[EP18] "The Sport of Paintball & Men's Mental Health"

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Alfred (00:03):
Hey, everyone, and welcome to the Unmodern Podcast,
the podcast where we haveunscripted, unapologetic and
uncomfortable conversations thataffects everyday people.
If you've ever had an outlook,thought or an opinion that
modern day society told you tobe silent on.
That you would get in troublefor, or if you've ever heard the
words probably shouldn't saythat, then this is the podcast

(00:24):
for you.
My name is Alfred, a husband,father, and an adventure seeking
kind of guy who over the yearshas learned to have a positive
outlook on life, regardless ofwhat society throws at me.
So if you're ready to listen,let's go.

(01:02):
All right, Tom, thanks forcoming on the Unmodern podcast,
brother.
How you doing?

Tom (01:07):
Good, Alfred.
Thank you for having me on.

Alfred (01:10):
Yeah, I appreciate you, man.
You're someone I look up to aton.
You're someone that I reallyappreciate a lot of aspects of
what you stand for.
Your age and our, kind of how wediscover each other in
paintball.
Some people may think that's abit strange, but we're
definitely going to dive intothat.
Why it speaks to us and, youknow, how people of your age and
your background can reallygravitate to that sport.

(01:32):
I love your mental healthadvocacy.
That to me is something that weneed more of where I feel like
it's very appropriate and almostserendipitous that we're doing
this in November for Movember.
My stash is lacking heavy, butyeah, I absolutely love that
stuff.
And I want to get into you, man.
I want you to tell your story.
I'm so honored to take your Vcard.
I appreciate you giving me yourpodcast virgin card.

(01:52):
Thank you, sir.
And yeah, I want you to justkind of first introduce yourself
a little bit of background whereyou're from, what you do, and
then we'll start with paintballand then we'll get into mental
health advocacy and thenanything else you want to dive
into, man.
Floor's yours, brother.

Tom (02:05):
All right.
Well, I mean, obviously, youknow, me through, through
paintball, but my name's TomTaylor and 47 years old, or
we're going to be 47 here in acouple months, but yeah, just
grew up in a, in a small ruralcommunity town called standard
about an hour east of Calgary.
And yeah, grew up playing, youknow, the usual sports that most
Alberta.

(02:25):
Real kids do.
It was hockey all, all the timeand nothing but, and dabbled a
little bit in golf when I was inmy, in my teens and, and yeah,
once the, once the minor hockeyand the, and the junior hockey
aspirations ended, I, I, youknow, dove headfirst into the
ideological trade.
I'm a, I'm a journeyman masterelectrician and been doing that

(02:47):
for, well, right out of, rightout of high school.
Got in through my, into acompany with my, through
connections with my father and,and right into oil and gas and,
and doing that for longer than Ihaven't been doing it.
So, yeah, been around all overthe province through, through
work, seen pretty much every,every corner of this.

(03:12):
of the province of Alberta here.
So yeah, I ended up back down inCalgary, not too far from where
I grew up and, and it felt likehome and decided to plant some
roots and make this my, I makethis my home where I wanted to
raise my family.
And yeah, here we are.

Alfred (03:29):
That's a cool story, man.
I love it.
So average Joe, electrician.
What drew you to paintball, man?
We got to get into this.
I want to get right into it.
Today, there is an indoortournament here in Edmonton.
It's a little bit away from you.
Obviously, you didn't attend.
I wasn't able to attend.
I was working today.
But man, I'm not gonna lie toyou.
When I first seen you on thefield, you stuck out like a sore

(03:51):
thumb, and I mean that in themost flattering way.
Where I thought you were thereas like a participant like into
or sorry as a spectator tosomebody else who was
participating and When I seenyou Don the gear and the gun I
was like damn this guy's goingfor it and I've always I've

(04:12):
always been a fan of people whoembrace the sport of paintball
because I don't think I thinkit's so misunderstood and it's
it's the greatest sport ever.
I'm obviously super biased, butI think it checks more boxes and
people realize I've alwaysdescribed it and I know you've
heard me describe it as itreally were an island of misfit
toys.
If you, it's not a cheap sport,you know, if, if you're looking
for cheap, maybe go play chessor something that might be a

(04:34):
better Avenue, but it's, it, it,it, it has this, it has this
aura and this.
This ability to captivate peoplewho feel like they don't fit in.
Like if you're not a jock or ifyou're not super athletic, I
mean, super athleticism helpslike any sport, but it's for,

(04:55):
it's the most inclusive sport.
I've ever witnessed.
You can have professionalplayers that weigh 300 pounds.
You can have professionalplayers as young as 14 years
old.
You can have parents, kids,brothers, girls, boys.
We don't bias towards anything.
Doesn't matter your skin color,your race, your ethnicity.

(05:15):
If you're vegan, it'sirrelevant.
And I've never seen A communityembrace players like paintball
and I've, I've advocated forthis for years, but I feel like
you're a great image for thisbecause you are in a different
demographic than me.
And I love for you to tell meyour history, why you're into
it, how you're feeling about ittoday.
And I, especially where thetrajectory is a painful right

(05:37):
now, where you think we're goingto go?
Because I'm, I'm absolutelyfired up boat paintball right
now.
I'm so much more of a fan than aplayer, but I'd love to get your
perspective on that.

Tom (05:47):
No, you, you nailed it on the head and that's, so I've
been, I've been involved inpaintball on, on a couple of
different occasions now.
So 1st time that I got intoplaying paintball was in, I want
to say 2000, 2006, me and mywife had had just started
recently dating and.
And we decided to go for a, arafting trip down the Blue River

(06:09):
and, you know, had a reallygreat time at that, but kind of
how, how things happened, we,yeah, we, we had vehicle stage,
the 2 different spots wherewe're going to get out of the
river and where we got onto theriver and me trying to be, you
know, organized and, and haveeverything kind of buttoned up
and, and everything just goperfect when we unloaded,
everything was getting ready togo in the water.
I threw my truck keys in mywife's vehicle's glove box where

(06:32):
we were getting onto the river.
And not packing them with us tobe able to get into our vehicle
when we got off the river.
So, we, we got all the way down,we started at Edward Park and
we, we floated all the way downto the zoo.
And we got everything out of thewater, we were going to get
everything loaded up and checkthe pockets, no keys, check
their bags, no keys.
So, I had to, I had to phone abuddy of mine up.

(06:55):
And get him to come rip me over,back over to Kerry's truck at
the other end of the, other endof the river.
And on the travel there, he hadmentioned that him and his
friend were going to a stagparty and they were going to go
play paintball out at, tocapture the flag out at Wipers.
Asked if I wanted to come, so.
I had been paintballing when Iwas, I don't know, 10 or, 10 or

(07:15):
11 years old.
We went for a hockey wind upfunction and that was probably
in the early 90s.
So, I mean, we were still usingthe revolvers, the six shooter
revolvers with the CO2cartridges for for markers.
So I, I kind of expected thatwhen.
When I went out to go play thisnext time they're out and
capture the flag.

(07:36):
And yeah, it was wild.
Like, it was, it was like,nothing I'd ever participated in
in my life.
Just the, the adrenaline, the, Idon't know, just the excitement
of the way there's just, there'sabout the sport of paintball
that has not touched me in a waythat any other sport has like
playing, playing hockey.
My, my whole life growing upcompetitive.

(07:58):
Team, sport oriented playinggolf played at a pretty high
level and, you know, individualsport, but definitely a
competitive aspect to that.
I don't know, they just didn'tinvoke the, the enthusiasm and
the excitement and the, and theadrenaline rush like, like
paintball did.
And I mean, there's people outthere, they looked like they
were were spacemen the way theywere all dressed up in like

(08:20):
these uniforms and they hadthese auto cock or paint guns
and.
And, you know, we were justshooting the Durant or the
Tetmans and it, it got me tothinking like, what, what do
these guys do?
Like, why did the, why do theylook so much different than,
than what the rest of us do?
So, got into a conversation withthem and they, you know, told me
that they played a format calledSpeedball and, and, you know,

(08:41):
it's completely different fromplaying in the woods and.
And what not and, you know, teamaspect and a lot more are a lot
more action driven and oriented.
So kind of got me to thinkingthat maybe I wanted to check
that out.
So I did some, did some lookingaround.
They mentioned that there was anindoor paintball place in
Calgary called RampagePaintball.

(09:03):
So.
I found a couple of stores andactually it was the one that I
came across back then.
It was Badlands.
That was the first, firstpaintball store I ever been in.
Went in there and I met a fellownamed Justin Cornell.
He was working there at the timeand he, he sold me my first
paintball setup, speedballsetup.
Which I think was like a spiderphoenix or something like that,
I don't know.

(09:23):
It was, it was an older markerand it did the job, it got me
into the sport.
So, I got that and got the restof the gear and took my, took my
wife out to Rag Creek paintballone day after I got hit by the
bug.
And wanted to show her the sportand that was enough for her.
She, she lasted all of, maybe acouple games and got shot a

(09:44):
couple times and.
Never really, never reallywanted to give Paintball a
second thought after that.
It was not her speed, not hercup of tea.
So as the couple months went byand I was kind of getting the
itch to use all this new gearthat I got.
So I found my way down toRampage Paintball and sure
enough, there was the, there wasthe kid that worked at Badlands.

