What is paintball?
Paintball is an adult version of the children’s game “Capture the Flag”. It involves both the physical exertion of moving over various terrain and the mental activity of developing strategies. The object is to capture the opposing team’s flag and bring it back to your team’s home base. While you are trying to capture the flag, you are also trying to eliminate opposing players by tagging them with a gelatin capsule filled with water-soluble paint expelled from a special air gun called a “paint gun”. When players are hit and marked, they are out for the remainder of the game and have to wait until the next one starts. Most games are timed and last between 15-30 minutes. Most games are played on commercial fields and are refereed to keep the game fair and controlled.
There’s a long list of different paintball games, but they all have a few things in common. They’re all so much fun, they’re addictive and they’re all an adrenaline rush. It can be compared to a more challenging, high-stakes game of tag, hide-and-seek, or capture the flag and there are endless variations on how the games can be played. Of course, you’re “tagging” people with a marker (paintball gun) that shoots paintballs (just like giant vitamin E tablets with washable/edible poster paint in them). At a park they’ll have refs that explain the rules so you don’t need to figure it out yourself unless you want to.
–Paintball is the world’s fastest growing action sport and the third largest extreme sport in the world, played by over ten million participants per year in the United States since its creation in 1981 in the woods of New Hampshire. Several people, from all walks of life, were led into the woods by Bob Gurnsey, Charles Gaines and Hayes Noel to settle a bet, with air-powered marking pistols firing balls of paint used to tag other players and eliminate them from the game. A combination of “capture the flag,” “hide-and-seek” and “cowboys-and-Indians,” players on paintball teams of today use high tech airguns to fire non-toxic, biodegradable, water-based, totally-washable paintballs at one another in order to eliminate them from the game, while trying to capture one-another’s flag.Games are played in the woods or on open, spectator-friendly courses called “speedball” fields, populated by large “bunkers” that block players from incoming paintballs. Games are supervised by trained referees
In 15 short years, the sport of paintball has become recognized as one of the world’s most exciting outdoor participation sports. Paintball is played in over 40 countries by millions of men and women of all ages and lifestyles. Whether homemakers or high-school students, professionals or retirees, all paintball players share in common a love for adventure and a strong competitive spirit. Capture the Flag Paintball is a combination of the childhood games “tag” and “hide & seek,” but is much more challenging and sophisticated. Although there are many different game formats, typically a group of players will divide into two teams to play “capture the flag.” The number of players on each team can vary from one or two, five or seven or ten, to over 1,000 on a side, limited only by the size of the playing field. The object of the game is to go out and capture the other team’s flag while protecting your own. While you are trying to capture a flag, you also try to eliminate opposing players by
