The Tourney
 
        Tombstone Paintball in Corona, California was the site of the second MPN Tournament titled "The Y2K Showdown", hosted by The Monthly Paintball Newsletter.  This was the 1st of a 4 tournament series for the year 2000.  We had a total of 25 teams spread over three divisions: kids, rookies, and novice.  Our prize pool was very generous, with products donated by Kingman International, I&I Sports, Nitrokick, DYE Precision, Check-It Products, Extreme Sportz, National Paintball Supply (California, South Carolina), Kick'n Paintball, Superior Shirts, Tombstone Paintball, and trophies and guns from The MPN.  Each team got 5 "Y2K Showdown" Tournament Shirts with their entry as a souvenir from the tournament.  Southern California based teams, Broken Arrow former Tsunami players reffed the event.

The Fields and Conditions

        The tournament was played on 3 different fields, which consisted of a "Speed Ball" type field with "X" type bunkers (which has non-stop action), Fox Holes (which has an old car on it, and setup like a retro speedball field), and Tombstone's new regulation sized Hyperball field.  Teams rotated throughout the day, playing a total of 5 games on the various fields.  We experienced very unusual weather which included heavy fog, damp air, and rain on occasion.  Though the conditions weren't perfect, the tournament was able to go pretty smoothly considering these factors.

Who was there

        The entire parking lots were filled by 8 am with tournament players and walk-on players alike.  The MPN had all the luxuries to accommodate the players, which included an air trailer (which was able to fill HPS to 4500 PSI) courtesy of Les Varillos , high quality paintballs from Kick'n Paintballs (courtesy of Tony Street), hamburgers and hot dogs from our master chef Mr. Harrison, a raffle for a brand new Autococker (and other prizes), as well as a professional and courteous staff to help out with the players needs.  We also had photographers from Action Pursuit Games, and The Monthly Paintball Newsletter taking pictures of the entire tournament.

Kid's Bracket

        The Kid's bracket was unusually smaller this tournament.  We used a Round Robin type format for this division.  We only had 4 teams, which included Subzero Kids, Nomad Kids, the Outlaws, and Child's Play (which showed up with only 4 players).  Nomad Kids only had a few players to start as well, but we were able to find everyone supplemental players to fill in the spots.  Subzero and Outlaws came very close down to their last games, with one team taking 1st place by only 5 points!!!  After all of the smoke had cleared, here are the final results from the kids division:
 
 

1st Place - Outlaws	2nd Place - Subzero Kids
3rd Place - Nomad Kids	4th Place - Child's Play

Since Child's Play took last place, they won the special award of 5 Annual Passes to Tombstone Paintball, awarded by Leon Styles, owner of Tombstone.

Rookie Bracket

        The Rookie Bracket was the largest with eleven teams.  These teams included : Full Breach 1 & 2, Subzero, Spyder's Web, Zero Tolerance, Bushmasters, Wolfpack, Assasins, Team Blitz, Ambush, and Omega.  The Rookie division was completely separate from the the Novice division this time around.  At the end of the preliminaries, Assasins, Full Breach 1, Ambush, and Spyder's Web progressed to finals.  Due to the fact that we ran out of daylight, each of the teams didn't get to complete finals.  We were able to compromise with the teams to get the final results:

1st Place - Assasins
2nd Place - Ambush
3rd Place - Full Breach 1
4th Place - Spyder's Web

Novice Bracket

        The Novice Bracket had nine teams.  These teams included : Storm 1 & 2, Heavy Hitters, Walk-on Kings, Zero Tolerance, Team Tombstone, Bounty Hunters, Carter Machine, and Hitmen.  Competition within this bracket was extremely high, with tensions rising with each game.  There were alot of good and experience tournament teams in this division.  At the end of the preliminaries, Team Tombstone, Storm, Heavy Hitters, and Carter Machine progressed to the finals.  At the end of it all, here were the final results:

1st Place - Carter Machine
2nd Place - Heavy Hitters
3rd Place - Storm
4th Place - Team Tombstone

The Raffle

        This tournament, we upgraded our normal give-a-ways for the raffle.  Tickets were only a dollar, but those who purchased tickets had the opportunity to win a new WGP Autococker.  We also gave away boxes of Nitro Kick energy bars, softair guns, misc Check-It after market parts, MPN mocks and hats, as well as much, much, more.  The winner of the Autococker was Tony Street of Kick'n Paintball.  He actually won more than once, but had purchased the most tickets.
 
 

Comments from the Prez

        I want to congratulate each and every team on a day of great play, and on being a part of a second tournament.  There was alot of skilled teams who played hard, and made it exciting for people to watch.  It was only our second tourney, but we plan on getting bigger and better for the tournament in April.  We will continue to strive to do our best by providing a great playing atmosphere, competition, and prizes.
        We ran into a few complications again with running out of daylight this tournament, but we are always working on ways to improve our format.  We also experienced a few teams who displayed a lack sportsmanship skills, and who have been asked not to come back to future events.  This type of attitude will not be absolutely not be tolerated and will result in all teams being automatically disqualified the next time around.
        We want to keep the tournament as fun and fair as possible, and have even made some changes and improvements from the last tournament (check the Updated Rules and Regulations).  We would like to hear from you!  Whether you want to tell us a story of your day at the Y2K Showdown, Comments, or Feedback, please let us know what you thought so that we can make the next one even better!   See you all in April!

For more pictures from the Y2K Showdown Tournament, goto the Photo Gallery
 

Sean Takeda
President, The MPN