Yes… end of an era.

Bye bye paintball. There’s no turning back now because my beautiful red Ton Ton Shocker is…

SOLD!

Okay… I’d only sell my Ton Ton for this price for a few people I know. The few people – close friends. And our little friend Ryan (14) was the right person to trust who’d take care of my ‘baby’. He’d also have two Shocker Geeks to watch over every little detail ready to ‘tech’ the gun at moments notice… Dale and Dean. I saw Dean at Dale’s birthday dinner. I go, “what’s up?” He replied with, “I’m not going to talk to you, I’m just going to give you bad looks.” He couldn’t believe I was quitting paintball.

Quitting hockey was hard. Really hard. Quitting paintball was not so hard. No regrets, no remorse, no denial. I still have hockey gear in the garage that I can sell but am keeping ‘just in case’. I loved my Ton Ton Shocker. It was awesome. We shot many players together.

In one memorable moment Dale and I were dealing with a guy who was snap shooting at us. Popping his head in different places and taking a shot. He was doing the right thing. His one mistake – timing. There’s a pattern to everything. And there was a pattern forming here. I picked my spot and right before he popped up I shot two shots. I nailed him right on his goggles as he came up to shoot. It was an amazing shot. The ref gave off an “OHHHH!” And in the middle of battle, Dale and I were cracking up. Oh the good old days…

So it sold. My beautiful Red Ton Ton Shocker that I paid $1100 for back in January 05.

The deal went to good old (or young) Ryan…

What did he get? My Red Ton Ton Shocker (originally $1100), a Freak Kit (originally $100) with all the inserts, two paintball jerseys (originally $20 each), a harness and five pods (originally $30), a throat protector (originally $10), a WGP tank (originally $210) and a Stiffe barrel (originally $70)…

What did I get in return?

A check for $760 + two $150 Clipper Tickets and as Ryan says – Free Food at the Clipper Game with his food “hook-up”. See, Ryan works as a towel boy for the Clipps. What an awesome job. Great kid, a great up and coming paintball player with a great dad that takes him to the field every Sunday to hang with us old guys.

So its gone. I officially do not have a 30 bps marker.

One thing I’ll miss from Paintball is those times in between games when Dean makes us laugh as we kick back under the tent. I’ll miss seeing Steve run up in front of me paving the path for me to fill in. I’ll miss seeing Ryan hanging back and yelling at me about who he sees and who he shot. I’ll miss wondering where the quiet Chip is on the field and realizing he’s filling in just like he’s supposed to. I’ll miss Dale telling me where to go and what to do in the heat of battle. I’ll miss wondering whether Sang will show or not. And I’ll miss running through the sidelines in speedball and wiping up the other team.

But I won’t miss those Sunday’s where I have to ‘gear up’. Or the cost of Paintball cases. Or cleaning my gear. Or cleaning my marker. Or leaving the kids on a Sunday for five or more hours. Or the welts, the dirt, the grime, the stupid refs and stupid players. Or even Dale shooting me as he’s shot me more than anyone else has on the team. (I got him back once shooting him in the back of the head by accident during a speedball game. Yikes.)

I won’t miss the yelling and my aggressive behavior either. I’ve done tons of yelling at stupid players and almost got into one fight with one on the field. He’s the one who charged me. It would have been fun to take the guy down but stupid at the same time. I doubt I’ll ever have a confrontation while racing in a Triathlon. At least I hope I don’t. And that’s good.

Dale is a pretty non-aggressive guy. He’s not confrontational at all. So another thing I’ll miss is Dale getting into all these arguments with refs and other players. One, because its funny to see him get all mad at someone. Two, if he gets into a fight at least its not my fault and it’ll give me an excuse to get a couple of punches in to protect my best friend. LOL.

Two things I regret not doing in Paintball…

One, winning a big money tournament. Two, shooting “Roger the Ref” a couple of times ‘by accident.’

So that’s an end of an era… That is until Jake is ready to play. Well, I guess I can just have Uncle Dale take him since Dale expects to play this game as an old man. I can see it now - Dale shooting ropes as Jake runs down as far as he can and Dale saying, “You’re just like your dad. He liked running down the middle and getting shot at.” Until then it’ll just be Jake and me playing paintball on the XBox.

And that, as they say is, that.

Anyone want to buy my Blue Nasty Impulse???