(10:06):
He was out on the field just.
Merkin, everyone and a bunch ofother kids there, Kim Kaizen was
one of the, one of the people atthe field on that first time I
went down there, Colby Kerr, abunch of the Outrider players,
and I just, I was kind of, kindof blown back about just what
kind of scene there was for, forthis, this sport of paintball,

(10:26):
like I had only ever known it tobe playing in the, played in the
bush and, and, you know, you goout there and you shoot your
whatever, 100 paintballs or 200paintballs and That lasts you a
day and you got your fill andyou didn't think about it for
many, many, many years.
So, I got a crash course and Iplayed speedball that night.
Got, I got shot by everyonenumerous, numerous times, but

(10:49):
loved it.
Loved it.
I was absolutely for the firsttime and and I ended up going
back a couple weeks later and Iran into one of the people that
I was playing paintball with atthat stag party and we kind of
glanced at each other and wepulled up in the parking lot and
we kind of made the connectionthat You know, we played
together before and got chattingand he told me that they were,

(11:13):
they were starting a new teamand they were playing for a lady
who owned a paintball field out,out west of Calgary there at
Bray Creek and, and theyrespond, she was going to like
her field was going to besponsoring the team and, and I
said I should try out and sothey were actually hosting their
tryouts that night and, andbasically just went and
introduced myself to what was tobe Emma, Emma Carey.

(11:36):
And.
Her team vengeance 1.
0 and told her that I wasinterested in trying out for the
team.
So in typical fashion, she ranme, ran the wheels off me that
night and put me through theringer and apparently did well
enough that I was, I was askedto ask to play on their team.

(11:57):
That was my first, first forayinto, into speedball and, and
yeah, we, our first tournamentwas as a team and my first
tournament ever was 2007Calgary, or Canadian Nationals,
CPPL Canadian Nationals, at theold Corral Centre, or the
Stampede Grounds, the Agbuilding.
So that was something like I hadnever seen before either, all

(12:19):
the years playing hockey, like,I mean, it's just, it was just
something else.
It was.
I don't know, just so different,but so much more appealing to
me.
So that was how I kind of gotinto paintball my, my first go
around.

Alfred (12:34):
I love it, dude.
I have a, I have a very uniqueorigin story.
Paintball found me.
I was living in Fort McMurray atthe time in 2004.
I was in high, I was in my firstyear of high school and we
played at a field called slopball.
It was down this road calledtower road, very famous spot for
partying and bad decisions by alot of young kids.

(12:56):
And I remember playing, it wassmall, they had a tire field,
and I'll nev This image isburned in my head.
As soon as you pull in on theright hand side, there's a c
can, and then on the left, therewas a, like, a 30 foot, X shaped
inflatable.
And I was like, what the fuck isthat?
I was like, there's no logicalpurpose for that bunker.

(13:17):
Like, nobody's shooting thathigh, like, it makes no fucking
sense.
And there was a cool logo in themiddle of it.
It was a, it was a paintballwith devil horns on it.
And it said X ball.
And I was like, okay, so I'm outthere with my, my very first
marker, Tippmann A5, and I'mplaying with these kids.

(13:37):
And we don't know what we'redoing.
We're running around likechickens with their heads cut
off.
There's no rhyme or reason.
We're just kind of doing ourthing.
I remember leaving.
And as we were pulling out thesound of the horn going, and
back then it was unlimited rateof fire.
So these guns were designed tosound and mimic like machine

(13:57):
guns.
And I remember leaving, we're onthe back of a truck, me, I
remember a kid, I think the kidname was like Attila, and then,
which is a badass name by theway, fucking love that name, and
there was a couple other kidsand, you know, we're talking
about our, showing each otherour welds, we're like, we're
badass mofos, this is amazing,and the horn went, and all of a
sudden you heard, just, nonstop, and I'm just like, the

(14:20):
hair, and Stood up in the backof my head.
At first it was like beer.
I'm just like, thank God thoseguys weren't playing with me.
And as soon as that came down,which was about three seconds
later, I'm like, but how coolwould it be to experience that?
And.
You got to remember this isback.
There's no iPhone in 2004.
I mean, there's technology.
There's like MSN messenger andall that shit, but there's no

(14:41):
like Instagram and like thatshit did not exist.
I'm there with my fucking LGflip phone with my T9 word
texting bullshit.
Like, you know, that's how old Iam.
I know.
Right.
And I remember going back homeand I just started consuming.
I'm on like Google was there.
So like I'm online.
I find Edmonton paintball.
com basically like an onlineforum.

(15:02):
It's basically like the oldschool version of like a
discord.
And I find out that Fort Mac hasa massive paintball community.
And I'm like, how the fuck doesthis have a paintball community?
Fort Mac summers are like twomonths long, but back in the
day, there's money, the economywas booming, a lot of young kids
going out to site making 60, 70,000 a year with no

(15:23):
responsibilities.
They had cash to burn and theyhad testosterone to use.
So I was like, absolutely.
Kind of makes sense.
So, 2005 Nationals, I found ateam, we played under the mantra
Intensity, and I remember someof my teammates, I don't
remember all of them, there wasMarshall Pagets, Jordan Pagets
Troy, I don't remember his lastname, that guy was a, he was an

(15:45):
orangutan, I thought, oh man,and Paintball found me at a time
at a really tumultuous time.
Season of my life, I guess, is,is, I had a really terrible
relationship with my father.
I was smoking a lot of pot, notdoing a lot, not doing good in
school.
Really just directionless, as akid, as a person, every facet of

(16:06):
my life.
And thankfully, paintball'sexpensive enough that you kinda
gotta commit to it.
So I was like, well, I didn'treally have a lot of money for
other self destructive shit,cause I was focused on that,
thank fuck.
I'm sure that's like with hockeywith other kids, but that was
with me.
And 2005 Nationals, StampedeGrounds, smells like horse poop
in there.
Fuckin you leave and half thepeople have to get that smell

Tom (16:25):
out of your gear after playing in one of those, right?

Alfred (16:27):
No.
And like the paint balls backthen I'm pretty sure were made
of like the most stain like oilon the planet.
Yeah.
It was

Tom (16:38):
like every company had a goal to see whose paint could
stay in the most and the worst,right?
Tasted like shit.

Alfred (16:45):
Yeah.
Yeah.
We used to have contests.
You could eat paint balls andthen fucking wolf your cookies
later, but I played that.
We did terrible.
And I met up with a guy onlinewho I traded for an angel.
I know, right?
It's embarrassing, but I got anangel and I actually loved it.
The thing was fucking sweet thatlike they were designed to shoot

(17:05):
fast.
I don't know if you remember theWDP guys back in the day, you
watch the old documentaries.
Those guys had like strippers intheir tents at the big
tournaments over in likeToulouse, France and shit.
Those guys were fucking crazy.
So I immediately gravitated tothat.
I'm like, these guys are badass.
And, and then I, so we play, Iplayed on a team called hell
hounds that was based out of bigdog paintball is what the store

(17:27):
was called that Jordan opened upin Fort McMurray.
I was there every day.
I was there every day.
And we built a tire field in asmall place in format called
waterways.
People understand if you'refamiliar with the format, you'll
know if not, don't even try toimagine it.
We bought all these tires.
That is the south.
East side.
So it's the one that was themost, it was the area that was

(17:47):
one of the most devastatedduring the beast fire in 16, but
it was way out in the back.
I'm sure it's actually probablylike there's homes there now,
but it was like in a marsh, wehad like a, a Mazda B 2000 truck
that I'm pretty sure the.
The box capacity was a hundredpounds.
We'd fucking load 3, 000 poundsof tires in that thing and drop
them off.
Oh, man, and it was a mosquitofest, dude.

(18:09):
Those tires collecting waterover the years, dude.
It was terrible.
Oh, God.
That's what we did and we wouldliterally load up air bottles
and we'd fill up on the back ofthe truck our air tanks and we'd
be out there all fucking day.
We didn't stop and we builtrivalries.
We had a big community up there.
Fast forward a little bit, 2007,I started playing with a team

(18:29):
called Minor Threat with some ofmy buddies that I kind of
transitioned away from Big Dogand I was really gravitating
towards Rampage.
Shout out Brian, ex owner ofRampage.
He currently owns Rampage, theoutdoor field south of Calgary,
but the indoor had to close.
And I was playing, and I thinkthe reason why I'm so passionate
about paintball is at the time Iwas playing with professional

(18:49):
players.
There was a local group ofprofessional players that showed
up to the same field as me.
I was sharing.
A sports surface with the besttalent in the world of a sport.
I was captivated.
I was star stricken.
I was learning from these guysand they were approachable.
That's what was so cool.
I talked to the Jaycees, Italked to the Josh Davies and

(19:11):
the Danny Millers and the AaronFoley's and, and Adam Connelly,
he runs super seven down inAustralia.
He played for Miami effect.
Those guys came to rampage.
We played all the fucking time.

Tom (19:22):
What other sport do you have access to the professional
level of players?
You, there isn't one, thereisn't one, not they're doing a,
a PR thing or a fundraiserthing.
Like it's just unheard of withany other professional sport
that you have the access tothese athletes.
That you do in paypal

Alfred (19:40):
agreed and what was really cool is I grew up playing
with these guys They were alwaysbetter than me They were always
at least a notch ahead of me ButI was like I was pacing with
them like you know what I mean?
Like they never they neveroutpaced me in the sense of like
they lapped me But I but I neverlet it get worse than that
because I was so driven to keepup and my skill Went through the

(20:03):
roof because I lived Eat andbreathe paintball and you were
able to back then and you stillcan now more technology wise,
but back then it's I worked forBrian Like we would clean the
field.
We practiced till midnight cleanthe field for the morning
renters Like I just I wanted tobe at the field.
I wanted the smell I wanted thestickiness and the oily feeling

(20:24):
on my hands.
I was addicted to it It was andI found it at a time that there
was rich people or peoplerecovering drug addicts newfound
drug addicts.
There was parents, kids,brothers, sisters.
It was one of those thingswhere, and when I tell you for

(20:45):
anybody listening who might bethinking, Oh, paintball is
starting to sound a little bitintriguing.
It's one of those rare sportsthat when you're on the field,
you can literally switch on apart of your primal self, your
competitive, ruthlessness,aggressive self.
And the moment you leave thenetting and lift your mask,

(21:05):
we're hugging, we're laughing,we're, we're talking about that
great move that happened or thatbonehead move that I did that,
you know, made me get lit up onthe one side.
There's something to be saidabout physicality and pain
shared experience that justopens up these doors of
connection.
And it was incredible.
And you said it best, no othersport has touched me in that way

(21:30):
where it hooked me.
And literally, I've had a hookin me for over 20 years.

