Challenge, exercise, tension release
offered by paint-pellet shooting game

~ Page Mé August 15, 1990. This Week

‘FEATURE

By JENNIFER BLYTH
Special to This Week

“Personally, I have never
hunted an animal. But Ihaveno
trouble hunting people.”

It sounds like something a
character might say in Richard
Connell’s the Most Dangerous
Game, a short story about a
hunter who becomes the prey of
another man.

Actually, the words are spoken
by Norm Trotter, owner of
Victoria's own paintball survival
company, Gotcha Games.

On any Sunday, men and
women in camouflage venture
out to the wilds of Metchosin to
wreak havoc with their fellow
man in the thick underbrush
and hills.

But it’s just a game, right?

Yes, says Trotter. The
company’s clientele are not sol-
diers practising their trade on
the weekends, he says, but
businessmen, lawyers and ac-
countants who need a good
stress-release activity. The
game offers challenge, exercise
and tension release.

At the end, these soldiers for a
Sunday are physically drained
and have worked out any ag-
gressions they started with.

“The best time of the day is
when everything’s done. The
stories start flying.”

Trotter first heard about the
game when he was living in Ed-
monton. After trying unsuccess-
fully for some time to get
involved in the game, he decided
to move out here and form his
own. After running Gotcha
Games for six years, he bought
out the competition last
January.

Paintball was first developed
by Charles Gaines in California
about a decade ago. The man,
better known for his book
Pumping Iron, apparently was
discussing whether city boys or
country boys had better sur-
vival instincts. From here he
and some others used special

_ gunsused for marking trees and

cows to decide the answer.
Whether they discovered the
answer to that age-old question
of the city ant versus his country
cousin remains to be seen. But
what they did discover was a
huge market for survival games

READY FOR BATILE, this paint-ball warrior checks that all is

clear before he enters the game zone.

- a market which Trotter says
nearly doubles every year and during lunch break, members of
has seen its largest spurt most

recently:

While in the neutral zone

that growing market emphasize
the harmlessness of their pas-

AIM! FIRE! Its all in fun but soldiers in the paint-ball game are
still careful to check and clean their weaponry.

time. The army is crazy allthe _ Indeed, the male military rep-&
time, but paintballers are only resent only a portion of Gotcha
crazy on the weekends - and Games clientele. About 10 perg

they can't be killed. Continued on Page 7

This Week

An Island Publishers Newsmagazine

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