BRACEBRIDGE – Spurred by a trial run at Santa’s Village, the owner of a local paintball club is hoping to bring the emerging sport of the paintball biathlon into Muskoka.
Back Country Paintball owner Tony Armstrong said the sport, which replaces the rifles of traditional biathlons with paintball guns, has the potential to grow into a popular winter activity for both youth and Muskoka’s winter tourism industry. To test the waters for the sport, Armstrong launched a promotional event at the Santa’s Village Santafest event in late December, where over 100 visitors had the chance to test their marksmanship skills.
“We’re just kind of dabbling with it to see how it’s going to work out,” he said. “We’re still sort of at the starting level and we’re still trying to grow it … I’m hoping to hook up with a Nordic skiing facility, which will say ‘we do skiing, you do shooting, we should combine and do an event.’”
Although there wasn’t enough snow during Santafest to facilitate a skiing experience, Armstrong said the sport has already garnered interest among some in the community. So far, he said a few Nordic skiing groups, a teacher at Huntsville High School and a local cadet corps have indicated interest in growing the sport.
“The skill is in getting your heart rate up to speed, then slowing down so you can shoot, and then getting it back up to speed again,” he said. “There’s quite a bit of skill involved.”
Armstrong said he was inspired to test the sport in Muskoka after seeing YouTube videos of paintball biathlon events in the United States.
“It just got me so excited that I wanted to go cross-country skiing again, and I haven’t skied in years,” he said.
Compared to traditional biathlons, Armstrong says paintball biathlons have lower start-up costs and involve much less red tape for participants, making them more accessible to a wider range of age groups and potential consumers.
“I did talk to a couple of fellows in Parry Sound who said to get into (traditional biathlons) it’s quite expensive — the guns are thousands of dollars and you have to get a special licence to carry them,” he said.
Armstrong is also hoping local tourism groups will take notice of the sport’s potential, which he says “fits perfectly” into recent efforts to market Muskoka as a year-round tourism destination.
“I’d like to make paintball more of a year-round sport,” he said. “It’s just another opportunity for the youth in our community to be involved in another sport.”
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