2006 Three Rivers Paintball Festival

The 2006 Three Rivers Paintball Festival was an amateur paintball tournament and recreational festival held at Three Rivers Paintball Park in New Sewickley Township, Pennsylvania, United States. The principal competition took place from 27 to 30 July 2006, preceded by a professional-player clinic on 26 July.[1][2]

Produced by Team Effort Events, the festival was the renamed 2006 edition of the International Amateur Open. It returned the tournament to its original venue after four years at the Big Butler Fairgrounds and combined arena competition with woodsball, youth competition, a trade show and a large scenario paintball game.[1][2]

Background

Debra Dion Krischke established the National Amateur Open in 1990. The competition became the International Amateur Open in 1991 and developed into a major annual amateur tournament and paintball-industry gathering.[2]

The event was held at Three Rivers Paintball during its first eleven years before moving to the Big Butler Fairgrounds in 2002. The larger fairgrounds accommodated commercial displays and inflatable tournament fields, but separated the event from the woodland setting associated with its earlier editions.[2]

For 2006, Team Effort Events returned the competition to Three Rivers Paintball and adopted the name Three Rivers Paintball Festival. Contemporary promotional coverage described the change as a return to the event's roots, with greater emphasis on rookie, youth, recreational and woodland play.[2]

The 2006 edition was billed as the sixteenth annual event.[1][3]

Festival

The festival programme ran for five days. A clinic on 26 July was conducted by Jason Trosen, Tim Montressor and Spesh Robinson of the Philadelphia Americans. Tournament competition subsequently included three-player, five-player Rookie, Young Guns and retro woodsball divisions.[1]

The Young Guns division was open to players aged between 10 and 14. The retro woodsball competition used a five-player, two-flag format and prohibited battery-powered equipment.[1]

Three grass arena fields were constructed for the event. The venue also added parking and camping areas, woodland fields and trails for scenario vehicles. Approximately 40 of the park's 70 acres were allocated to the scenario game.[1]

Contemporary reporting estimated that approximately 1,500 competitors attended from across North America and Hawaii. More than 3.2 million paintballs were reportedly fired during the four days of competition.[3]

Other activities included a trade show, equipment demonstrations, a children's low-impact paintball area, a screening of Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story and an ISAS Skins cash competition. Travis Dusek and Julio Zamarripa were reported as the winners of the Skins competition.[1]

Tournament results

Division	First	Second	Third	Fourth
Three-player	Groundfire	Island Warrior Red	Prodigy Blue	Hot Potato 5
Five-player Rookie	Groundfire	Rogue Kidz	Unlimited	Island Warriors Hawaii
Young Guns	Groundfire Kids	Asylum	The Other White Meat	Judgment Day
Retro woodsball	Misfit Old School	AMOK	Mighty Men of Valor	Judgment Day

JNJ Delta Dogs and MEDFAST placed fifth and sixth respectively in the retro woodsball competition.[1]

Island Warriors Red received the three-player sportsmanship award, while Virginia Raiders received the five-player Rookie sportsmanship award. Dave Zinkham was named Ultimate Judge.[1]

Groundfire, associated with Action Park Paintball near Osceola, Florida, won the three-player and five-player Rookie divisions, while Groundfire Kids won the Young Guns competition.[1]

Team America scenario game

Black Cat Productions organised a two-day scenario game titled Team America. More than 300 players participated across the park's woodland fields.[1][3]

The opposing factions were the USA Police, commanded by Dean Purcell, and the Terrorists, commanded by Kelly Schmidt. The game incorporated missions, night play, props and two paintball tanks. USA Police accumulated the higher score and won the scenario.[1]

Legacy

The Three Rivers Paintball Festival was the last edition of the International Amateur Open tournament lineage. In a 2011 interview, Debra Dion Krischke attributed the decision to end the event to the organisational demands of the expanded tournament, division within the paintball industry and changes in the economics of large independent events.[4]

Team Effort Events organised a separate Paintball Festival and Business Conference at Three Rivers Paintball in 2011. Contemporary coverage described the later gathering as a new, smaller event rather than another edition of the International Amateur Open.[4]

References

Bambi Bullard, “Three Rivers Paintball Festival!”, Action Pursuit Games, February 2007, pp. 98–103.
WARPIG – “IAO Goes Retro”, Dawn Mills, June 2006
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – “Potshot hotshots”, John Vivirito Jr., 10 August 2006
WARPIG – “Debra Krischke in the Hot Seat”, Bill Mills, July 2011, page 2