PaintballX3 Magazine October 2014 | Page 87

87 ed and shaped the direction of the of game paintball. From amazing ng streaks, to the foundation of the game itself - paintball is a unique ory. in this column we’ll bring you a few stories of who, how and why of paintball to one of the most despised. Sneaking into the woods adjacent to one of the World Cup’s ten-man fields, he shot at numerous members of Ground Zero Gold as they played against Avalanche. Salm was caught red-handed, suspended from the ’Cup and from an entire year of professional tournament play, and his team was stripped of its scores and removed from the event. He was dropped by his sponsors and fired from his job at Warped Sportz. dragged Salm out of the woods at that World Cup. We can only imagine what it felt like for him. We should also note that Jeremy is still in paintball and has been a model citizen for 12 years. The industry, its players and fans have moved on from this but it still is history. When asked by one of our reporters why he did it, Salm replied, “While playing the five-man [part of the event], I noticed the possibility of pulling something like that off, but then never thought more of it. It was literally a last second thing, and I really don’t know why I did it. There was really no need to do it. It was true that I was in pain because I had broken my hand; maybe the painkillers clouded my judgment. However, I’m not going to use that as an excuse. It was more of a last second decision, and I have no idea what caused me to do it.” Decent people do indecent things sometimes. That’s simply the way it is. Since the incident, Salm was hired by Renick Miller, owner of Chicago Aftershock to coach and run his team. It’s been 12 years since Mr. “U” literally WWW.PAINTBALLX3.COM