Black Friday Mark the Start of the 2012 Season

Tippinators Have Fun at Season Opener


The Tippinators came out in force to the event that many players consider to be the unofficial opening of the Atlantic Canadian paintball season, Black Friday. The Event was held on Friday April 6th, 2012 at Mersey Road Paintball in East River Nova Scotia. The Tippinators like many other ballers in Atlantic Canada descended on Mersey Road ready to shoot some paint and have some fun.

Black Friday is a special kind of event where after a winter of being able to only play the occasional game of indoor reball, the Tipps plus legions of woodsballers, and speedballers, gather for a day of fun before players gravitate back to their preferred style of play.


Black Friday is a non competitive event. ‘Event’ may be to strong a word. Black Friday is a one of a kind paintball gathering. It is a gathering where players of any skill level and experience can play together, and against each other, as long as the players only want to have fun.

Another aspect of Black Friday that makes the game special is there are no landmarks to be taken, no points awarded, no commanders yelling orders, and no winners announced at the end of the day. The Tippinators head out onto the field, hook up with whomever they come across and start playing.

The game was immediate respawn broken into 90 minute halves. The teams switched ends of the field at the lunch break. The non stop game made for non stop action all over the field. There were ghillie suits next to colourful speedball jerseys, high end electros playing side by side with pump guns.


The Tippinators like many other players come out to Black Friday to bang the rust off skills that lay dormant over the winter. The Tipps also use the Black Friday game an opportunity to renew relationships with players that haven't been seen since the previous fall.

At the end of the day Tippinators were tired but smiling. The team enjoys any day they can run around the field, shot paint, get hit and come back for more with no other objective in mind other than to have fun.

The team was ready to pack up but not before a prize draw the team had organized to give away equipment and apparel generously donated by Tippmann Sports (www.Tippmann.com), PBL Action Sports (www.BuyPbl.com), and Vforce (www.dxspaintball.com).

"I love Black Friday" said Johnston, "It is the one event where the only goal is to shoot some paint and have some fun."

In many areas paintball participation has been in decline. The exact opposite is true for paintball in Atlantic Canada. The official attendance of nearly 300 makes Mersey Road’s Black Friday the most successful annual event in Eastern Canada.

The high attendance at Black Friday, the continued growth and expansion of the Atlantic Tactical Woodsball League (ATWL), and the Atlantic Division of the Canadian Xtreme Paintball League (CXBL), proves that paintball in the region is as strong as ever.

Black Friday once again showed how both woodsballers and speedballers, can come together in the spirit of the game, and play for fun. If Black Friday is any indication of what is in store for the remainder of the 2012 paintball season will be one to remember.