Southern California's SC Village was the selected field for Team Ironmen's "99' Cal Jam".  Hosted November 6-7, the tournament was open to 5-man rookie, novice, and amateur teams.  The tournament was very similar to the GWS format, utilizing the "2-day" format, which had players compete on both Saturday and Sunday, with all the top teams advancing to finals on Sunday.  The main difference was that all of the fields used, are proposed 2000 NPPL fields, which are going to be used next year, which mainly consisted of Hyperball and Sup'Air fields.

        Unlike many of the past tournaments, this tournament was unique, in the fact that they had a vendor tent, for vendors to bring out there merchandise to display their products in separate booths.  It also invited the opportunity to invite "walk-on" and rec players to come out and meet the paintball industry people "face-to-face" to be able to see who is behind the products that they buy.  Many of the vendors included JT, ACI, National Paintball Supply, Nu-Line, Check-It Products, General Joe's Paintball Supply, Extreme Sports, Warrior Gear, Raven Gear, Tippmann, Superior Shirts, Gramps & Grizzly Custom Shop, Paintball Junkies, as well as a few others.

        Another unique concept which I personally saw and participated in, was a "bargain bin" type concept which was offered by Check-It Products.  Representatives from Check-It offered a bin of products which they allowed customers to come in and "offer" their own prices on misc. products which had been put in the bin.  This allowed mainly passerby's to look, touch, and offer on products, which included barrels, regs, screws, springs, hoses, just about any loose part you could imagine.  This offered onlookers to perhaps find that bolt screw, or stock spring that they may have lost, or needed to replace.
 

        The tournament itself hosted about 17 teams, which mainly consisted of rookie teams.  There were a handful of novice and amateur teams, but most of the action was in the rookie bracket.  The teams played in a "round robin" type format, which all of the top scoring teams advancing the playoffs (finals).  Some of the teams which were present were Shockwave, OuttaControl (from Northern California), Bounty Hunters, Genesis, Marine Team, Hitmen, Heavy Hitters, Krusade, Ambush, just to name a few (if I left the name of your team out, please feel free to send it to me and I will add it).

Tournament Results

Amateur 5-man
1st - Ironkids
2nd - Outta Control
3rd - OTP

Novice 5-man
1st - Asylum
2nd - Regulators
3rd - Bounty Hunters

Rookie 5-man
1st - Heavy Hitters
2nd - Hitmen
3rd - Regulators

Thanks to Micah Mcglocklin, Kevin Bredthauer, and Anson Hong for verifying results.

For more pictures from the SC Village Ironmen Tourney, goto the Photo Gallery
 

Sean Takeda
MPN Columnist