This year has been an amazing year for us. The Millennium Series has always be an enjoyable series of paintball travels.
This final event is probably one of the best events each year. This year was no exception. It would be a race to the finish line and a battle to see who would take home all the glory and gold and who would just go home.
Disney World Cup Paris 2012 began quite nicely on Thursday as teams walked the fields and others had the opportunity to take time to get some last minute training in before the next day’s preliminary matches began. Friday morning’s sun soon turned into darkening skies and what would turn into two days of utter weather hell for both players and media. We would end up wading through the mud and muck for three days to capture that elussive perfect shot.
This event unlike other events this season, would see CPL teams playing in the early morning hours. This was due to the fact that the Millennium was overbooked to the max on teams for this final event. Two hundred fifteen teams attended this final event in Paris! I found myself running from field to field all weekend and wishing for a few extra clones of myself. As Friday’s preliminary games came to an end the U19 teams would take to the field to see the future of paintball from 10 European countries.
Moving into Saturday ending prelim matches, the rain picked up forcing us to cancel the Art Chaos signing at the GI Sportz tent. Dedicated paintball fans sat in the grandstands with umbrellas, tarps and rain gear watching as Dynasty loosing out on the Sunday club making way for Art Chaos to take home the series title. Matches would run late in the evening causing players to play under horrible lighting conditions provided by generator powered spotlights. As media, it was impossible for us to film or photograph any of the action past 5pm. The dark skies did not help our efforts to capture history.
As we took refuge from the rain in the GI Sportz tent we had the opportunity to visit with long time friend Richmond Italia. We had the opportunity to preview some of the new products that would be released at World Cup PSP and we were presented with two new limited edition VForce/GI Sportz Grillz that we would be sporting next season! (Thanks GI, Richmond, Shawn, Rab and Stephen!)
As the weekend wore on along with the rain we would watch through our lenses as GI sponsored teams would take command of the fields and dominate their opponents. Five of the eight CPL teams moving into the quarterfinals were GI Sportz teams, Art Chaos, Instinct, TonTons, Heat and Icon. It would be only Art Chaos and Inctinct moving into the semi-finals. When the day was done it would be the favorite Art Chaos Moscow that would be crowned the champs for the event and for the season! Amsterdam Heat had their best result all season at this final event which rewarded them kindly by avoiding the redeligation to SPL. Ducks too missed the axe and would remain in the CPL. A heartbreaking Dogs D’Amour missed moving up by 2 points.
Even though the the rain dampened the event spirits were very high as we ourselves said our good bye’s to our seasonal friends and headed back home to Sweden. Our home life would return into somewhat normal but only for four weeks. Begining in November we will pack our bags and head to mother Russia for their widely popular indoor series, IceBall. We look forward to being introduced to the new multi-million dollar state of the art indoor paintball arena.
Stick around here as there is much more to see on our travels. The season never ends for us.
/ami
