After smashing their way through prelims in DC, pro paintball team Chicago Legend (official website) powered their way into a nail-biting 1 on 1 final with DC Arsenal to determine the 2011 NPPL DC event champions. With Damian Ryan getting the drop on JRab, Legend earned their first win in the NPPL pro paintball division since joining the league in 2009. I caught up with Dennis Olson in between flights for a quick interview that will give our readers some history and insight into this team that has quietly worked their way into 2nd place overall in the series.

JJ @ PPB: Who is Chicago Legend? Give us a brief history of how your team came to be?

Dennis @ Chicago Legend:  Legend was formed back in 2003, we’re actually from Eastern Iowa. Josh, Cliff, Damian, & I have been playing together forever (not to mention Towlie & a bunch of other local friends). The team has been competing in the NPPL from day 1, starting with D-3 and since have worked our way up. Over the years we became very good friends with Ian, Brad, Jerry, & AJ so it was natural that we all would come together eventually. This is a very tight crew.

JJ @ PPB: What do you see as being your team’s strengths that have led to your success this season?

Dennis @ Chicago Legend: I feel like we’re still students of the game, we’re like sponges at events. We all HATE losing with a passion and want to win more than anything. One of the great things about this team is that there is absolutely zero drama, and that enables us to focus on making adjustments & corrections when needed. We’re getting better at doing just that, and it’s showing.

JJ @ PPB: I would like your opinion on the format that the NPPL tested out in the 2011 pro paintball all-star game. Are you in favor of the center flag? Sideline coaching? Race-to format?

Dennis @ Chicago Legend: We tried it with Impact & Mutiny the week prior to the event. Honestly it didn’t do anything for me, but I was open minded about it. After listening to the players the NPPL has realized that we need to go back to the drawing board, and we will. The pro paintball all-star game was just a test, and people’s panties are getting all bunched up. I’m not a fan of center flag myself, this game is not football, soccer, etc. where the ball or flag is the focal point. We have 9 million balls in the air at all times, I like seeing players get their heads blown off. I hate coaching, always have & always will. I feel it takes away the big moves that are the most exciting to watch. Race-to or something like that is interesting, we are toying with it.

JJ @ PPB: What’s the future have in store for Legend? Will we see you guys in 2012?

Dennis @ Chicago Legend: You bet you’re going to see Legend in 2012! We have worked our tails off to get to this level and to have this opportunity, we truly appreciate the chance. I have to say though, we love being off the radar and being the team that no one knows anything about. We have quietly moved into 2nd place in the series points race, and we’re not about to take our foot off the gas pedal now. One thing people should know about Legend is when you line up against us, we’re coming to get you. Make no mistake about it, we are here to win.

JJ @ PPB: A hot topic of discussion is this rumored pro paintball league ‘merger’. What are your thoughts? Is a one league system the future of pro paintball?

Dennis @ Chicago Legend: Hmmm, tough question. I see Pro’s & Con’s. Pro’s being it would be great for sponsors to get behind one league and be able to attend all events. Another would be for field owners to just have one bunker system & format, none of the 50/50 stuff that goes on now. One more would be for the teams to have one format that they can practice and take to any event anytime. I feel these points are truly valid. Con’s being that I do not believe that there will be one format that will truly make every single tournament paintball player happy. For this to happen, all players & teams will have to compromise something. What will that format be? I honestly don’t know at this point, everyone likes so many different things. I like the fact that I can pick & choose what I play or don’t play. In essence, one format would take that away. I’m also not sure that I like the idea of one monster having all the control over players and field owners, that alone could hinder future growth. I’m all about free enterprise. I could be very bias in my answer since I am an owner of the NPPL, but this is much larger than my opinion or any other individual opinion for that matter. We need to have the sport in mind, so there’s lots to think about. Either way, paintball will go on. One thing I do know for sure is that Haters will always Hate no mater what.

JJ @ PPB: Give your sponsors a shout out. Who supports Chicago Legend?

Dennis @ Chicago Legend: Empire Paintball of course!! They’ve been with us from the very beginning, we would not be where we are today without their support. Thank You!! CPX Sports in Joliet IL, our amazing home field. Paul, Mike, & Big Papa are the best!! They’ve always been willing to do whatever it takes to help us succeed, we appreciate their help so much. Thank You!! Check out TAY Products, their new supplement line is second to none in regard to body repair after a workout or a day of paintball. Amazing stuff!! Thanks Pro Paintball, see you at NPPL Las Vegas!!