Tom (21:37):
Yeah, and I mean, I, I see a lot of the similarities, like,
you know, that, that aggressivenature sport, that, that
physicality, that intensity,that competition, you know,
playing hockey for majority ofmy life.
But the, the, the difference,the very stark difference, I, I
know, and I saw it instantly,you know, the first time I
played at the field.
Or the first event I played isthat, yeah, you, you shut it off

(21:59):
when you cross netting, whenthat horn goes, when that flag's
hung, when you walk off thatfield, any animosity, any
hostility is left on the field,and then you go and you chow.
Because a lot of us that areplaying still now, we played
against or with each othermultiple years ago.
And then paintballs.

(22:20):
I think it's gotten the, the,the community and the culture.
It used to be it used to bequite divided when I, when I
first, the first season I everplayed of, of competitive
paintball.
You, if you're on a team, itwas, it was your team.
That was the only thing thatmattered.
You didn't have friends outsideof your team, like when the,
when the game was over, if youlost, you were, you, you were,

(22:41):
you had a hat on for the teamthat beat you and you wouldn't
go and you wouldn't discuss thematch afterwards or.
Or go make friends with withanyone else.
It was very insular.
It's very like a lot of silosand you know, coming back in in
2023, I guess it would have beenthat was that was one of the
biggest things that I noticedabout this community is how much

(23:01):
that's changed and evolved from,you know, 17 years ago when I
when I play last.
How much, you know, more familyfamily based family rooted
community oriented.
Yeah, it was the biggest thingthat that struck or stuck out to
me and very, very grateful.

(23:23):
Very happy to see that.
You know, I know playing hockeygrowing up, it was it was no
different.
Like you, you were not friendsoff the ice.
You just, you didn't do that.
You didn't do that.
That was almost a betrayal to,to your team.
Right?
So that's, that's the biggestthing that I see different in
this sport from others is, isjust how, how much of a family

(23:44):
unit truly everyone is.
And, and yeah, we're competitorson the field, but when we come
off, we're, we're genuinely.
interested in how everyone'sdoing.
We look out for each other.
You know, we try and boost eachother up and, you know, just try
and always be there for, foryour brother or sister.

Alfred (24:03):
Yeah, I, I agree.
The culture has shifted a lotand I, I, I've always kept my
finger on the pulse.
Like you, I had a large break onoff.
In 2008, I moved down to NovaScotia for my graduation year,
and I actually played a couplelocal tryouts and kind of some
fun, like, re ball in Moncton.
That was kind of cool.
They have an indoor soccer arenaand they set up re ball, that

(24:24):
was neat, with strict unionguys.
And the culture down there wasvery new.
And I was coming from Albertaand in 08, you got to remember
Edmonton Impact, it just wentpro.
So that's the only Canadian proteam that exists.
Hopefully, that's right.
That

Tom (24:40):
was

Alfred (24:41):
2008.
So Edmonton Impact went pro in07.
They played Huntington Beach,MPPL 7 man, and they got second
place to Blast.
So my brain is like anencyclopedia because I remember
these moments because I was sucha fan.
And so Edmonton impact just wentpro.
So all these players that I hadgrown up playing with, because
at the time in oh six, I wouldsay it was probably when.

(25:02):
When Western Canadian paintballpeaked, reason I say that is
because there was no pro teamsand all the pro players like the
Justin Cornell's and all them.
They were, he was onspecifically a team called XPC.
So he played with a lot of guys.
Mike Gingras, Cizzo was hisnickname.
I don't remember his real name.
He went to go be a pilot andthen there was impact.
So Bart created impact wherethey were seven man amateur

(25:23):
team.
They were seven man div one, thehighest ranking you can get, but
it wasn't quite pro yet.
They were very, very good.
And then Josh Davey.
Who was from Edmonton, he wasplaying with Oakland assassins.
And then you had like Mike Careyand Darcy Schlickenmayer from
Central Alberta and Calgaryplaying for Chicago Aftershock.
And this is back in the day,right before the housing boom,
but everybody was doing well.
There was money, economiesbanging.

(25:46):
So we had, we had a legacy.
And I, and I think that's whatthe culture back then had, is we
had pros to aspire to, we had upand coming teams that were
likely going to go pro, theywere on the trajectory and it
was really undeniable, it wasjust a matter of when.
And then we had amateurs keepingpace, basically we were able to
fill those voids very, veryfast.
Like as soon as Edmonton Impactwent pro and only Edmonton

(26:08):
Impact went pro, that first MPPL7 man, that first half of 07, we
had kids and even older guyschomping at the bit, knowing
that I'm here and it's not a farjump and maybe I'll get my shot.
Maybe I'll get my chance.

Tom (26:23):
It amplifies when you see people that you're playing
against all the time take thatjump, right?
It shows you that, hey, this isattainable if you put the work
in and because I was justplaying with that guy last week.
And there he is down in theStates playing professional
paintball.
It is attainable.
Right?
And you can kind of see, you cankind of see another wave of that

(26:44):
happening right now in our localscene, which we haven't seen in
a long time.
But, you know, the guys goingdown.
The States, the Echoes play tooand, and, and challenging and,
and, you know, we have PAGfactory that goes down there and
they did it before and, and verysuccessful down there.
Like they had a great, a greatevent there in Vegas, you know,

(27:06):
basically put on a clinic foreveryone.
You know, they're, they'remaking the foray and into the
NXL, we might see another teamformed from our local scene, go
down and play in the NXL seriesnext year.
Like, just that little momentum,right?
You see 1 team do it that guysyou play with guys you play
against, you know, go down thereand show that it can be done.

(27:29):
It definitely ignites a fire andit definitely drags the rest of
us along, right?

Alfred (27:35):
Yeah, and I, and I completely agree.
I think the Western Canadascene, but especially here in
Alberta, we've seen a resurgencelately and it's fantastic.
Got to give a shout out to ChrisFollis and Emma Carey for, you
know, creating the APL, reallyputting an official and a
legitimized stamp on our, on ourscene and our community.
I also want to address realquick because you, you had

(27:56):
mentioned You were playingpaintball from, say, oh, oh,
seven when you first gotinvolved and you were there for
a little bit and then you jumpedto 2023.
My story is very similar in 08when I went home and I say home
because I'm from Nova Scotia, Iwent back for a year, came back
for school.
I tried out for a team calledCardiff Epic.
So that's when the CXBL, theCanadian Expo League had a

(28:17):
Western conference.
The problem was, is EdmontonImpact was in the CXBL and they
won the CXBL like five yearsrunning and it was expensive.
It was, it was a legit.
Professional league where youhad to buy a franchise, you had
to pay for all your paint inadvance, players had to try out
and pay fees.
It was, it was the real deal.

(28:38):
It was as close to legitimateprofessional sports from a
paintball perspective, otherthan the current incarnation
that existed.
For, I would put the, and peopleeven still talk about the CXBL,
it was phenomenal.
And then they had the AXBL, theAmerican X Ball League in the
States.
I tried it for the MXL, whichwas the minor X Ball League.
It was the feeder system and Imade it on the team.

(28:59):
So shout out to Tina Redfern,love her.
Her and her husband Warren, theyfunded the team, brought up a
bunch of local killers, and weplayed well.
And it was a great entry levelinto it.
The next year, I blew up my ACL.
My, I tore up my leg.
It was just fucking wrecked.
So I took a year off, ended upbeing three years.

(29:21):
And then I came back in 2014.
Good buddy of mine, CalvinFoster, shout out Foss, he
didn't stop playing, that guy'splayed more paintball than I
think I've had days on thisearth, that guy is bananas, he
plays so much paintball, it'scrazy, calls me up on a Tuesday,
and I knew CPPL Nationals washappening at PAG, calls me up
and he said, do you have a gun?

(29:41):
I said yep, he's like, youworking this weekend?
I said nope, you wanna playNats?
Like I'm in, let's play, so weplayed, got second place, which
was awesome, I was totallystoked at that, and then the
year after we won.
The year after we won Div 2Nats, and that's my, that's my,
I hang my hat on.
That's one of my favorite ones.

(30:03):
That

Tom (30:03):
was

Alfred (30:03):
Minor Threat.
Okay.
Yeah.

Tom (30:05):
Yeah.

Alfred (30:05):
And the Brits, so from 14 to probably the pandemic,
just when the CPPL folded, I wason and off inconsistent and then
here, I've been there.
Didn't really play all thatmuch.
And then COVID happened.
And I'll never forget thisbecause I talked to Mike Carey

(30:25):
about it all the time.
Got to give a shout out to MikeCarey.
Like, he's a character, I gottagive it to him, he's a cat.
But shout out for sure.
I'll never forget it gettinggeared up for Nats or I think it
was one of the winter events,one of the two, and this online

(30:46):
shit storm about he doesn't giveenough for his prizes.
He's making millions of dollars.
And if only these people knewMike's personality, they had no
idea.
The door they were knocking onat all.
And I still remember to thisday, I actually have some of the
screenshots saved on my laptop,private message, free shit

(31:09):
talker in the comments, private,and a couple of them are like,
stop, you know, stop messagingme.
Every time they would make apost, I'd private message them
and be like, you have no fuckingidea what you're talking about.
You have no idea what insurancecosts.
You have no idea what paintcosts.
You have no idea.
This is before the pandemicsupply chain.
Wasn't even a fucking issue.
Like shipping costs were nilpaint was affordable.

(31:31):
Like, like this isn't even likethe fact of, you know, Emma and
Chris basically saving paintballduring COVID with WPN with WPN
paintball.
And people say, Oh, China, allthat stuff.
It's like, well, it's that ornothing.
So you choose.
But he, he called it, he calledit, he's like, CPPL is done,
folded.
And I knew it was coming and Iwas devastated.
My heart sank.

