David Whalen
On Oct. 29, representatives from Ottawa’s paintball community gave a $4,000 cheque to 21-year-old Ashley Roos at a press conference at City Hall.
In May, while waiting for a bus in Orleans, Roos was struck in her left eye by a paintball shot from a passing car. In the last six months, Roos has had two operations on her eye, but has not regained vision on her left side and there are no guarantees she ever will.
The injuries forced Roos, an aspiring teacher, to leave studies at Carleton and the University of Ottawa as well as her job. The money from the paintball industry will go towards her return to school in January.
The donation is laudable for two reasons.
First and most importantly, it helps Roos restore a sense of regularity to her life.
Second, it helps the industry cleanse any lingering negative associations the public might have between the incident and the sport.
That said, it’s important to remember the attack didn’t have one thing to do with sports.
Die-hard adherents of alternative sports tend to be a certain kind of people.
Generally, they are put off by the organization of mainstream team and individual sports. They crave an opportunity to get outside this structure and to come together with people of like mind. A paintball field is often one of the places where this happens.
Occasionally, like in any other sphere, some of these people happen to be dimwits.
However, the two people charged in the Roos attack, a 20-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl, have no more to do with the sport of paintball than the chap who uses a composite stick to resolve a domestic dispute has to do with hockey.
When used appropriately, paintball guns are part of a safe sport.
Ideally and usually, paintball is played in isolated areas with participants decked out in safety equipment – the most important being eye goggles and helmets. Getting hit with paintballs usually stings, but the pain doesn’t linger.
Unfortunately, that isn’t the case for Roos.
Much to their credit, the Roos family has pointed out that, when used properly, paintball guns form part of a perfectly safe pastime. Roos’ 14-year-old brother even plays the sport regularly.
“I have no problem with the legitimate use of paintball guns,” Roos’ father Steve told The Orleans Star in November.
“If paintball guns are used well then it’s a wonderful recreational activity.”
Roos likely won’t be the last bystander struck by a paintball. Indeed, Ottawa is rife with incidents of homes and cars splattered by vandals. The question is: Should the paintball industry pay for the damage done by these incidents? The answer is no.
Paintball, like all other alternative sports, should instead continue to work towards increasing its public profile.
Look what years of positive publicity – not the least of which were all those Tony Hawk videogames – did for skateboarding. Once the realm of disenfranchised youth, skateboarding became mainstream.
While there’s no guarantee the number of paintball attacks will go down, the public’s knowledge and acceptance of the activity as a sport will go up. More importantly, the public will recognize the difference between sport and acts of idiocy.