ProPaintball says: Special thanks to Dennis Olson of Chicago Legend for taking the time to sit down with JJ Roth from Pro Paintball. Chicago Legend is currently ranked #2 in the NPPL Series Championship and we wish the team the best of luck at the Las Vegas season finale. For more information on Chicago Legend, be sure to visit the teams official website at TeamLegend.com.

After the teams disqualification at NPPL DC, ProPaintball insiders speculated that big changes were coming to the teams roster. Last week rumors were stirring that Infamous was releasing anywhere between one and three players. Justin “LJ Schwarz, Marcello Margott, and Bobby Aviles were all named by our sources.

In a ProPaintball interview published last night, Justin “LJ” Schwarz broke the news that he would be joining the Los Angeles Ironmen. In the interview Justin discussed the NPPL DC situation and more.

“…DC was a nightmare! I had a previous suspension from chicago nppl which I thought I had served and apparently I had one more game to serve in DC. I was not warned or told by any of the NPPL officials that the suspension still stood and I had one more game to sit out. If I would have been aware I definitely would have sat and not tried to “sneak” on a game like most of the paintball community thinks I did. I feel very bad for not double checking and the DC loss is definitely my fault for Infamous. I am very sorry to all of the fans and sponsors that I let down.”

Justin "LJ" Schwarz parts ways with LA Infamous

ProPaintball insiders suggest that contrary to rumors, Marcello Margott and Bobby Aviles have not been let go. No further details were known at the time of publication.

The plot thickened this morning as rumors circulated that Damian Ryan and Brad McCurley had left Aftershock and joined Infamous for PSP World Cup. Damian and Brad compete with Chicago Aftershock in the PSP Series, and Chicago Legend in the NPPL. It is worth noting that Chicago Legend took first place at the recent NPPL DC Challenge after Damian beat Arsenal’s Justin Rabackoff in a 1 vs 1 competition. ProPaintball caught up with Damian this morning in hopes of clearing the air.

Damian Ryan (back row, center) and Brad McCurley (front row, left) with Chicago Legend after winning NPPL DC

New players on Infamous:
Damian Ryan confirmed with ProPaintball that he and Brad McCurley were leaving their PSP team, Chicago Aftershock, and joining Los Angeles Infamous. Damian wanted to make it clear that they were not leaving Aftershock for personal reasons. Instead, Brad and Damian came into the 2011 season loyal to Chicago Legend, an Empire Paintball team, and after the NPPL DC win, Empire Paintball made it clear that they did not want their sponsored players competing with a non-Empire team in the PSP. Brad and Damian then joined Los Angeles Infamous and will be making their debut at the PSP World Cup in late October.

The loss of Brad and Damian will may impact Chicago Aftershock as they prepare for the 2011 PSP World Cup. Rumors are circulating that the team will be holding tryouts to fill the two recently vacated spots on Shock. Stay tuned for an official announcement.

Rumors have surfaced indicating that a NPPL pro paintball team and a top PSP semi pro paintball team are set to merge. Read on for the latest pro paintball news and rumors.

NPPL Pro Paintball team Indianapolis Mutiny is rumored to be merging with PSP semi-pro paintball team RNT Allstarz for the upcoming Chicago paintball events. Insiders speculate that if successful, this merger could potentially continue throughout the remainder of the 2010 pro paintball season. Damien Ryan from RNT has been playing with Chicago Legend in the NPPL series and we wonder on which side he will end up. Also, propaintball insiders are curious which guns the players will be shooting at the pro paintball events. Mutiny has been shooting angel paintball guns while Jerry and his RNT Allstarz have been shooting macdev paintball guns (RNT is a macdev factory team).

Pro Paintball teams from across the nation will be battling it out this weekend in Huntington Beach, CA. As this is the season opener, nearly anything can happen. Last year we witnessed several shockers including series leader DC Arsenal losing out to Oakland BLAST in the overall championship and relative new comers San Francisco Explicit winning matches against former Triple Crown Champions San Diego Dynasty.