(31:52):
I'm like, this is the onlylegitimate leave we have in all
of Western Canada.
Like this is crazy.
Like all, all for like the mostentitled, ignorant comments
because they have no idea.
It's like, Oh, you have no ideathe tens of thousands of dollars
the monthly lease is for some ofthese properties.

(32:12):
Like you, like, do you know howmany 70 cases at 25 percent
margin you need to sell to makerent?
Like, you have no idea what ittakes.

Tom (32:23):
You look anywhere across this country, Alberta is the
cheapest place to playpaintball.
And I think it's been that wayfor a very long time.

Alfred (32:29):
Very long time.

Tom (32:30):
Because of Mike Carey, Amer Paintball, Paintball Gear, Chris
Follis, Emma Carey, like theyall are the reason why this
sport is still going becausepeople can still quote unquote
afford.
To play it.
You go anywhere else, you'respending, you know, close to 100

(32:50):
a case, field fee, air, you gotto pay for air at some of these
fields.
Like, there is no place in thiscountry that's as cheap to play
paintball as here.
So, for, like you said, theentitlement, right?
The people that don't understandjack squat about how to.
Run, promote, organize, youknow, tournament legitimate

(33:12):
tournament and the costs that gointo that it's it's it blows my
mind that that these people cancan say what they what they said
or just ludicrous ludicrous.

Alfred (33:24):
Yeah, it's crazy.
I still remember to this day andI talked to Mike and I laugh
about it.
Because really there was noother emotion after a couple of
years of seeing the CPPL foldedand really just the local scene
that I think Chris and Emmapicked it up pretty quickly, but
they didn't really put theirstamp on it till 2024.
Really, when the pandemic calmeddown, they really kind of
notarized it as the APL, whichis amazing.

(33:45):
Shout out to them.
It's incredible.
That gap for me, it's almost adecade gap from 2014 on and off
for a few years and then 2024.
I got excited about paintballagain, you know, where it's at,
especially locally, I gotexcited for, you know, the blitz
boys and the peg factory boysand you know, the year before it
was collision and seeing all theold souls come out of it because

(34:08):
once you have the hook, you'redone and I think that's the,
that's, I'm trying to find aword.
Maybe like provenance, I guesswould be a good word.
Like I see all these, the Glennchases and the Kyle pisters and,
and the Schultz and, and, andall these guys that, Yeah, Been
playing for 20 years and they'recoming back out, but now they
have a story.
They have a career, they havechildren, they have investments,

(34:29):
they have businesses.
The same paintball still exists.
The markers still shoot just asfast.
They're a little bit more airefficient.
You know, but that's about theonly difference.
The concept is still the same.
It's like riding a bike and yousee these old guys picking it
up, getting on there, crawlingon their bellies, getting that
booty moving, and they're stillshooting people.

(34:49):
And it's like, you still got it,kid.
Let's go.

Tom (34:52):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Yeah, no, it's one and I don't Itell this to everyone paintball.
It's once once you start it, youcan't quit like there's there's
no quitting the sport.
Yeah, you'll you'll take breaks.
And some breaks are gonna beshorter than others.
Some are gonna be longer thanit.
I mean, I was 17 years betweenthe, the first time I played it,

(35:16):
the first season I played, andthen when I came back to it.
But, you know, when it, when itgets ahold of you there,
there's, there's absolutely noquitting it.
You just, you, you cannot getrid of that, that feeling that
it evokes out of you.
Every time you hear a markershoot or you know, you, you hear
a horn go off and it's just,it's always there.

(35:36):
It's always there.
Like I, I didn't play at all.
I didn't, I didn't, you know, goout and play woods ball or
anything in the 17 years that I,that I took off, but every once
in a while, I, you know, I waswhen YouTube came on and I check
in, I check in and see what wasgoing on in paintball, see how
paintball was doing because Imean, in 07, it was, it was

(35:58):
really strong.
It was going really strong.
Like the, the NPPL, the, youknow, PSP was still, still going
then.
Yeah.
You know, it was, you know, thetail end of the golden era of
paintball, as far as, as itspopularity worldwide.
And yeah, I would, I would go inand I would check things out and
be like, oh man, Impact's still,Impact's still a thing.

(36:19):
That's awesome.
Oh, JC's still playing.
That's awesome.
You know, like all these, thesefaces that, yeah, you saw from
years and years ago and they'restill doing it and they're still
representing and.
So I'd always, I'd always checkin from time to time, but it
wasn't until, it wasn't until myson was old enough to, to
actually, to go and play and,and that happened to be in 2022.

(36:40):
He wanted to, he wanted to goplay paintball.
And so we said for his birthday,yeah, he wanted to, he wanted to
go try it out.
So we took him out to Brad Creekand, you know, first person I
see walking, walking up to theregistration booth there was
Emma and just the look ofsurprise on her face and the big
smile.
And she's like, Oh, all these.
All these people from beforecoming back and, and then now

(37:02):
seeing the, the next generationof, of, you know, potential
paintballers coming up, youknow, the reason why a lot of us
leave for so long is we're, youknow, taking care of life stuff
and having families and raisingkids.
And, you know, now they'regetting to the age where we want
them to experience the goodtimes that we had in, in
paintball and hopefully,hopefully they feel the same

(37:23):
way.
Take to it and, and keepplaying.

Alfred (37:29):
Yeah, I agree, man.
It's, it's so interesting and,and, and I love your perspective
on it.
Cause it's such a, it's asustainable, we've talked about
this with your team Crusaders,shadow Crusaders.
It it's such, it's such afatherly figure approach to the
game that I didn't see when Istarted, it was cutthroat.

(37:50):
15 balls a second permanentscars on my back of these
freaking well rings like it wasruthless truth But that's what
that's what drew me to it.
Like it true.
Like I actually don't think if Iwas 16 years old.
And I seen today's iteration ofpainful.
I don't know if I would be asgravitated towards it.
Now, that being said, I think wepushed a lot of people away back

(38:13):
in the day because of, it wasjust in your face.
It was super polarized.
It was like.
I call it counterculture, but atthe time it was like, these guys
are crazy.
Like these guys are like nuts.
Whereas now it's, it's so muchmore of close to a legitimized
sport.
We have growing content ofpodcasts and YouTube channels.
We've rebranded the sport to becalled major league paintball.

(38:37):
You ever curious, go check outmajor league paintball.
com.
That's our alma mater.
Let's go.
And.
Like when I see all this stuff,legitimizing the sport and how
we're so privileged to live inAlberta because we have the only
Canadian pro team and whatBart's done this year has
basically bought all the biggestnames.
I'm hoping that overflows intothe local scene.

(39:00):
I'm going to do my best to knockon his door and knock on some of
the players doors to try to getsomething like a signing or a
clinic or a practice or man,anything like, cause I know that
JC clinic that I helped organizewhen he was in brag, it's sold
out in 30 minutes.
Oh, it was gone.
That was clutch.
It was, we, we had people flyingin from Ontario.
Yep.

(39:20):
Like it was crazy.
That was huge.
Yeah, yeah.
And we got to give a shout outto Bart Yakamik and the Yakamik
family, what they've done.
I'm super stoked for that newdocumentary coming out, All That
Matters.
I heard on the Spick and Spampodcast that the Yakamiks have a
little spot in there.
Everything they've done, I don'tknow the, the, all the details,
but I'm pretty sure Bart is partowner of the MLP MLPB and then,

(39:43):
and because I think he, he was,I think he bought GoSports or
something at some point and thenMLPB bought them this year.
I heard

Tom (39:50):
that too.
Majority owner of the, of theMLPB too, what I heard.
I mean, I have no verifiableproof to back up that claim,
just something I heard.
You know, and that's probably,I'm, I'm sure there's a, there's
a big reason why, you know,professional paintball has been
able to carry on as, as long asit has and be in as good of a

(40:12):
state as because of theinvolvement of people like, like
Bart, like he, anything heundertakes, he, he goes all in
and he invests everything he hasinto it.
And, you know, it's credit tohim that the league is as strong
as it is and as popular as itis, you know, being for
professional sports.
You know, we're the sport ofpeople is absolutely still in

(40:33):
its infant stage.
Right?
When you look at the big for thefootball, baseball, hockey, you
know, these sports have beenaround for 70 plus 100 plus
years.
You know, like we're just a blipon the radar in the terms of a,
of a sport chronologicaltimeline that, you know, his

(40:54):
involvement has definitelyhelped keep it somewhat relevant
and in the, in the spotlight asto as much of an extent as it
can be.
So, you know, big kudos to him.

Alfred (41:06):
Yeah.
And to speak to the legitimacyof paintball, got to give more,
got to give more shout outs.
Tom Cole, I've been listening toalmost every podcast he goes on.
He's the commissioner.
Or the president of the, ofMajor League Paintball, formerly
known as the NXL, formerly knownas PSP, etc, etc.
To speak to the legitimacy ofthe league, some of the small

(41:26):
things, cause I know my brothersgrew up playing minor hockey and
they traveled to Bangor, Maine.
Like my dad has a, has a signedpicture with Paul Korea, you
know, used to, obviously that'swhere that was, that was where
he grew up playing and he taughthockey schools down there.
And like, now when we go to playin the States, when you pay your

(41:46):
entry fee, you get 20, 000 ofinsurance.
I don't know of any major sportthat does that.
I like it.
So.
That, like, so when you go playminor hockey or basketball or
football or golf or whatever youwant internationally, if you're
Canadian going to the States,that's all on you.

(42:08):
The league, in my opinion, thatis not highlighted enough.
The fact that the league doesthat, it like, we don't play a
bang bang sport, like, likewe're not physical, we're not,
we're not hockey, we're notfootball.
And yet they still.
Want to ensure you for brokenankles, blown shoulders, which I

(42:30):
mean, injuries happen.
It is what it is.
I mean, my God, Tiger Woods hadknee injuries like Jesus, but
that is encouraging to me as a35 year old parent.
That's awesome.
That gets me fired up.
To know we don't have thatlocally and hopefully we get
there one day, but it speaks tothe trajectory that paintball is

(42:53):
on in the epicenter, which isthe United States, but I would
say globally, we've now set aprecedent that this is possible.
We've now we have a blueprintfor success for amateur sports
to be palatable from parents andfrom more mature audiences.
And that gets me fired up.
I love that.

