Do you miss CQB?
It’s a question I’m asked on a regular basis. The easy and short answer is, yes, I miss CQB. Three years ago I started making and uploading paintball videos on YouTube. In that time my channel has grown to one of the most watched paintball channels online and will soon have the largest subscriber base in the world. A large part of that success is due in no small part to a tiny outdoor field in downtown Toronto and the friends I'd meet.
CQB had the most well thought out layout of a field I've ever seen. At any time enemy could be behind you, above you, or below you. That breeds a situational awareness you won't get on a flat playing field. Besides that the buildings all had a purpose. Too many times I go to fields and their "tactical" field is just a bunch of boxes with one entrance/exit. A box with one door is just that, a box. You go inside something like that and you're trapping yourself. The buildings at CQB could be used to move up on the enemy, or circumvented entirely if you knew enemy were inside.
By now, most people have an idea of what CQB was like. I can think of no other field that inspired so many videos. Seven double-storey buildings, a road running down the middle and carnage throughout. The field itself was remarkable, the gameplay it spawned was legendary, and the people you’d find there were spectacular.
None of my friends were interested in playing paintball, so I started going to CQB on my own. I made new friends on my first day there. I still remember TooTall telling me about the field, the types of people who played there and the kinds of guns people used. I remember seeing VICE for the first time; a badass team wearing hawaiian shirts, standing out from the crowd with both their unique fashion and aggressive playstyle. I wanted to be on that team, I wanted to be worthy of them, to be good enough to wear that shirt.
It was the players that made CQB special. Week after week the same people would show up on Sunday to shoot paint, hang out and have some laughs. It became more than just playing paintball, it was about being a community. It was about making new friends and welcoming new people into this brotherhood that was CQB. Losing the field to weather and circumstance was a tragedy, but its legacy lives on. The bonds made at that field have endured, and the men I called my friends under the netting that covered the field remain my friends today; CQB was a family, and family knows no boundaries.
Seven buildings, a road, a hell of a lot of carnage and a lifetime of memories.