2026 Arena Paintball Labour Day Cup
2026 Arena Paintball Labour Day Cup was a five-player paintball tournament held on 24–25 October 2026 at Arena Paintball in Feilding, New Zealand. It was the third event in the venue's 2026 race-format tournament series.[1]
Ballistics Unit 1 won the Cup, defeating Manawatu Titans 3–2 in the final. Expendables won the Plate with a 5–1 victory over BOP Blast.[8][9]
Venue and format
The tournament took place at Arena Paintball, 558 Kimbolton Road, Feilding.
The advertised format used ten-minute matches with a four-point mercy rule. Players were limited to a hopper and four additional pods per game, and teams could register up to eight players.[1]
The programme provided for round-robin play followed by semi-finals and finals, with separate Cup and Plate competitions.[1]
The published draw contained 11 entries representing ten teams, with Ballistics Unit entering two squads. It listed 44 fixtures arranged in 22 sets.[2]
Final results
The final Cup and Plate placings were reported by Ralph Tsing in a Facebook comment on a post published by Phoenix Tahiti Paintball following the tournament. The organiser's day-two livestream also records the championship finals and the Cup third-place match.[5][8][9][10]
Cup
| Position | Team |
|---|---|
| 1 | Ballistics Unit 1 |
| 2 | Manawatu Titans |
| 3 | CULT |
| 4 | Reavers |
Source: reported final placings.[5]
Tsing's report identifies the winning squad as Ballistic Unit 1 and the runner-up as Titans.[5]
Ballistics Unit 1 defeated Manawatu Titans 3–2 in the Cup final. The livestream's closing scoreboard shows the score with the game clock at 00:00.[8]
CULT defeated Reavers 4–0 in the third-place match, reaching the four-point mercy margin with 3:32 remaining.[10]
Plate
| Position | Team |
|---|---|
| 1 | Expendables |
| 2 | BOP Blast |
| 3 | Surge |
| 4 | Ballistics Unit 2 |
Source: reported final placings.[5]
Expendables defeated BOP Blast 5–1 in the Plate final, reaching the four-point mercy margin with 32 seconds remaining on the game clock.[1][9]
Team Lycan Paintball South Waikato corroborated Blast's second-place finish in a report published on 25 October 2026, identifying the team with Bay of Plenty Paintball Club.[7]
A photograph supplied by Ralph Tsing documents a first-place trophy engraved Arena Plate Labour Day 2026. The reported results and livestream identify Expendables as the Plate winner.[5][6][9]
The results above represent separate Cup and Plate classifications, rather than a single overall ranking of all eleven entries.
Finals match scores
| Match | Winner | Score | Opponent | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cup final | Ballistics Unit 1 | 3–2 | Manawatu Titans | [8] |
| Cup third-place match | CULT | 4–0 | Reavers | [10] |
| Plate final | Expendables | 5–1 | BOP Blast | [9] |
Day-one standings
The organiser published the following standings after play on 24 October 2026. These are interim scores, not final tournament placings.[3]
A subsequent clarification instructed readers to disregard the spreadsheet's Games To Be Played column, which is omitted here.[4]
| Team | Recorded score | Games played |
|---|---|---|
| CULT | 5.5 | 6 |
| Manawatu Titans | 4 | 5 |
| Ballistics Unit 2 | 4 | 5 |
| Expendables | 3.5 | 5 |
| Reavers | 3.5 | 5 |
| Ballistics Unit 1 | 2.5 | 5 |
| Blast | 2 | 4 |
| Surge | 2 | 6 |
| Sharks | 1 | 5 |
| Chaos | 0 | 6 |
| Misfits | 0 | 4 |
Ballistics Unit 1 subsequently won the Cup after appearing sixth in the published day-one table.[3][5]
Historical records
The tournament is documented through the original event announcement, published fixture sheet, organiser's day-one standings, reported final placings and official livestreams.[1][2][3][5][8][9][10]
The final placings were supplied by Ralph Tsing in a comment on Phoenix Tahiti Paintball's Facebook post concerning the event. A photograph of the Plate first-place trophy was also supplied by Tsing.[5][6]
Team Lycan Paintball South Waikato's contemporary report provides an additional source for BOP Blast's Plate runner-up result.[7]
See also
- Arena Paintball
- Ballistics Unit (New Zealand Paintball Team)
- Manawatu Titans (New Zealand Paintball Team)
- BOP Blast (New Zealand Paintball Team)
- Paintball in New Zealand
References
- Paintball Direct NZ – 2026 Race Events. Tournament dates, venue, format, rules and advertised Cup and Plate competitions.
- Labour Day Draw 2026. Event fixture sheet supplied to WikiPaintball by a contributor. Records eleven entries and 44 scheduled fixtures.
- Arena Paintball. "Scores end of day 1". Facebook, 24 October 2026. Photograph of the interim standings spreadsheet supplied to WikiPaintball by a contributor.
- Arena Paintball. "Please ignore games to be played column on previous post". Facebook, 24 October 2026. Organiser's clarification supplied to WikiPaintball by a contributor.
- Phoenix Tahiti Paintball – Sunday podium and photographs, Arena Paintball. Facebook, October 2026. Comment by Ralph Tsing identifying the first four teams in the Cup and Plate finals.
- Ralph Tsing. Photograph of the Arena Plate Labour Day 2026 first-place trophy, supplied to WikiPaintball, October 2026.
- Team Lycan Paintball South Waikato – Arena tournament report. Facebook, 25 October 2026. Identifies Blast with Bay of Plenty Paintball Club and confirms second place in the Plate.
- Arena Paintball – Event 3 Labour Day Cup, Day 2: Cup final closing scoreboard. YouTube livestream, 25 October 2026, 7:41:54. Ballistics Unit 1 defeats Titans 3–2 with the game clock at 00:00.
- Arena Paintball – Event 3 Labour Day Cup, Day 2: Plate final closing scoreboard. YouTube livestream, 25 October 2026, 7:08:15. Expendables defeats Blast 5–1 under the four-point mercy rule.
- Arena Paintball – Event 3 Labour Day Cup, Day 2: Cup third-place closing scoreboard. YouTube livestream, 25 October 2026, approximately 7:00:47. CULT defeats Reavers 4–0 under the four-point mercy rule, with 3:32 remaining.