Tom (43:12):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.

Alfred (43:16):
So it's 2020, it's 2023 or sorry, 2024 this past season.
You're playing for a team calledCrusaders.
You created a team.
Talk to me about that, creatinga team, wanting to build it, the
mindset, the buy in, tell meabout that, the struggles, the
triumphs kind of run me throughyour, your 2024, what it looked
like, and maybe going into 2025,what we can expect.

Tom (43:40):
Hey, well, we'll go back to 2022 when when the whole idea of
of starting up a paintball teamcalled the crusaders came about.
It was it was after I took myson out to play paintball for
his 1st 1st time.
And and after after we played,he.
Really enjoyed it.
I mean, we just played out inthe woods.

(44:00):
We played with our friends fromacross the street and their
family and our family went outand we just had a great day.
And and on the way out, ofcourse, when you're coming down
from heaven and the Horwoodfield at Brad Creek there, you
got to walk past the arena.
So, as we're walking past that,I, I look in, in, you know,

(44:22):
where the, where they have the,where they do the awards
presentation, they have the,they have the picture of Andy
Warburton up there, and, youknow, Andy was a very good
friend of mine back when Iplayed, we, we both started out
on Emma's Vengeance teamtogether, and we were, we were
thick as thieves when, when weplayed together on the team,
and, you know, I didn't, Ididn't know it as much at the

(44:42):
time, but, You know, being awayfrom the sport and kind of, you
know, keeping tabs on things andseeing, you know, Andy, how much
he immersed himself into thecommunity, the paintball
community, and just seeing whathe was, what he was involved
with and, and just, you know,his.
His outlook towards this, not,not as much the sport, but as

(45:05):
the people involved in thesport, you know, he's, Andy was
a large fellow, right?
Same as me.
I'm, I'm, you know, not the, themost in shape, but that was the
thing about paintball is thatpeople like us could participate
in it and we could do well init, you know, and Andy was just,
he was, he was a true leader.
Like, he was just, I don't know.

(45:27):
He was, he was a very specialman.
Very special man.
Very, very sad day when, when heleft.
But anyways, we saw that, we sawthat picture.
So I, you know, kind of, kind ofexplained to Logan just, you
know, how, how important of aperson that Andy was when I,
when I played paintball and,and, you know, kind of explained
to him just, you know, what hewas like and, and how he was

(45:48):
with people.
And he was very, very welcoming,very inclusive.
And, you know, that's, that's agood quality to have.
And so after explaining that,showed Logan the arena there and
explained to him kind of what,what would be out on the, on the
arena, all the bunkers weredeflated.
So I was explaining to him thatthis was a different format of

(46:09):
paintball and that they havethese inflatable bunkers and you
play five on five and One teamplays against another.
And as soon as I mentioned, youknow, that there's teams
involved, you just see thislittle glimmer in Logan's eye
and it's, his ears perk up andhe's like, there's paintball
teams, he says to me, and I'mlike, well, yeah, there's
there's people teams.

(46:29):
I played on one a long time agoand.
You know, it looks like there's,I think there's still probably
teams that are still playing nowand, and he's like, could we,
could we start a team?
Well, I'm like, well, yeah, Imean, absolutely.
If, if that's something thatyou'd like to do, we could
absolutely look into it.
But I said, maybe let's come andtry it out first before we,
before we get too far down therabbit hole with this.
So the following weekend was thelast, the last weekend for the,

(46:53):
for the arena that, that year.
So.
We showed up and of course therewas Amber there.
We got our rental gear from herand then Mike had his little,
his little booth set up thereand he was teching guns and we
went chattel to him and he said,yeah, you know, come by later.
And he goes, I'll give you acouple of one of my electric
markers there and you can trythat on the arena.

(47:13):
So we went down with our rentalgear and our coveralls and
whatnot.
And we get into the pit andwe're getting everything,
everything set up and ready togo.
One.
First two teams went out on thefield and they were getting
ready to start and Logan wassitting up on the, on the
benches there in the pits.
And as soon as the game started,I mean, like you said, your
first experience hearingspeedball being played for the

(47:36):
first time, his was the exactsame.
I've never seen somebody's eyesso big and almost popping out of
the skull when, when that, that3, 2, 1, go, go, go went and
everyone started shooting their,their electro markers and.
And he turns his head around andhe's watching and as soon as it
got a little bit quieter, whenthe kind of play started to kind
of die down, he turned his headback to me and he's like, you

(47:58):
know what, dad, I think we're infor a world of hurt.
And I'm like, son, you don'teven know how true that
statement is.
We, we were all ready to go andI'm like, okay, it's our turn,
buddy.
You ready to go?
And yeah, got out there and hisvery first point, he made it out
to the Dorito side, got into hisfirst primary bunker, didn't get

(48:22):
shot, made it to the nextDorito, didn't get shot.
Our team, I think I was playingwith, I think we had Steve Lee
on our side for that first pointand a couple others, but we
ended up pulling the point outand, and Logan and myself, we
didn't get shots.
We were like, Jesus, you knowwhat?
This is, this is not bad.
This is, this is pretty decent,you know, pretty, pretty good.

(48:45):
Welcome back to the sport aftersuch a long break.
And then Logan being being 10years old, you know, he was, he
was pretty pretty happy with hisperformance in that first one.
So we went back in the pits, wegot loaded up and right back out
onto the field and.
Did her again, and only thistime it went a little bit
different.
Logan did the same thing.
He went over into the Doritos,and I can't remember who it was,

(49:07):
but somebody, somebody ran downon him and, and, and bunkered
him out in his.
In his Dorito there, but the guyalmost ran past him.
Logan was so small, right?
He just folded into that Doritoand couldn't really see him.
I think the guy put a coupleextra shots into him, so I think
it startled him.
He's very apologetic, and atfirst I was worried.
I'm like, okay, I'm going tohave to have a crying, crying

(49:29):
son here that I'm going to haveto deal with.
And after the point ended and wegot back to the netting, I just
said to him, like, are you okay?
It's like, yeah, that was fun.
Let's do it again.
So I think from that point, hewas, he was pretty hooked into
the, into the sport ofpaintball.
And, you know, we, we discussedit a little bit and he really,
really wanted to be a part ofthe team.

(49:49):
He hadn't played any, any teamsports up until that, up until
that, well, at all, you know,he'd been to some soccer camps
and, and just nothing of a teamsport orientation really, Really
had done it for him.
So, but he definitely wanted to,to start a team with and play
some paintball.
So, from that day forward, we,we went back out, I think a

(50:12):
couple more times.
Soon as we left the field thatday, I was already online
looking for, for gear andreaching out to Mike and getting
some pricing and whatnot.
And Mike's always been good tome.
So he, he helped us out quite abit for getting our first setups
and, and came back out and wejust played some woods ball and
we ran across some other people.
Riley, Riley plays with theCrusaders.

(50:35):
We got playing some more ballwith him.
Casey McIntyre.
He's now with the Mavericks.
He was out and about, so thenext couple of weeks, we were
just kind of playing some woodball with them and talking about
speedball and they were lookingat maybe making that jump to and
getting into the tournament sideof things.
You know, kind of kind of fromthere is where Crusaders got its

(50:57):
got its initial launch.
So, for now, we went and playeda couple of the winter events.
Up in Edmonton, the 3 man rookieand we had some, we had some
decent early success playing inthose.
We got a couple of 3rd placesand.
And kind of got some momentumrunning and, you know, just over

(51:19):
the course of the, the nextsummer season there, we picked
up some, some more new peopleand, you know, we had a pretty,
pretty consistent roster forthat first year, a couple,
couple of injuries and, and, youknow, just.
Life stuff and we had a coupleof guys in and out of the out of
the roster, but, you know, wehad some, some really good

(51:41):
people like Alex Riccotti cameout and played with us in a
couple of events that first yearthat was a, that was a
tremendous boost for, for ourguys being so, so new to the
sport and, you know, he, hedefinitely.
Showed us some things that we,we had to change in our games
and, and work towards and, andwhatnot.

(52:01):
And I think we had Sam Coultercome out in that 1st year or 2
with us to do an event and subin with us.
And he was, he was really goodtoo.
So, and that's, I mean, thatspeaks to the community you have
too, right?
Is that, you know, there'salways, there's always somebody
out there who's wanting andwilling to help out, you know,

(52:21):
the new guys, the young guys.
You know, kind of make their wayin, in this sport and in the
community.
So.
Yeah, it was a really, reallyeye opening first season for our
program, but very, veryproductive season as well.
I think, I think what we startedto build in that first year, you

(52:43):
know, I think definitely,definitely garnered a lot of
interest from, from other newplayers and, and even some older
players.
I think just the, the approachthat, that the Crusaders program
has taken to, you know, notnecessarily looking for or
trying to get all of the bestplayers.
You know, in our, in ourcommunity to, to get on the team

(53:05):
and just, you know, try andshoot, for instance, success, it
was, we want, we want ourprogram to be open and, and
inviting for, you know, thenewer players to, to come in
and, and become part of the, ateam and, you know, help each
other out, push each other and,and grow as a team, not as, not
as individuals.

(53:26):
Right?
So that's, that's how, that'show it was initially, hopefully.
You know, laid out and, and setup for, for our program to
operate.
And I think with the people thatwe, that we brought on over the
last couple of years, you know,there's definitely a.
I get into that and yeah, we'reall, we're all pushing for the
same goal and we're all thesport and, you know, help you

(53:49):
help your help your buddies outgrow together as a team.
And you know, reach for the keypreacher for those goals.

