67
ed and shaped the direction of the of game paintball. From amazing
ng streaks, to the foundation of the game itself - paintball is a unique
ory. in this column we’ll bring you a few stories of who, how and why
magazine was rotated, supplying another tube of paintballs to the shooter.
By the end of the road for the Rapide,
over 75,000 were sold, making the
Splatmaster and the Rapide two of the
earliest key inventions in the foundation of paintball.
Tom Cottrill, who worked with Bob
Gurnsey from the beginning, said, “I
remember the beginning of others in
the marketplace, meaning competition.
But we all decided this was actually a
good thing; it would help make the pie
bigger and it was up to us to maintain
our position in the new industry. Competition meant the industry was here to
stay. We eventually manufactured over
100,000 Splatmasters.”
The 1990s saw the end of national-level tournaments at Skirmish and a shift
towards large games that were geared
more to the recreational player base.
The most successful of Skirmish’s big
games was the event they dubbed “The
World Record Game,” which in its day
was far and away the largest paintball
game ever with 2,063 players in attendance that July 25-26 weekend in
1992. Although they fell a bit short of
their advertised goal of 2,500 players,
the Skirmish World Record Game was
trend-setting as it paved the way for
even bigger games around the world in
later years.
July 25-26, 1992: Skirmish
World Record Game
Skirmish USA, located in the east end
of Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains
is one of the oldest, biggest, best and
well-known paintball fields in the world.
Although Skirmish is mostly known as a
paintball field that caters to new players, corporate outings, groups and other less hardcore types, it still has a rich
history in the tournament world, scenario games and in doing things first.
Skirmish was once home to the huge
annual Paintcheck Five-Man tournament and before that the 15-Man North
American Championships.
WWW.PAINTBALLX3.COM