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| Paintball is all the fun of battle without the pain and suffering! There is a special kind of comradeship that forms under fire and although paintball is no match for the real thing… it comes pretty close. Teamwork, sacrifice, stealth, cunning and comedy...it's all part of the game. It is great that you can battle the enemy with your friends… and if they get shot... you know your going to see them alive again in less than a hour. War is Hell! Paintball is Heck! by James Botaitis |
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Picture Gallery
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Unknown Rebels I
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| Paintball started for me in London Ontario in 1982. My friends and I caught an newspaper article about this new business venture called “Paintball” started locally by a out of work Ford worker by the name of Steve Ingles. A guy we would later love to hate. I believe for $25 dollars you got a unmodified Nelspot 007, 3 tubes of paint, 2 or 3 CO2 powerlettes, a set of ¢99 variety saftey glasses, and a can of pop and a couple of hot dogs at lunch. Oh yah… and all the paint thinner and rags you needed to get the paint off as it was cow marking oil paint (in metal tubes with screw top lids) back then. My best friends Gord and Jim and I also did double duty as referees for Steve back to help pay for our addiction. Absolutely great times and great people…well… except for Steve. Steve had, I believe, the only National Survival Game (NSG) designated field in Ontario at the time and because of that… we got invited to the first North American Championship in New Hampshire in 1983. We quickly formed a team of 15 or so people… I ended up not going at the last minute because Steve was basically a jerk. I had to buy a Nelspot from him to “qualify” to go and he wanted double book value for a rusted piece of sh*t he wouldn’t even use as a rental gun! So I told him to fu*k himself of course. But my friends won and People Magazine hailed the Canadians as the first world champions. On the bus ride down the boys came up with the team name The Unknown Rebels. We were also the first to modify guns that year. While everyone else was playing with stock Nelspots…rolling their guns back n forth to get a paint pellet to fall into the chamber.. we put corks in the top ammo compartment to stop pellets right on top of the chamber. We also looked over the rules.. and not seeing anything against.. we made 2 and 3 and 4 inch long bolts to replace the stock bolt on a Nelspot. Basically we could crank out the rounds a whole lot faster. Anyhow.. the competition never had a chance with those two modifications. continued --> ___ ( tournaments / claims to fame / fun times in Huston ) |
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