Casile said he found DPUSA when he stumbled upon the Facebook group looking for a deaf community to join . Eboli has hosted at least three Deaf Player Rec days per year at fields such as Skirmish USA , Pinnacle Paintball , and others in the Northeast since to bring out members of the hearing-impaired community , and get them involved in the sport . Events like this are now springing up in Florida and California as well .
“ We had about 25 members show up coming from Pennsylvania , New Jersey , New York , Maryland , and Virginia ,” Casile said . “ Somehow I brought up the Xball leagues . There were interests to join , that ’ s how and when Ascension was born .”
When the team registered with EPL , their referees had a challenge . Since no clock is used for a timer , they had to make some adjustments and accommodations .
“ EPL referees use a hand or flag system ,” Casile said . “ Referees raise their hand / flag up indicates that the start is near . If the referee ’ s hand / flag is down , we know we need to be at the gate .”
Another referee is then positioned kneeling near the team to make them aware of the 10-second countdown , and lays down like the NXL at the horn to signal game start .
“ Other referees with hand / flag standing on all side corners , where our team is at start , drops down knowing game starts as the team goes on break ,” he continued . “ When an emergency occurs , or [ there is a ] need to stop , they wave their flags and alert us to stay at our position and stop firing .” the players shoulder , and hand signals to indicate play-on or elimination .
“ When I joined the EPL Gunfighters 1v1 , surprisingly they had a referee who knew sign language and happened to naturally accommodate my needs for starting out the gate and so-forth ,” he said . “ Back in my day , we had to visually luck out by seeing the opposition to start moving out the gate to their breaks early , then we would follow .”
EPL is not Casile ’ s first run with tournament ball . Casile said he first played ball in 1989 while he was in college , and had a team together back in the 1990s .
During his time at Rochester Institute of Technology , Casile attended an icebreaker event for his dorm and caught the bug . Shortly thereafter , he put together a squad called No Fear , No Hear , and with a collection of rentals , PMI markers and steel tanks , Casile and his buddies started playing local tournaments .
“ APPA and such was not a necessity at that time ,” Casile said . “ We had fun and fared better than we thought we would . Then , we tried again , [ and ] miraculously won .”
College courses , money , and life in general got in the way , he said . And as happens with so many teams , they disbanded as graduation approached , went back to their respective states , then life went on .
But Casile never could escape the itch .
After college , he played some PSP events , and then a few NXL majors . And then after the 2020 Covid-era , he landed at EPL .
Hit checks are done by approach , a tap to
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