As the weather starts to cool down, it’s the perfect time to play some paintball—a team sport where players shoot paintballs at opponents using markers, all while trying to achieve a specific goal depending on the game mode. In this article, we bring you the history of paintball:
Paintball originated as a hunting game between two friends in the woods of Henniker, New Hampshire (USA), and was called the National Survival Game. At the time, it wasn’t considered a sport, just a game. In 1976, Hayes Noel, a stockbroker, and his friend Charles Gaines, a writer, discussed Gaines’ recent trip to Africa and his buffalo hunting experiences. Inspired by those stories, they came up with the idea of a game where they could simulate stalking and hunting each other.
Over the following months, the friends discussed the skills a good hunter and survivor should have. However, they struggled to find a way to test those abilities. A year and a half later, a new friend showed them a paintball gun from a farm supply catalog. The “gun” was a Nelspot 007 marker made by the Nelson Paint Company (which later became the most important paintball marker manufacturer), originally used by ranchers to mark cattle. Each friend bought one of these markers and had a duel—this became the first-ever paintball match. Gaines won.
Nelspot 007, agricultural marker
After that first game, the friends created the basic rules based on “capture the flag” and started inviting more friends to play. In 1980, an article about the game was published in Sports Illustrated magazine, giving it national visibility and appeal. That’s when the two friends signed a contract with Nelson Paint Company to become the exclusive distributor of its paintball equipment. Following their success in the U.S., they started licensing franchises in other countries, spreading the game worldwide.
1981 Sports Illustrated article about Paintball
Since its beginning, paintball has drawn a large following of occasional and regular players. The Sporting Goods Manufacturer’s Association estimates that around 10 million people play paintball annually in the U.S. alone.
If you want to try this sport for yourself, at OcioAventura Cerro Gordo we provide all the equipment you and your friends need. We have our own field for playing, or we can transport the gear to create a custom field wherever you like. We offer both adult paintball and kids’ paintball.
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