1997 NPPL World Cup

The 1997 Paintball World Cup, also known as the 1997 NPPL World Cup, was a tournament paintball event held from 21 to 26 October 1997 at Paintball World in Kissimmee, Florida, United States. Promoted by Jerry Braun and conducted as part of the National Professional Paintball League season, it featured five-player and ten-player competitions for professional and amateur teams.[1][2]

Jacksonville Warriors won the professional five-player competition, while the Fighters won the amateur division. Team Image won the professional ten-player competition and Lockout won the amateur division.[1][3][4]

The tournament included the World Cup debut of Sup'AirBall, an inflatable-bunker format developed in France. Sup'AirBall appeared alongside woodland and Hyperball fields, reflecting the increasing use of spectator-oriented artificial playing fields in tournament paintball during the late 1990s.[1][5][6]

Tournament

Competition began on Tuesday, 21 October, with the five-player preliminary rounds. The five-player finals were held on Thursday, 23 October. Ten-player preliminary competition began on Friday, with the finals concluding the event on Sunday, 26 October.[1]

The tournament was organised by Jerry Braun at Paintball World, a multi-field paintball facility in Kissimmee. Both the five-player and ten-player competitions were divided into professional and amateur classifications.[1][2]

Playing fields

The World Cup used a mixture of traditional woodland or jungle fields and artificial tournament fields.[1][5] These included:

• woodland and jungle-style fields;
• Hyperball fields constructed using corrugated plastic piping; and
• a Sup'AirBall field using inflatable bunkers.

Hyperball had made its American World Cup debut at the 1996 event. Sup'AirBall was added in 1997, providing a more open playing area that improved visibility for spectators. Contemporary coverage also noted that the flexible inflatable bunkers could cause paintballs to rebound rather than break.[1]

Competition format

Five-player competition

The five-player preliminary round consisted of ten divisions containing nine or ten teams each. Each division generally included one or two professional teams, with the remaining places filled by amateur teams. The highest-scoring professional and amateur teams from each preliminary division advanced.[1]

A separate novice competition had not originally been scheduled. During the event, Braun adopted a proposal attributed to J. J. Brookshire of Brass Eagle, under which the three lowest-scoring teams from each preliminary division were placed into novice semi-finals. The resulting novice classification therefore operated as a consolation competition drawn from the five-player preliminary field.[1]

Ten-player competition

The ten-player competition was divided into professional and amateur classifications. Preliminary games began on 24 October, followed by the finals on 26 October.[1][2]

Results

Five-player results

Position	Professional	Amateur	Novice
1	Jacksonville Warriors	Fighters	Bizzaro
2	All Americans 1	Farside	Chameleons
3	Rage	Shockwave CA	Bad Karma White
4	All Americans 2	Canadian Express	Nemesis Jr.

Jacksonville Warriors finished the professional final with 106 points, ahead of All Americans 1 on 85. The Fighters won the amateur final with 137 points.[3]

Ten-player results

Position	Professional	Score	Amateur	Score
1	Team Image	300	Lockout	218
2	Aftershock	215	Ohio Black Reign	193
3	Ironmen	130	Marine Team 1	133
4	All Americans 2	31	Nemesis	40

The scores shown are the cumulative totals from the respective final rounds.[4]

Equipment exhibition

The World Cup also included a paintball industry exhibition. Products reported or demonstrated at the event included the Shocker Sport 4x4, the PneuVentures Cyber 9000, the Brass Eagle Rainmaker and the ViewLoader Revolution.[1]

The Cyber 9000 was described as an electronically controlled marker with an LCD display, selectable semi-automatic, fully automatic and burst modes, and functions recording shot count, elapsed time and the velocity of individual shots.[1]

Media coverage

Contemporary reporting appeared in Action Pursuit Games, including Bill Mills's illustrated tournament report, “Where the Best Meet to Compete: The 1997 World Cup”.[1]

Online coverage was provided by WARPIG, including reports, scores, field descriptions, photographs and PigTV video segments covering tournament play and equipment displayed at the event.[2][3][4][5]

See also

• Paintball World Cup
• National Professional Paintball League
• 1997 in paintball
• Sup'AirBall
• Hyperball

References

1. Bill Mills, “Where the Best Meet to Compete: The 1997 World Cup”, Action Pursuit Games, Vol. 12, No. 3, March 1998, pp. 71–75.
2. WARPIG – 1997 National Professional Paintball League World Cup coverage
3. WARPIG – 1997 World Cup five-player finals
4. WARPIG – 1997 World Cup ten-player finals
5. WARPIG – 1997 World Cup playing fields
6. Sup'AirBall – History