posted Apr 17th, 2008 - The Colorado Skydiving League launched its 2008 season last weekend, and the four teams managed to complete two rounds at the Mile High Skydiving Center. The 4-team field included last year's NSL Champion in the Rookie Class, Mayhem, which is coming back in the A Class this year. COSL Director Travis Roth provided the meet report.

Colorado Skydiving League 2008 Meet 1

By Travis Roth

The first COSL meet of the 2008 season was a success and failure at the same time.

Although the typical debriefing system requires participants to talk about the positive first, let's just get the negative out of the way: the weather was not our friend. The COSL got winded out.

On to the positive and the success.

Mayhem returns, but has opted to compete in the A Class this year. They scored 10 and 6 points in the two rounds before the wind came in. However, the 6-pointer is not indicative of the team's flying ability, but instead a bit of camera flying mishap on exit. SkyVenture's Rusty Lewis filled in for Russ Moran, but the rest of the 2007 and 2008 lineup remained intact.

The Replacements, a new team for 2008, earned their name when most of the founding members were replaced by fill-in teammates. Helaine Rumaner, Travis Roth, Lisa Bush and Kevin Chapman were filmed by Brad Cole.

Replacements scored 9 points at the team's first jump ever, just one shy of the Mayhem score. However, the second jump proved it could be just luck, as the next score was a 0 due to confusion after a busted point. Unfortunately, the working time was reduced due to cloud cover, so the team never communicated what needed to be done to restore after an incorrect key. Replacements could still prove to be a solid team in 2008.

Two new Rookie teams, Sounds Good and McLovin, both scored a 0.5 average after only two jumps each. The members of these teams did not even know 12 hours prior to the meet what a point, a random formation or a block was. Glenn Frank, former Perris Katalyst member in 2007, and Charlie Riordan of team Revolution in 2007, acted as informal player coaches and brought the new competitors up to speed.

USAF Academy cadets, who were jumping as civilians, rounded out the lineups: Michael Dobbs, Steve Elliott, Ryan White, Austin Baker, Jordan Craft and Allen Dunn. Another Revolution member of 2007, Ben Worrall, flew the camera slot for both teams on back to back loads. He became the the "Sounds Good, McLovin guy" last weekend.

The Colorado Skydiving League is looking forward to future meets with all the new blood in the league.