posted May 8th, 2007 - The New England Skydiving League had a much better start into the 2007 season compared to last year's season opener at the same location in May. Mass Defiance member and NESL Director Brian Stephens mentioned in his meet report that everybody was happy to have much better conditions last weekend:

"We had a great start into the 2007 season. Six teams showed up to compete, a few new ones, and a few that competed in 2006. Last year's meet at Conneticut Parachutists got rained out, so everyone was very happy that the weather co-operated this time."

The Mass Defiance members had a busy meet and gave the event management priority over their own participation. Jim Rees filled open slots for Descending Radical Mass and Vortex, Brian Stephens jumped with A Class team B.T. Eva. Steve "Scuba" Feldman filmed a few teams and was jumping non-stop all day.

Jim Rees and Brian Stephens also helped with coaching for the NESL teams and took care of the event management, together with the host's staff: "It went really well for the first meet of the season, and CPI did a tremendous job working with everyone to make it a successful meet."

The six NESL teams were so fortunate to have two USPA judges with national ratings on site to judge the competition. One of the two judges was USPA's Regional Director for the New England Skydiving League area who is also the chair of the USPA Competition Comittee, Marylou Laughlin.

Some of the NESL teams already set themselves up in competitive positions after the first meet of the 2007 season. Descending Radical Mass is tied in first place of the NSL AA Class Rankings, together with Down 5 and Black Ice of the Arizona Skydiving League, all with an 8.2 average.

CSC Rhythm and Valkyrie B are currently holding the first two spots in the AA Class. However, both teams will not maintain these positions. CSC Rhythm plans to move up into the AAA Class, and Valkyrie B from Great Britain posted the 9.2 average at the World Challenge 2007, the wind tunnel competition at Bodyflight Bedford.

Rookie Class team Mutts has only the Carolina Skydiving League guest team Russian Roulette ranked one position higher. NESL team Bad Karma comes back with the same team name from the NESL 2006 season.

Centerline is a new AAA Class team in the New England Skydiving League and has the Beaudreau brothers Justin (Point) and Corey (Center Inside) in the line-up, together with Brian Smith (Center Outside), Mark Izzo (Tail) and Doreen Darsh (Camera).

Team Centerline is training to compete in the Advanced Class competition at the USPA Nationals 2007 at Skydive Chicago and opened the 2007 season with a 6.8 meet average after six rounds last weekend. The new NESL team is serious about this year's plans and goals, as the mission statement on the team website shows:

"This goal requires a great deal of hard work and an aggressive training plan that includes tunnel time and coaching as well as a goal of making 200 training jumps."

The NESL management is working on the video footage of the meet, and NSL-TV will hopefully feature some of the NESL jumps of last weekend's season opener very soon.