For love of the game

Posted by admin on Feb 17, 2009 in Community | 0 comments

Kevin Stuerle, a third-year Business major, spends his weekends playing paintball as part of the top paintball team in Western Canada. Stuerle plays in Division One, which is Canada’s top amateur division – just one step below the pro league. “But there’s no pro league in Canada,” he said. “So basically we’re the top team in Canada.”

Kevin has not always been a confident paintball player. He played his first game of paintball when he was 12 years old. “I was scared out of my mind [about getting hit]” he said. Halfway through the event, one of the boys twisted his ankle and loaned Kevin his protective vest. “I wasn’t scared to get hit anymore, so I ran down and started shooting everyone,” he said. “I fell in love.”

Even though Kevin loved playing paintball, he didn’t get his first paintball gun until he was 16. “I had been begging [my parents] for four years to let me get one, but they just weren’t okay with it,” Kevin explained. Finally, for Christmas that year his parents gave him a sheet of paper that said, “You are allowed to use your own money to buy a paintball gun.”

A year later, he started playing in competitive tournaments. “So, it has been about three years of competitive tournaments,” he said.

Kevin thinks that most people have the wrong impression of professional paintball players. “Most people think we play in the bush, with camo gear and walkie talkies, and that we do all the funny hand signals and stuff,” he said. “But that’s totally not what we do. We play on a grass field with big, inflatable bunkers.”

Far from being camouflage, Kevin’s paintball uniforms have bright colors to help sponsor’s logos stand out. His team has sponsors ranging from energy drinks, his dad’s video company, a mechanic shop and the top paintball gun manufacturer in England.

Kevin considers the possibility of becoming a professional paintball player, but only in his spare time. “It’s definitely not a high paying career,” he said. “Most pro paintballers have jobs within the industry or have other jobs outside of the industry, but very few live off of their own sponsorships.

To Kevin, paintball has more depth than it seems. “It takes a lot of skill and teamwork to organize a game plan and to execute it,” he explained. “It’s not just like going out there and shooting your guns and stuff. From a sport aspect it builds a lot of camaraderie and teamwork.”