Alfred (53:57):
Yeah, I love it.
I had the privilege of guestingwith you guys for.
One event, you weren't able tomake it up for that at Edmonton
E5.
Yes, that's right.
Yeah, so I wasn't donning aCrusaders jersey, so it was kind
of fake, but you know how it is.
We still got the podium though,so that's what's up.
No, I love that.
I love that origin story,because I think There's a lot of
parallels with almost everybodythat I know that got hooked on

(54:21):
paintball is at one point youwatch these These speedball
fearless, you know, aggressiveplayers and then coming off It
was like nobody's at eachother's throats.
Everybody's a friend Talkingabout moves to give anybody
who's listening to this.
That's very unfamiliar with thesport a little bit of
information Paintball isextremely safe Extremely safe

(54:46):
when we talk about tournaments,our markers, our chronograph.
So that's a device that measuresthe velocity of the paintballs
leaving your marker.
We are required to be under acertain limit and the referees
check that every single pointthere's zero tolerance.
Our masks that we wear thatprotect our face, which is your
most vulnerable part of yourbody.
Cause you don't want any eyeinjuries or mouth injuries or
potentially ear injuries.

(55:06):
We have to wear chin straps.
That's something relatively new.
That was not, excuse me.
I think when I grew up and if itso happens that.
You know, you were to run, dive,flip, whatever happened and the
mask came off of you, thereferees will literally dive on
you and sacrifice their bodiesto get shot by paintballs until

(55:27):
you get your mask off and thenyou have to leave the field.
So if you think about a hockeygame, you have two referees and
two linemen for 10 people on thefield.
You have are actually 12.
You have two goalies and thenfive players on each team.
We have 10 total and we haveeight referees.
Like the, so the margin,

Tom (55:47):
or,

Alfred (55:48):
or, you know, a Tom foolery, let's call it is almost
0%.
It can get out of hand becauseagain, you're dealing with
electronic markers and, youknow, even at 10.
5 balls a second, which is somepeople might think that's fast.
That's about what is that 66percent of what I grew up
playing in terms of a rate offire there.
So you can get shot and you'regoing to get bruises, welts,

(56:09):
it's going to feel red, it'sgoing to hurt.
It's going to sting that sort ofthing.
I've sustained one injury in mycareer playing paintball and I
blew up my shoulder and it'sbecause I tripped.
I was playing on a tire fieldand I stepped in a gopher hole
and I, and I landed on myshoulder and blew up my
shoulder.
It's not a high frequency, youknow, injury sport and you have
people that can play standing upin the back that don't have to

(56:30):
be overly athletic and you stillget that pump.
You still get that adrenaline.
You still get that camaraderieand it's, it's phenomenal and
it's so people are just notaware.
And my goal is to just expose itas

Tom (56:45):
best I can.

Alfred (56:46):
Right.
And I feel like you're a greatmedium for that because you will
hit a lot of metrics that Ican't.
We're both parents and do allthat sort of stuff, but I, you
know, I don't want to say I'm inmy physical prime, but no, I'm
totally kidding.
It's

Tom (56:59):
no

Alfred (57:01):
doubt, right?
Yeah.
Even some of the kids now, it'sjust crazy.
But it's so encouraging to me tohear that full circle story.
When you started off young.
Created a family.
Now you're kind of rebranding.
It doesn't change.
The other thing I will say is Iam a firm believer.
Again, I'm biased.
I love the sport.
I think paintball makes you asmarter athlete.

(57:22):
And I'm going to explain thathere real quick.
And we're going to close thechapter on paintball here
shortly.
And we're going to get intomental health.
Cause I, I want to pick yourbrain.
You think of all the majorsports except for golf, golf is
unique, but baseball,basketball, football, and
hockey, you're playing surfacenever changes, never changes.
You can have minor icedifferences or different grass

(57:43):
versus turf, but a footballfield is a hundred yards.
An NHL rink is I think 180 feetlong and you got the red line
and the blue lines, like theydon't change in paintball, the
rules don't change much, themarkers, they kind of change,
but our, like our fields changeevery day, the angles, the, the

(58:05):
bunkers, the positioning, the,like, so you have to bring
competencies and skills you haveto work on every single day.
Which is true, yourconditioning, your marker
skills, your communication.
It's very dynamic.
But then the actual playingfield itself changes every
single event, every singlepractice non stop.
So you have to bring a level ofIQ and you have to be able to

(58:29):
digest new information that muchfaster.
And if you start off inpaintball and then take that to
say hockey, when you're on apower play or you're on a
breakaway, you'll make better,quick decisions.
And I've heard the best pros inthe world, Archie Montemayor,
Marcelo Margot, Tyler Harmon,I've heard them all say the
exact same thing.

(58:50):
That's what attracts them to thesport because it challenges them
in ways that other sports can't.

Tom (58:56):
Absolutely.
It's hard, it's hard to getcomplacent, right?
It's very hard in this sport toget complacent because the very
nature of it kind of preventsyou from if you, if you want to
be successful, if you want to,if you want to be competitive,
it does not allow you to justshow up and go through the

(59:17):
motions because this is how thegame is played.
It's, you know, in a sport likehockey, I'll speak to hockey
mostly because that's, you know,what I spent majority of my life
playing, you know, like, onceyou got to a certain level in
hockey.
A lot of it was the same thing.
I mean, yes, there would becertain plays that, you know,
would change, but thefundamental way to play the

(59:38):
hockey, the game of hockey waspretty much the same every time.
Like, the only thing thatchanged was your opponents,
right?
You certain game plans forcertain opponents, but sport of
paintball.
Yeah, you do have differentopponents that you play every
game, but now you have to playthose different opponents on a
different field layout everyevent.
So, you really, you cannot, youcannot turn your brain off and

(01:00:02):
just show up and go out andshoot paint if you want to have
any, any chance of, any level ofsuccess, right?
It just becomes an exercise ofhow quickly can you empty your
wallet out.
Right.
With nothing to show for it.

Alfred (01:00:18):
Yeah.
It's very hard to buy success inthe sport, right?
I mean, we've seen professionalpaintball teams try.
That's why.
Yeah.

Tom (01:00:24):
We might see how that works out in the next,

Alfred (01:00:27):
well, I mean, that, that's the ultimate definition
of putting your eggs in onebasket.
Absolutely.
Like you have the most, youknow, esteemed players in the
league for 20 plus years.
What if you don't win?

Tom (01:00:43):
Oh, absolutely.
I mean, we, we seen it, we'veseen it very recently too,
right?
A team attempt to implement thatformula and it did not work out
well at all.
Right.

Alfred (01:00:54):
Yeah.
So, I mean, like that, that,that's, that's going to be a
great conversation piece for theyear is like, I'm excited.
I mean, they're going to bewearing impact jerseys.
We're going to see playermarkers.
I mean, we're living in, I livein Edmonton.
You're three hours away, butlike the APL has ties to
Edmonton impact.
I'm excited for it, but there isthat thing in the back of your
head.
Really?
What if they don't live up tothe, because like, really, what,
what's the bar now, if you don'trun the table, like, is that the

(01:01:18):
bar?

Tom (01:01:21):
Well, yeah, you have to look at it, you know.
Everything's, everything withmoney has evolved, right?
Especially in sports andbusiness.
What's the return on theinvestment, right?
That's the, that's the, that'sthe big, the big key, right?
Yeah, you can invest a ton ofmoney into something, but if it
doesn't return the right, theright return on investment, you

(01:01:41):
know, is that, is that now the,the barometer of success, right?

Alfred (01:01:47):
Well, I'm, I'm gonna take a little bit different
approach here, and I, I, I, I'mnot saying this in a
disrespectful manner, but Ithink Bart's just throwing over,
throwing around, fuck you money.
Because that's two back to backsecond places at Cup.
And he has, and he's one of theonly ones, maybe other than Todd
Adamson, that has the ability todo that.
Serge, probably in Houston aswell.
But, I think it's fuck you moneywhere he's like, I just want the

(01:02:08):
goddamn Cup.
Like, I just want the trophy.
100%.
Like, like, it's just so like,and I don't mean that in a
disrespectful way, because Imean, if you got it, use it.
I mean, fuck, like.
Who cares?
Like, you know what mean?
Absolutely.

Tom (01:02:21):
What what's the

Alfred (01:02:22):
like this is, this is like crazy enough.
Marcelo in my opinion, is thegoat, Ryan Greenspan's, probably
one B.
But in terms of skill, in termsof iq, I mean, he fucking wrote
a book called Paintball iq.
Like the guy is absolutelyridiculous.
Absolutely.
And not like this is the firsttime he's been solely a paid

(01:02:44):
professional player.
That's crazy.
Yeah, it is crazy.
That's crazy.
He was part owner of field one,you know, dynasty champs club.
Like there was a lot of thingsthat led up to him always having
purely, I believe a paintballincome.
And I believe he has sidebusinesses now with slice house
and stuff.
And I see stuff on a socialmedia, but I believe as far as

(01:03:05):
I'm aware, this is the firsttime he's had a significant
enough income as a player.
That's, that's crazy.
It is, yeah.
In the greatest way.
I'm fucking beyond stoked.
But that's insane.

Tom (01:03:20):
Yeah.
Now to see what six, eight, 10of the top, you know, 30 players
in the league, all in the sameroster, all paid salary players.
It's a big, big step inpaintball, right?

Alfred (01:03:34):
I mean, heads have to roll.
Like there's going to be peoplethat leave the roster for sure.
And if I had to guess, and thisis purely speculation, I guess
Zach and Zane are likely goingto leave and focus on the
business.
When Matt doesn't play very muchanymore, you have up and coming
players like Jordan Peniel, you.
I was excited to see that guyplay.
He kind of dropped the ball alittle bit last year's cup

(01:03:56):
against dynasty against Marcelloactually serendipitous enough,
is he going to get playing time?
Because part of me is like, I'mstoked to see this all star
roster.
But I also, I mean, me and youbeing where we're at, I like to
see the future paintball fitblast camp, New England
hurricanes.
That fires me up almost as much,not quite, cause I'm still a
fan, like I still like goodpaintball.

