING fans who follow us through every up and down we go thru, special thanks goes out to Al Poorman for driving up to see us, I think he is in the top five biggest Dynasty fans, maybe even over some of our mothers. Also, thank you to Empire, Eclipse, RPS, Guerilla air, CP, Pendleton, and every one of our sponsors, past and especially present for getting us to where we are today! You can keep up with what we’re doing at www.Facebook.com/DynastyPaintball or www.DynastyPaintball.com.
Dynasty has teamed up with Guerrilla Air for a contest where the winner will receive an all expenses paid trip to Southern California and get to be part of Dynasty for the day. Click the button to participate in the contest.
Its pretty easy to play. Post your favorite photo of you playing paintball to the Guerilla Air page on facebook. Next step, spread the word to your friends. How it works? The top 5 photos with the most likes are entered into a drawing. The winner flys out to California to train with Yosh Rau, Ryan Greenspan, Alex Fraige, Ollie Lang and the rest of the guys. Get on it!
Mike Hinman lives and breathes professional paintball. Hinman started his pro paintball career with the Bushwackers playing alongside veterans Mike Paxson, Ron Kilbourne, LJ Marquez, Fish, and others. Later he moved to Chicago Aftershock with his friend Todd Martinez and eventually found himself playing with San Diego Dynasty. While playing with Dynasty, Mike started working with a young and up coming team known as Thunderkids. Thunderkids had a short but successful run and many of the players joined a team known by many as Aftermath. Mike hand picked several then-undiscovered players including Alex Goldman (Dynasty), Marcello Margott (Infamous), Ronnie Filippone (Entourage), Raney Stanczak (Entourage), Dalton Vanderbyl (Dynasty), and together they rose through the ranks, winning several divisional series titles and ultimately made a successful jump into the Pro paintball division under the name San Diego Aftermath. Most recently Mike Hinman launched the West Coast Paintball Players League, an immensely successful divisional paintball league. When not running the WCPPL, Mike coaches paintball super team San Diego Dynasty. Between Mike’s coaching and several solid pick ups including Alex Goldman, Ollie Lang, and Dalton Vanderbyl, Dynasty has been on a winning streak taking first place in the NPPL, PSP and Millennium Series season openers.
This is your opportunity to pick Mike’s brain. Feel free to ask him your questions relating to game of paintball. One question per post please. ProPaintball moderators will send the best questions to Hinman and we will post his answers as soon as he gets them back to us.
College Paintball: University of Tennessee Volunteers
Sunday brought closure to another successful (and hot) NCPA National Championship, and with it came a new set of victors. In all, 78 teams competed within three divisions, with this year marking the first inclusion of the high school finals along with the traditional A and AA collegiate series. The hype surrounding the event was high and the attendance reflected that. It’s apparent that with the growth of the league (this year marked the largest NCPA Championship in history) has come a new sense of competitive intensity, as teams realize the high level of prestige and exposure that the NCPA has been able to retain amongst a faltering industry. With three days of play concluded, results per division are as follows:
College Paintball: Cal State University- Long Beach 49ers
College XBall (Class A):
University of Tennessee Volunteers
Cal State University- Long Beach 49ers
University of Connecticut Huskies
Liberty University Flames
College RaceTo-2 (Class AA):
U. at Buffalo Bulls Blue
Western Michigan Broncos
Southern Connecticut State Owls
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
High School RaceTo-2 (3-man)
Grayslake North Knights
The Lancers
G.E.C.A.
Hanover Indians
The NCPA continued their tradition of offering a “high profile” experience at the tournament, streaming real time matches for free over the internet and returning the Fox Sports broadcasting group for the 7th consecutive year to cover the finals match. An all-star cast of paintball celebrities including Matty Marshall, Oliver Lang and Chris Lasoya were on hand to assist in adding color and commentary to the broadcasts. According to the NCPA’s website, Fox’s event coverage will air nationally sometime during June on Fox College Sports and will eventually be available on Hulu.com as well. In the meantime, check out a sample of Mike Deep’s extensive photography collection from the event here.
PLAYER OPINIONS