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The Paintball Sports Promotions
Mid-Atlantic Open, the second event of
the 2014 PSP professional season, was
held May 2-4, 2014 at Rick Carver’s
impressive OXCC Paintball park on the
Maryland/Delaware border. The very
best professional and divisional tournament paintball players from around
the United States, Canada and the
world converged on Chesapeake City,
Maryland for cash, bragging rights and
event seed points. While the event
ended with some surprises in the professional division and a familiar name
atop the podium, the PSP made some
interesting decisions leading into the
event that will leave the league with
public relations work to do heading
into event three in Chicago.
While the weather during the PSP
Mid-Atlantic Open cooperated and
offered sun, a few clouds and good
climactic playing conditions, to say
the weather was rough in the days
heading into the event would be a
significant understatement. For several days prior to the 2014 Mid-Atlantic
Open, rain poured across the entire
Mid-Atlantic region, causing rivers,
streams and creeks to rise, roads to
flood and the grassy fields surrounding OXCC, fields that would be used
to park hundreds of cars, to become
awfully soft. While the playing fields
used for the event stood up to the rain
May 2014
February 2014
rather well and offered a soft, grassy
playing surface (except the professional field, which had a dryer, uphill end
and a sloppy, muddy end), the parking situation deteriorated quickly as
players, spectators, staff and vendors
converged on the site. Ruts opened
up in the parking areas and car after
car became stuck. Field staff, including field owner Rick Carver himself,
did all they could to help, even trucking in gravel to shore up soft ground
and, in at least one case, construct a
completely new road to help players
arriving and departing from the facility, players were still getting stuck
as late as Sunday and many cars left
the event covered in mud from top to
bottom. Courtesy shuttles, large golf
carts, crisscrossed the parking areas
shuttling players and their gear bags
from parking to the fields, through the
vendor area and back again.
A handful of vendors set up shop at
the 2014 Mid-Atlantic Open, showing
off everything from new high-tech
paintball guns to goggles, packs, bottles and clothing. Vendors at the event
included Dye, who set up with several
pop-up tents rather than their large
trailer, Planet Eclipse, Virtue with their
hot new goggles, pods and Spire loader and Aggressive Sports, who brought
a full line of MacDev markers and accessories along with Ninja bottles and