This year, Vancouver Vendetta and Newport Entourage will be making their pro paintball debut. Throughout the off season, teams like Edmonton Impact, Tampa Bay Damage, San Diego Dynasty, St. Louis Avalanche and Los Angeles Infamous have been stacking their rosters with national champions from years prior. As we go into the first event, everyone here at Pro Paintball is very excited and we are all placing bets as to which teams will be leading the pack.

With all of this in mind, we are proud to open this story for your NPPL HB team predictions. If you are lucky enough to predict the top 4 teams in the pro division we will award you with a prize. Our prizes include T-Shirts from Sly Equipment, San Francisco Explicit and Pro Paintball.com, barrel wraps from Paintball Photography and DLX Technologies, and headbands from PBheadbands.com. 

For extra credit, feel free to share your predictions for divisional paintball teams.

Read on for the official pro paintball team list and be sure to place your top 4 picks in the comments below.

NPPL 2010 Pro Paintball Team list (in alphabetical order):

• San Diego Dynasty

• St. Louis Avalanche

• Oakland Blast

• Chicago Legend

• San Francisco Explicit

• Sacramento XSV

• Indianapolis Mutiny

• Edmonton Impact

• Vancouver Vedetta

• LA Infamous

• Tampa Bay Damage

• Naughty Dogs

• Newport Entourage

If your interested in the players roster-ed for the event, be sure to check out the teams registration information here.

Please note that our predictions will be closed Friday morning at 7am and prizes will be doled at the discretion of our moderators. In order for your entrees to be considered you must enter a valid email. Offer valid while supplies last.

Good luck!

Today marked the opening of the PRO division in Aldie, VA, for the USPL DC Challenge event. With the West Coast Open being only four weeks prior to this event, the question of whether or not this event would take place was floating regularly in the chatbox. The event is in play, the weather is overcast with high humidity and the crowed’s are looking thin on this Saturday morning.

Update: Just added an article on Indianapolis Mutiny

With the morning underway, who do you think will come out on top today? Stay tuned right here to Pro Paintball dot Com to find out.

Saturday Scores:

Bracket #1

• Dynasty takes a win over the Dogs strongly with 5 alive
• Phoenix United beats Infamous with 2 up, Glenn Takemoto racking up a 1-for-1
• Impact squeeks by and beat Tampa Bay Damage with 3 alive
• DC Arsenal with 5 bodies up over Chicago Legend, JRab motors up the field with 4 kills
• Naughty Dogs take a solid win over Phoenix United only dropping 2 players
• Damage drops a game to Dynasty who now sits at 4-0
• Infamous tally’s another win up over Chicago Legend
• Archie loses a 1-on-3 to Impact, placing their record now at 5-1
• DC Arsenal crushes Infamous as Oliver lands a 3-kill run through, now sitting undefeated at 6-0
• Dynasty loses 4 off-the-break to Arsenal, leaving DC finishing 7-0 and SD 5-2 for the day

Bracket #2

• Oakland Blast leading the bracket along with Sacramento XSV, both currently at 5-1 only losing to eachther
• Mutiny sitting in at 3-3, losing to two of the top teams last event Blast and Avalanche
• St. Louis Avalanche currently 3-2, with Blast and Elevation in their scope to close out the day and advance

Mutiny’s Saturday Wrap-up:

Hello Indianapolis Mutiny fans, we’re updating you live from the NPPL DC Open at Pev’s Paintball. It’s been a hot & humid end-of-summer weekend here in the Virginia swampland; players are dehydrated, paint is bouncing and everyone smells like they need a shower.

We won our first game against XSV thanks to some handy moves from team captains Aaron Tholey and Tommy O’Donnell with a 1-2 snake-dorito combo. Tommy went down the snake side highway to the 50 dorito and bunkered an XSV player on our side of the snake shortly after Aaron ran down 2 XSV players on the carwash side.

We lost our second game to Scottsdale Elevation in no time. They laned Adam Farej running to the snake; the refs then proceeded to pull a 1-for-1, even though no hits could be found anywhere on him. We started on the wrong foot and Elevation did a great job of capitalizing on our mistakes.

