DJ La Tona on Wolfpack and Who Are Those Guys Paintball Teams in the 1980s

[@silly6004]

Oh man, great story. Brings back old times.

[@comrademoon]

what a cool guy, cool to hear the history of the game. Thanks for this

[@neilsummers78]

Good to see this. I played north of DJ from '82 to '85. Our home field was Woodstalk in San Jose. Bill Bowers ran that field. Our team was The Buckaroos. The Buckaroos was started by a group of guys from Atari in Sunnyvale Ca. My Original team was the Boogiemen from Raychem Corp. I left the Boogiemen and joined the Buckaroos in the fall of 1983. We often traveled to tournaments with The Killer Bees. Another very good team in the area was the Screaming Eagles. We went to the NSG national championship twice in '83 and '84. The Buckaroos were the first team at the national level to have a woman on the team. She played in both the '83 and '84 National Championships and all the tourneys that lead up to it. A very good player. It's been a while so I don't remember a lot of names. Unfortunately, we landed in 2nd place both years. Team Canada won in '83 and a team from Atlanta won in '84. I stopped playing in '85... new daddy and all. That was at the same time the (ill conceived) plastic Splatmaster came out. It's nice to hear how things developed since then. Good stuff. I've been back to the field a few times but the game turned into a superior firepower game on much smaller fields and much less of a stealthy, strategic game. ... and I got old. Another little nugget. The Boogiemen were the 1st team to wear face masks and the only team at the national championships wearing them in '84. No more split lips. Bill Bowers found a manufacturer in Europe who made an olive drab moto cross masks and he imported them to sell at his field. .

[@rogerlopez4808]

I played with So. Cal Wolfpack out of SC Village, later out of Jungle Island, the majority of us were from the I.E.

[@claytonwinter374]

I want to know the rage situation with the other guy...

[@somebrains5431]

Burritos after playing. That’s how we know.

[@acccs659]

I remember reading a paintball magazine back in the late 80’s or early 90’s regarding a tournament where a team called “Nazi Death Mercenaries from Hell” had been disqualified for cheating during the tournament by using super absorbent cleaning cloths when getting hit, and having tools to alter the speed of paintballs beyond allowable limits, etc. That article always stuck in my head, anybody know what happened to that team?