Tom (01:04:16):
Oh, and I mean, if you're from Alberta and you, you, you
were playing paintball whenthose guys were coming up and,
and, you know, cutting theirchops and taking that, taking
that step, you will always be afan of Edmonton Impact.
Like it's just, it's ingrainedin an Alberta paintballer.
Like you will always have a spotand you always, whether you do
it quietly or.

(01:04:37):
Outwardly, you'll always cheerfor them in some form or manner,
right?
But, like you said, I do enjoyseeing the teams like the
paintball fits, the, you know,the in house family, you know,
grew up together, you know,bonds are as thick as blood,
even though they're, you know,you may not be related.
Like those, they're truefamilies.

(01:04:58):
The Hurricanes, same thing,right?
I really like the Hurricanes.
I love what Coach Bianca isdoing with them and just the
message.
That, that he, you know, always,always comes out, I, I, I try
and emulate him quite a bit inmy own, my own dealings with
people.

(01:05:18):
Like he's, just, there's a levelof calmness and a level of,
well, I mean, the zen ness,right?
You know, he just epitomizesthat.
And I think that that has thatdefinitely has a big, big spot
in the sport of paintball and insport in general, you know,
playing hockey.
I definitely don't or you don'thave to play for be coached by a

(01:05:40):
lot of taskmasters.
And a lot of yelling and justthat hard nose, you know,
they're going to whip it out ofyou, but, you know, I really, I
really appreciate what, whatBianca is doing with the
hurricane, you know, there,there's a, there's more than one
way to skin a cat and, you know,you can, you can attract more
flies with honey than you canwith vinegar, right?
So I think, I think approachdefinitely.

(01:06:04):
You know, has a, has a bigimpact on what you can bring out
of yourself, bring out of yourteammates, your players.
So, really like what those, whatthose 2 camps are doing and, and
I hope, I hope that there is,you know, those teams and, and a
few of the other ones that can,can still, you know, provide a
challenge and, and, you know,not, not let the impact.

(01:06:28):
Walk with it because I mean ifyou ask me I feel like since
I've been back and watching andfollowing and keeping up with
The with the pro paintball thisyear.
I felt have the most parity inthe league than Any of the
recent years previous Like, itwasn't a guarantee that one team
was going to win majority of theevents.
I mean, yes, Legion won acouple, Aftershock won, I don't

(01:06:52):
know, who were the other ones?
Or did Aftershock win a couple?

Alfred (01:06:56):
Aftershock got second.

Tom (01:06:59):
They got second?
They didn't win one this year?
Yeah,

Alfred (01:07:01):
no.

Tom (01:07:03):
Who were the other winners?
Legion?

Alfred (01:07:04):
Dynasty won Vegas.
And then Legion won Texas andAtlantic because Texas had the
Sunday canceled.
So it was two in the same event,then Tampa won Windy City and
then FIT won CUP.
So to go back to your parodystatement, Tom Cole said on the
PTG podcast, shout out PTG.
He said that 19 of the 20 teamsmade Sunday at least once.

(01:07:28):
And the only team that didn't,NYX got relegated.
Oh, I

Tom (01:07:32):
mean that that's, that's, that's unheard of

Alfred (01:07:35):
right there, right?
That's unheard of in, inprofessional paintball.
It's unheard of becauseprofessional people, for those
that people don't know, it'svery much like the MLB.
Cause we talk about Edmontonimpact, the deepest pockets.
They're the Yankees of, of, ofthe sport, the paintball fits
and the new England hurricanesare the Seattle Mariners.
Like, you know, like shoestringbudgets where one player, Alex

(01:07:57):
Goldman on impact this year islikely making over double.
If not more, I'm actually prettysure the New England Hurricanes
is the only unpaid team in theleague.
None of those players are paid.
Yeah, I think so.
They have sponsorship dollars, Ibelieve.
Now, I could be wrong, don'tquote me on that, but I think I
heard somebody say that.
Yeah, and I believe you're righton that one.
Yeah, and the Hurricanes gotsecond to Dynasty in Vegas in

(01:08:19):
their second pro year.
That's amazing.
So, so I love that it speaks towhere the sport is.
Right?
So we're going to close thechapter on people here real
quick.
I got two questions for you andthen we're going to get into it.
Alberta paintball, APL, Canadapaintball.
What are you most excited about?
And what do you think ishindering from getting to where

(01:08:41):
it could be?
It's potential.
We'll start off with first, whatyou're stoked about.

Tom (01:08:47):
Okay.
Run the questions behind meagain.
APL.

Alfred (01:08:49):
So, so, so Alberta paintball, Canadian paintball.
Keep it here.
Maybe not the NXL or the MLPB,but here let's even just keep it
just Alberta.
What are you most stoked about?
And then what do you think isactually holding us back from
reaching our potential?

Tom (01:09:05):
Well, I think the thing that I'm most stoked about is I
think the, the emergence of new,not necessarily new players, but
new teams.
And, and more so like I'mspeaking in the, in the X Bowl
division of the APL, right?
There was the Crusaders that,that took a step into the X Bowl
ring this year, along with theMavericks.

(01:09:28):
You know, both teams in theirfirst year, and I mean, our X
Ball division is no joke, like,all the teams that play in that
are, they're deadly teams, like,any one of those teams can win
on any given day.
Like, these guys, all theseteams are comprised of players
that have been playing.
Together for, you know, 10, 12,15 years.
Some of them have been playing20 years, you know, like these

(01:09:50):
guys have chemistry that hasbeen, you know, built upon for
many, many years and, you know,a team like ours who just
started a year ago, theMavericks just started a year
ago, playing five men novice andtaking that, taking that leap
this year to playing.
Playing in the X Ball divisionagainst these, these players and

(01:10:11):
these teams that have beentogether for many years and, you
know, we were pulling out, youknow, pulled out a couple wins,
each of our teams and, and Imean, Mavericks in one event,
they actually made it into theend of the quarterfinals, their
first event, their only event.
Yeah, first event they played,they made it into the
quarterfinals.
I mean, that's, that's a huge,that's a huge feather in their

(01:10:32):
hat.
Like, I, I like that teams are,are not scared to, to challenge
themselves.
Yeah.
Right, and put themselves out oftheir comfort level, maybe, and
where it would be easier just tostick in the, in the 5 man Lord
divisions and.
And when events and podium everyevent, you know, guys aren't
aren't just satisfied with that.
They want to they want to pushthemselves to be better, right?

(01:10:56):
They don't want to they don'twant to just mail it in.
I guess for lack of a betterword.
We all want to see what we'recapable of and we want to we
want to prove that we can we canhang with the best of the
province has to have to offer.
So I like that aspect.
I like, I like seeing a lot ofnew players, a lot of some
younger players.
Yeah.

(01:11:16):
Getting getting out there andand getting more active in the
speedball and, you know, gettingtheir first tournaments in and
and getting that hunger andwanting to put the work in.
There's a, there's a couple ofyoung players that I want to
mention, Talon Moresh and ChaseFinley, you know, they've
definitely been seeing them outat the field more.
They're putting in the work and,you know, they got their 1st 1st

(01:11:38):
tournament.
Exposure last year and didreally well, and it's it's
really, really cool to see thoseguys, you know, with the, with
the help and encouragement from,you know, people in our
community to give them anopportunity and go out there and
give them some advice and showthem some stuff.
Mike, Mike Ritz is, you know,you want to talk about goats for

(01:11:59):
our, for our community.
There's nobody out there that'shelping out the newer players
and, and the younger players asmuch as Mike is.
So we want to, we want to see.
Yeah, a lot more of that.
Some another of the old schoolplayers, you know, maybe maybe
take take some direction andlead from from someone like Mike

(01:12:21):
and, you know, offer offer theirtheir knowledge and experience
and and really start building upthese these younger players and
get some new guys out and.
As far as what's holding backthe APL right now, I think, I
think probably the obvious oneis just the numbers.
The numbers of people that wehave playing paintball in

(01:12:42):
Alberta, I think is, is probablywhat will hold it to what it's
currently at.
The number of players playingthe number of teams entering
events.
That's ultimately what's goingto, you know, slow down or even
grind it to a halt.
Right?
If you can't, you can't putenough teams into to make it

(01:13:04):
worthwhile to, or justifiable torun an event, then, you know,
you can't expect, you know,fields like Brad Creek and Peg
and, and Chris and Emma to, torun events at a loss.
I mean, it's just bad businessmodel.
Right?
Right.
So, as players, we, we hold allthe power in our hands to try

(01:13:28):
and prevent that from everhappening and these events just
going away by rallying thetroops and, and getting everyone
out there and getting people puton teams and make sure that
these these events are filled upevery time they run them.
Right?

Alfred (01:13:44):
Yeah, I agree.
We're going to save the debatefor engagement for another day
because I think that's a podcastin and of itself.
I agree with you.
I do.
We, we got to give a shout outto the APL player base this
year.
We were on the precipice ofhaving five man canceled
multiple times and especiallyteams like Maverick.
I think one event they put inthree teams to meet our minimum
team.
So shout out to all the playerbase and APL for keeping a

(01:14:06):
successful year.
We ran Saturday five man andSunday X ball for five events.
And that's awesome for theirfirst year of the APL being, you
know, basically official shadowto all the APL player base,
because you guys are awesome.
You guys are the reason whyChris and Emma will still
continue to do this, but yeah,shadow to you guys, because

(01:14:29):
that's, that's awesome.
I love that.
I think that's fantastic.
I think even one Saturday beingcanceled would almost.
Delegitimize the league a littlebit.
Right?
So we have a successful first,you know, inaugurational year.
So that's fantastic.
So shout out APL players.
Let's go.
I want to dive into some mentalhealth here, man.
Big one here.
I'm privileged to have Tom on myFacebook and I've seen a few

(01:14:51):
times where, you know Tom is thetype of person that I feel like
if I ever needed help or reachout or if you're struggling, it
wouldn't just be an open ear.
It wouldn't be somebody on thephone just saying, Oh, yeah, I
understand.
Yeah, I understand.
This is something that youappear to be passionate about.
I don't know the backstory ifyou're willing to share it, but
I think this is an epidemic.
We experienced this inpaintball.

