Members of a local paintball team are looking at joining a professional paintball league.
Some have also expressed interest in joining another amateur league that would specialize in “woodsball,” a primarily outdoor-style of paintball.
They're members of the Primus Knights, a paintball team with members from Olds, Innisfail, Didsbury, Carstairs and other nearby communities.
Co-captain and co-founder Daniel Harcus says some of the team's 12 members plan to join the Canadian Professional Paintball League (CPPL).
Others aren't anxious to do that, but are interested in joining a woodsball league, which people also hope to set up over the winter.
Team members hope to join both leagues next May when the season gets going.
Paintball is a game/recreational activity whereby participants dress up in camouflage outfits and try to hit each other with shots from paintball guns.
There are basically two kinds of paintball.
In speedball, participants battle each other in buildings or open spaces, taking advantage of obstacles or bunkers for cover.
In woodsball, participants battle each other in natural places like forests. It's a more tactical game where participants try to sneak up on each other.
Harcus says there are professional paintball leagues in the U.S., Europe and Russia. Professional world paintball champions include a team from Edmonton.
“Paintball is a huge thing down in the States and over in Europe and it's only starting to get bigger here in Canada,” Harcus says. “(It's) a slower market but it's definitely growing.”
Harcus says professional paintball is like professional soccer. You have to start out in the lower rungs and work your way up to the top rung. The Knights will have to start out in the fourth division.
The CPPL is owned by an Albertan who owns paintball facilities in the province.
Eight different events in Alberta are held, basically in Edmonton and Bragg Creek, attracting participants from as far away as B.C. and Ontario.
Harcus says as far as he knows, the only teams that make money in professional paintball are those who win events in Division 1 and the international league.
“We're just doing it for the love of the sport. We're not in it to make money at the moment,” Harcus says.
He says they want to enter the pro level for the higher quality of competition.
Also, it's a different style than they've been playing, which has mainly been a woodsball style.
“The play that we're going into is straight speedball, so you're in a set area with a certain number of obstacles or bunkers that are spaced specifically throughout and each side of the field is a mirror image of the other,” he says. “The aim of five-man speedball is to eliminate your opponent, take the flag and hang it in their end.”
The Knights can have an active roster of seven people on their team, five on the field at any one time.
In total, there are 12 members of the Knights. Some of those who don't want to join the professional league have expressed interest in joining the proposed Alberta Woodsball League, which is expected to get underway this spring.
Some Knights will be in both leagues at once, Harcus notes.
Getting the woodsball league running is going to be a challenge, Harcus says.
“We're not sure how we're going to go about getting it up and running and how we're going to go about getting teams, but we'll be figuring that out in the new year,” he says.