We lost our third game to Avalanche who scouted out our game plan and shot a few key players off the break. Once they were up on bodies, it was a battle of attrition. We expected a different game from Avalanche and got caught with our pants down.

We regrouped, changed our game plan and got back out to the field to play Oakland Blast. There isn’t much time between games, so action in the pit has been frantic.

Blast gave us a heavy gunners look, sending both Zack Long and Dave Bains out to the snake side with their guns up. Dave & Zack chopped up our runners and the pressure was on. They laned three of us off of the break. We fought back, but we were too many bodies down when they steam rolled down the field.

After the Blast loss we regrouped, got our heads together and prepared to play San Francisco Explicit. We opted for a more conventional game plan that kept our players alive off the break and both teams settled in for a gun fight.

Explicit were the first to take the car wash, but Tholey bunkered Explicit’s carwash to give us a much needed boost during the mid-game lull. We mopped up behind Tholey to keep ourselves in contention.

Our last game of the day was against X-Factor, who were already eliminated from Sunday. We expected an unexpected game against X-Factor, which is exactly what we got.

Both teams broke out aggressively and made it out of the gate with all 7 players alive. X-Factor pushed heavily up the carwash side, sending three players that way.

Dusty Odell in the carwash shot Adam Geis off the snake side before we realized he was into the 50. Smelling blood, X-Factor began pushing up the snake side  almost simultaneously.

Suddenly, bodies started dropping everywhere on the field. X-Factor sent three runners up the middle who were all shot out but took one of us with them. We traded a few more bodies back and forth until it came down to a 3-on-2, with Shane in the center stand-up, Tommy in the back center and Andy in the snake-side corner on our side.

Tommy got shot trying to make a move to bunker out the X-Factor player at the stand up next to the 50, leaving Shane and Andy in a 2-on-2. The X-Factor player moved from the stand up into our brick where Shane picked him up and gunned him down. Andy and Shane worked out the last guy to take us into Sunday as the 8th seed.

We’ve got a big quarter-final day tomorrow, stay tuned for more updates.

Thanks for all the support!

-Indianapolis Mutiny

Readers; Who do you predict will win this event?! Leave your comments below!

It was a long drawn out, fly infested weekend many of us have grown to be familiar with through many seasons at SC Village. Paintball photographers Kyle Johnson and Matt Dawson took to the field with their man soda at 7:30am Friday morning and proceeded to finish out the weekend Sunday evening incredibly dehydrated and with leather necks they had not had just days prior.

Kyle’s gallery below presents many of the emotional moments of the hard fought weekend that is stop 2 for the USPL this season. Next stop, DC Challenge.

[Show as slideshow]

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Live paintball news and scores from the USPL West Coast Open for Friday, July 24th, 2009.

Game Updates:

Game 1: OC Bushwackers win against Chicago Legend

Game 2: Edmonton Impact runs through SF Explicit

Game 3: Sacramento XSV loses to Oakland BLAST. Blast closed the game with 6 bodies alive. Ouch!

Game 4: San Diego Dynasty blows out Indianapolis Mutiny in 40 seconds.

Game 5: Impact defeats the OC Bushwackers.

Game 6: Blast beats Legend with 5 bodies alive

Game 7: Blast beat Impact and goes 3-0. Oakland is on a roll!

Game 8: Sacramento XSV beats Impact.

Game 9: BLAST goes 4-0 taking out Mutiny.

Game 10: After a close game, Explicit drops the game to the Bushwackers.

Read on for the latest rumors and gossip from the field.

Josh Davey from Edmonton Impact is missing in action.

San Francisco Explicit is starting the event with 6 guys instead of 7 due to a penalty had by Jesse Lapid at the Huntington Beach event.

Stoned Assassins are a man down. Word has it they were looking for a 7th man early, hope they found someone!

Today is sure to be a hot one and players and fans will need to keep hydrated and stay out of the sun. For those of you reading, try Pedialyte – its straight electrolytes  and works extremely fast. The private label stuff available at your local pharmacy works just as well as the name brand. DRINK UP!

Chicago Legend

Players:

Clifford Ginter

Richard Guidry

Cody Mickowski

Dennis Olson

Damian Ryan

James Whiting

Josh Whiting

Missing Kevin Rugaard

Staff:

Gregory Guidry

Christopher Olson

Jon Mannall