Tournament Day: A Paintballer's Tale

“Three…Two….One… ten seconds”, called the Ultimate Judge.

The cold, watchful eyes of the players cut across the field sharply, cleats dug, clutching into the ground, as their wearers shifted in preparation, with guns jammed to the net as time ticked endlessly away in the minds of those that ultimately knew what was about to be. The first game of the tournament was about to begin. The air was tense, but for the competitors the ten seconds seemed like ten years. Like an explosion, all at once, the buzzer sounded and was drowned scornfully out by a hail of paint whistling through the air and colliding with the giant balloon like bunkers that scattered the field. The sound was of fourteen guns ripping out enough paint to put some of today’s modern firearms to shame. The paint impacted mid air creating clouds of orange mist that dispersed throughout the lanes. Back players, shouting over the intense sound of the shooting, were calling positions of the other team’s front and mid players as they tried desperately to make their primary bunkers. This of course was the same for most tournament teams on any given day, and we were no exception. We all knew what was going through our minds during the breakout, just as we hoped we knew what the other team was thinking as well. We were no longer playing for fun, as friends simply enjoying the sport we love so much. Today, we would play for keeps.

The atmosphere at tournaments was always different, be it on the field or enjoying the venue as a whole. I prefer it hands down over the days when we would run around in the woods and play army, crawling around in insect and thorn laden brush for hours without seeing anyone; pulling off single shots from pump markers. Today, however, was much different. That thought crossed my mind, and I grinned wickedly, as I noted the other team’s last player come from his bunker, his once fleshy pink colored neck covered thickly in orange paint from what must have been a good four balls to the back and left side of his neck, which was a present from one of my mid guys, Dan. The shots had been close, and I noted a trickle of blood slicing a path through the lovingly applied paint as I passed him with the dingy, yellow flag gripped firmly in my gloved hand. I slapped it tauntingly over their start net into the other team’s dead box, just on the other side, ending the game.

After the scorecards were signed and turned in, the team retreated back to the staging area, refilled our pods and hoppers with paint, our tanks with air, and wiped the hits from the previous game, and began to prepare for the next. This was a robotic practice that would occur many times before the day was done. It was not the most pleasant action by any means, but necessary none-the-less, and it gave us time to think about what we did, and didn’t do right the game before, as well as cool down from it all. We all knew, though it would be mere minutes before we took the field again, with all of the players “reincarnated” as if they have never “died” during their previous games with the simple reaffixing of a neoprene armband.

We did indeed take the fields several more times that day, more than most even, winning all but one of our games. We had made it into the finals. The finals always kicked the level of competition up yet again, to another tier of play. Again, we ended up winning the majority of our games; it was to be expected. We had been practicing hard the last couple months, and it showed.

We would come in second, over all, due to some error on the official’s part. There was obvious bias in their calls on numerous occasions, but we knew were we stood, and as we stood on the podium thanking our sponsors, holding our trophies and newly won guns, looking as good as seven guys could after a day of running, sliding, and diving through the mud, all while being shot at with paint. We totaled what we would find to be paint tabs exceeding ten thousand dollars between the twenty or so attending teams.

Bidding farewell to each other, friends, the day’s completion, and promoters alike, our gear packed and stored within our vehicles, we left the field, heading our separate ways until the next time we would meet. We entered another world as we left the field, as always, with an adrenaline high slowly trickling away to reveal aches unknowingly earned, and joining once more with people who seem utterly confused when hearing our answer of, “Paintball Tournament” to their question of “So, what did you do this weekend?” We just grin, knowing who we are, and what we went through, simply content with it all, we were competitive paintball players. This was our life.