BOP Blast (New Zealand Paintball Team)

BOP Blast is a New Zealand tournament paintball team from the Bay of Plenty. The team previously competed using the names TPC Blast, Tempest and Tempest Blast. BOP refers to Bay of Plenty, while TPC referred to Tauranga Paintball Club.

The team is documented in national competition from 2010 to 2026. It competed as TPC Blast from 2010 to 2012, as Tempest and Tempest Blast during the 2014 South Auckland Paintball Club Race Series, and subsequently as BOP Blast.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]

The team recorded simply as Blast at the 2008 Wellington Easter Tournament has not been merged because the surviving sources contain no player names or regional information connecting it with the Bay of Plenty team.

Tournament history

TPC Blast

TPC Blast competed at the Christchurch Easter five-player tournament on 3–4 April 2010. The results placed the team fifth among seven entries.[1] A later unofficial ranking calculation assigned TPC Blast 40 points, but those points were not an official tournament score or confirmed national-series standing.

At the 2011 NZPPL Rotorua tournament, TPC Blast finished seventh in the first-day standings with 397 points. It advanced to the Plate competition and was reported as the Plate runner-up behind Phoenix.[2]

Contemporary forum signatures connected TPC Blast with Tauranga and the Bay of Plenty Paintball Club. A member posting as Armagedonmad signed as Steve, described himself as a Bay of Plenty Paintball Club member and listed his team as TPC Blast.[3]

TPC Blast was included in a nineteen-team pre-event list for the 2011 NZPPL Nationals.[4] The list records intended attendance rather than a confirmed tournament result.

At the first 2012 NZPPL Super 5-Man event, held at Lock N Load Paintball in Auckland on 7–8 April, a participant-reported classification placed TPC Blast eighth.[5] The author expressly qualified the classification from memory, and no official final result sheet has been recovered.

Tempest and Tempest Blast

The team competed at all four documented events in the 2014 SAPC Open X-Ball Race Series. PBLeagues records the names Tempest and Tempest Blast under the same team identity.[6]

Competing as Tempest, the team finished third at the opening event on 8–9 February.[7] It used the name Tempest Blast at the next two events, finishing third on 3–4 May and fifth on 12–13 July.[8][9] The team returned to the Tempest name for the final event on 27–28 September and finished third.[10]

The PBLeagues profile identifies Tempest as a Tauranga team.[6]

BOP Blast

BOP Blast competed in Open X-Ball at the first two 2015 SAPC Race Series events. It finished seventh at the opening event on 31 January–1 February and fifth at the second event on 11–12 April.[11][12]

BOP Blast was registered for the 2017 New Zealand Local Series Event 1 at Aces High Paintball in Palmerston North. The entry was in Division 4 five-player competition, but the registration record does not establish attendance or a final placing.[13][14]

The team returned to documented Arena Paintball competition in 2025. It was listed in Pool B of the March event and appeared in the draw for the 31 May–1 June round.[15][16] These draws establish scheduled participation but do not provide final placings.

BOP Blast appeared in the pool draws for the 2026 Arena Paintball Easter and Matariki events.[17][18] An Arena Paintball standings update dated 12 July 2026 placed BOP Blast seventh after two rounds with 262 series points.[19]

Team identity

The following names belong to the same team history:

TPC Blast — Tauranga Paintball Club Blast
TCP Blast — a transposed spelling of TPC Blast printed in the 2010 Easter event announcement
Tempest — the name used at the first and fourth 2014 SAPC events
Tempest Blast — the name used at the second and third 2014 SAPC events
BOP Blast — Bay of Plenty Blast and the current team name

PBLeagues records Tempest and Tempest Blast under a single team identity.[6] The continuity of those names with TPC Blast and BOP Blast is contributor-confirmed. The surviving records do not establish exact dates for each name change.

The following entry remains unresolved:

Blast — a team that placed thirteenth at the 2008 Wellington Easter Tournament. No player or regional evidence connecting that entry with the Bay of Plenty team has been recovered.[20]

Recorded results

Date	Published entry	Event	Division or stage	Result
3–4 April 2010	TPC Blast	Christchurch Easter five-player tournament	Open	Fifth.[1]
June 2011	TPC Blast	NZPPL Rotorua tournament	Plate	Second in the reported Plate classification.[2]
7–8 April 2012	TPC Blast	NZPPL Super 5-Man Auckland Event 1	Overall	Eighth, participant-reported.[5]
8–9 February 2014	Tempest	2014 SAPC Race Series Event 1	Open X-Ball	Third.[7]
3–4 May 2014	Tempest Blast	2014 SAPC Race Series Event 2	Open X-Ball	Third; 70 series points.[8]
12–13 July 2014	Tempest Blast	2014 SAPC Race Series Event 3	Open X-Ball	Fifth; 40 series points.[9]
27–28 September 2014	Tempest	2014 SAPC Race Series Event 4	Open X-Ball	Third.[10]
31 January–1 February 2015	BOP Blast	2015 SAPC Race Series Event 1	Open X-Ball	Seventh.[11]
11–12 April 2015	BOP Blast	2015 SAPC Race Series Event 2	Open X-Ball	Fifth.[12]
12 July 2026 standings update	BOP Blast	Arena Paintball series	Not specified	Seventh after two rounds; 262 points.[19]

Documented people

Published name	Documented involvement	Evidence limit
Steve	Used the forum account Armagedonmad, identified himself as a Bay of Plenty Paintball Club member and listed TPC Blast as his team.[3]	No surname or complete playing history has been verified from the inspected source.

References

External links