BOP Blast (New Zealand Paintball Team)

BOP Blast, formerly represented by the related names TPC Blast and Tempest Blast, is a New Zealand tournament paintball team associated with the Bay of Plenty region. 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 Blast during the 2014 South Auckland Paintball Club Race Series and subsequently as BOP Blast.[1][2][3][4][5][6]

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 and are not included in the results table.

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. That list records intended attendance rather than a confirmed tournament result.[4]

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 result from memory, and no official final result sheet has been recovered.

Tempest Blast

The team competed as Tempest Blast during the 2014 SAPC Open X-Ball season. PBLeagues uses the same team identity for Tempest and Tempest Blast.

Tempest Blast finished third at the May event and fifth at the July event.[6][7]

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.[8][9]

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.[10][11]

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.[12][13] 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.[14][15] An Arena Paintball standings update dated 12 July 2026 placed BOP Blast seventh after two rounds with 262 series points.[16]

Team identity

The following names form part of the same related Bay of Plenty team history:

TPC Blast — Tauranga Paintball Club Blast
TCP Blast — a transposed spelling of TPC Blast printed in the 2010 Easter event announcement
Tempest Blast — the name used during the 2014 SAPC Race Series
BOP Blast — Bay of Plenty Blast and the team's current name

The relationship between the names is contributor-confirmed. Surviving records establish the shared regional context and, for Tempest Blast, a shared PBLeagues identity. They do not establish exact dates for each organisational or naming transition.

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 BOP Blast has been recovered.[17]

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]
May 2014	Tempest Blast	SAPC May Race	Open X-Ball	Third; 70 series points.[6]
July 2014	Tempest Blast	SAPC July Race	Open X-Ball	Fifth; 40 series points.[7]
31 January–1 February 2015	BOP Blast	SAPC Race Series Event 1	Open X-Ball	Seventh.[8]
11–12 April 2015	BOP Blast	SAPC Race Series Event 2	Open X-Ball	Fifth.[9]
12 July 2026 standings update	BOP Blast	Arena Paintball series	Not specified	Seventh after two rounds; 262 points.[16]

References

External links

BOP Blast — PBLeagues profile