TOURNAMENT

Several years of pitching professional paintball tournaments to movers and shakers in the television industry has resulted in the 2006 Smart Parts World Paintball Championships.

As owner of the two-time world championship X-Ball team, the Philadelphia Americans, Adam Gardner and his brother Bill Gardner, Jr. of Smart Parts were involved with professional level X-Ball format paintball competitions from the very beginning.  In 2004 when the Philly American's world championship game against Detroit Strange was aired on national television, viewer response was immense. The Gardners' goal was to bring the same professional level paintball competition to television again, but to do it bigger and better.

Adam and Billy were not content to sit idly by and wait for another TV deal to come around. Instead they worked with Paintball World Cup founder Jerry Braun and Stan Moger, an independent broker for television productions who is in the business of getting television shows on the air, and brokering the television commercials that will pay the network, and pay the producers of the show.

The Gardners and Braun were holding a business plan for paintball TV series, and the interest of a broker who was ready to take action.  With Moger's assistance, the Gardners and Braun put together a plan for a multi-episode paintball TV series. From this, the All Star Paintball League and the Smart Parts World Paintball Championships were born - a new tournament under a new league, consisting of teams who wanted to play in a revolutionary television project.

Teams played paintball in the X-Ball game format. The team pairings for the preliminary round were designed to pit teams of comparable skill and experience levels against one another. For tournament ranking, a preliminary round win was worth two points, a loss in overtime was worth one point, and a loss in regulation time was worth zero points.

The top four teams advanced to the semifinal round. The losing teams from the semifinal round played each other in the final round to determine third and fourth place. The winning teams from the semifinal round played each other in the final round to determine first and second place.

Using a game clock similar to more traditional sports, both teams battle to see which can accumulate the most points before time runs out. Five players from each team start at opposing ends of the field, a rectangular swatch of turf that is filled with inflatable obstacles. Their goal is to grab a flag from the center of the field, and run it to the opposing teams starting box, eliminating anyone who is in their way.

Each time a flag is hung, a team scores a point and then reset to their starting positions with a full compliment of players. Team coaches are able to shout and direct their players from the sidelines. Player fouls are dealt with by time spent in the penalty box, during which the team may start the next point with fewer players in their starting box.