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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
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