(01:15:11):
Unfortunately, we've had somepretty pivotal players.
In our community, take their ownlives or pass away on timely.
Life can be rough.
And I think, you know, I talkabout paintball being an island
of misfit toys.
That was, that really took meoff guard.
When, when players are takingtheir own lives, because I've
never felt bonded more thanpaintball.
Paintball was my outlet.

(01:15:31):
Now, obviously people havedemons and, and, you know, you
know, if you ever need help,please reach out to anybody,
anything, you know, hopefullyyou never get to that point.
But where did this come from?
Where, like, cause I'm a fan.
I fucking love it.
I think it's great.
I think this has not talkedabout enough.
You can grow a stash all youwant and you can do all the
things, but.
You know, when you really makethat uncomfortable post on your,
on your private social mediawith friends and you call

(01:15:52):
friends out and you're like, Iknow who's going to do this.
Let's see who's going to do it.
I think that's great.
I think it challenges people'sstatus quo.
It challenges your owncomfortability to talk about it.
Where did this come from?
Where's this passion from?
And, and where do you kind ofhope to take it?
Cause I love it, man.

Tom (01:16:08):
I just, I just want people to feel like, you know, they
don't have to deal withwhatever's going on in their
life.
You know, whether it's a down, adown spot or, you know, dealing
with depression or dealing withwork issues or, you know, just.
I don't want people to feel likethey have to go through stuff
alone.
I mean, we've all gone through,you know, things in our lives

(01:16:30):
and, and, you know, maybe havedealt with depression that at
some point or another, you know,works, you know, got you down or
something going on in yourpersonal life.
And as men, typically we, youknow, and I think a lot of us
being brought up by, you know,the, the generation prior to us,
you know, you, you're kind of,you're kind of taught up.

(01:16:54):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm, you know, you gotta be, yougotta be tough and don't, don't
be vulnerable and right, yougotta be a rock, you gotta be,
you gotta be strong, I think is,I know that was an over,
overtone that I, you know, dealtwith lots growing up and it's a
tough, it's a tough way to, to,to go through, to go through

(01:17:14):
your issues, to go through aspot in your life.
To think that you have to figureit out on your own all the time,
right?
That's a lonely spot to be in.
And, you know, I thinkobviously, you know, I know
we're kind of moving on frompaintball, but we have some
very, very, very strongadvocates for this.
And none other than Emma Careyat Bright Creek there, you know,

(01:17:36):
you know, you touched on that,you know, in our sport, there
has been a lot of a lot of our,you know, friends and opponents
that have, you know, You know,taking their life and whether
they didn't feel like they hadsomebody that they could talk to
about what was bothering them,you know, that side.

(01:17:57):
I just don't want.
I don't want people to feel likethey have to go through anything
alone.
If there's anything that I can,I can do to help them get
through it.
Then I'm, I'm there in aheartbeat.
Like, I know what it's like togo try and deal with things on
on your own.
And it's not necessarily theend.
The healthiest way to, to getthrough things and I think, I

(01:18:18):
think probably for me where Istarted to come around to that
is just, you know, my, my wife,my wife being just the, the
absolute.
Most amazing support and in mylife since I've since I've known
her has helped me to to reachout right to lean on to lean on

(01:18:40):
her and to lean on, you know,the people that I trust to get
through those little spots.
So, you know, just having havingpeople there for me to do it and
to help me get through.
You know, some of the some ofthe little spots that I've gone
through in my life, you know,really makes you realize that,

(01:19:00):
you know, people are there to bethere for you and help you
through it.
You know, that's the, that's theultimate penance, is to do that
for somebody else, I think.

Alfred (01:19:12):
That's amazing, dude.
I, I think we're at an epidemic,personally.
My wife and I talk about, youknow, the, the rates of divorce
and all that stuff, but I thinkpeople call it mental health,
and I mean, you can havewhatever buzzword or whatever
you want to call it.
I think it's, it's kind of likea, like a lone wolf syndrome.
I think everything is soindividualized nowadays.

(01:19:32):
You know, we're, we're sodisconnected by being connected.
It's fake connection.
You know, I had the privilege ofgoing on a massive hike this
past summer with my brothers andmy cousin, and I'll like,
there's no other experience thandoing that.
That will build that.
We will talk about that hike forthe rest of our lives.

(01:19:53):
There's no zoom meeting.
There's no Netflix documentarythat you can watch that will be
as impressionable.
It doesn't exist.
And if I did that by myself, itwould not have meant the same to
go through that difficultstruggle.
To get to a euphoric goaltogether is so bonding and

(01:20:16):
we're, we're taught nowadaysthat everything is
individualized.
And as men, we're criticized onboth sides.
We're in this very unique timewhere the concept of like toxic
masculinity is talked about.
So it's like, okay, so I need tobe more feminine, but then
you're hammered for being a softman.

(01:20:39):
So, so, because I'll, I'll belike, this is me personally in,
in, in the small circles that Ihave.
I don't cry in front of my guyfriends, nor do I want to, I
would rather release thoseemotions in a different way.
And I think, and personally me,what I think is a healthier way
from a masculine, masculinestandpoint, if you have

(01:21:00):
frustration, you need to get itout kind of in an aggressive
way.
And that's where I thinkpaintball sticks out to me is it
is a meditation for me.
It's a release.
I feel lighter after a day ofplaying paintball.
Cause I just, whatever I want, Ican get aggressive, I can
scream, I can whatever I want.
I feel like you're not allowedto do that anymore, or it's

(01:21:21):
looked down upon, or it's tooaggressive, or it's unsafe, or
it's, or, you know, it's theoptics look bad.
You have to be able to controlyour emotions, but you can't
bottle them up.
They have to release at somepoint.

Tom (01:21:36):
Absolutely.

Alfred (01:21:37):
But like, so, so, so whatever that is for you, if
you've lost your job and you'rejust, you're struggling, you
need to just get outside andscream and punch a punching bag.
It's, go for it.
That need, you need to do that.
You need to do yourself aservice and get it out or
whatever it may be.
I, I listened to a really coolquote by Simon Sinek.
I don't know if you know who heis.

(01:21:57):
Very, very famous motivationalspeaker.
He's got some phenomenalconcepts.
I highly recommend you check himout.
And he said, and I'm going tobutcher this quote for sure.
But he said, you build trust,not by offering help, but by
asking for it.

(01:22:18):
That's how you build trust.
So I don't build a rapport withyou when I say, yeah, when I,
when I say Tom, if you needanything, let me know, or Tom,
I'm in a dark place.
I need your help.

(01:22:39):
One of those is going to build aconnection much more than the
other.

Tom (01:22:46):
Absolutely.
One's just words.
The other one's action, right?

Alfred (01:22:51):
And, and he has it where when people refuse, meaning if I
ask.
For your help and either youhave, you don't, you have too
much of an ego to, to, you know,to be able to offer that or
maybe you, maybe you diminishyour value to me and you're
like, I just don't know if I'mthat you rob.
Like, or sorry, if, if I don'task you and we're friends, I'm

(01:23:15):
robbing you of the opportunityand the blessing to suffer with
me.
That sat with me so much becausemy wife and I just discussed

Tom (01:23:31):
this.

Alfred (01:23:32):
We just had this discussion where friendships and
stuff, everything now issomebody.
Has an event on social media.
If you need anything, let meknow.
And that's all it is.
And you could have hundreds ofcomments like that.
Very rarely will you see acomment say, What hospital are
you at?
What room number are you in?
I'm coming to see you right now.

(01:23:52):
Or not even post, just startdriving.
Right?
And I'm not criticizing peoplewho may be scared to do that.
Or maybe you have a life eventtoo.
Or maybe you're in the hospitaland you're not a social media
person.
I'm not sure.
The assertiveness.
To just recognize that I can gointo an event, a hospital, I can
be in your basement, and you canjust be like, man, I had a tough

(01:24:13):
day at work.
Just me sitting in the room withyou.
It gets rid of the tension.
It lowers the temperature in theroom and it just it brings it
right down to an even keel.
So I thought that wasincredible.
I'm going to find it.
I'm going to send it to you.
But yeah, it was incredible.
Absolutely.

Tom (01:24:32):
Please do.
Yeah, I, you know, like youmentioned, like the things that
I, some of the things that Ipost, like the, the route and
whatnot, a lot of times.
You know, it's somebody else'sposted that and I've read it and
it's like, okay, I may not knowthis person, but I agree with
what they're saying.
I fully support what they'resaying.
And I, I want, I want to sharethat person's message or the

(01:24:57):
message of that person isshared.
You know, if it, if it strikes achord with me, I want to pass
that on to, you know.
My friend group or anybody whosees that, like, sees my profile
or, you know, I don't have toknow them, right?
There's been people on Facebookthat I've reached out to and
messaged and, you know, Hey, Iknow we don't know each other,

(01:25:18):
but you doing okay?
Right?
Seeing something that somebody'sposted and looks like they're
kind of in a dark place.
They don't have to be a friendof mine.
You know, I just, I'm generallyconcerned for, for people's, for
people's well being.
Like, I, I don't want to seeanybody struggle or, or suffer,
you know, go through somethingalone, you know, with a lot of

(01:25:41):
my friends and a lot of thepeople in the paintball
community around here, you know.
I'll, I'll check in on people.
I'll, I'll shoot them a randommessage every once in a while
and just say, hey, how youdoing?
I'm thinking about you.
How are things going?
Just, you know.
Doing a wellness check kind ofthing and make sure, make sure
the people that, you know, arealways there for me whenever I'm
at the field, you know, I wantto be there for them too and,

(01:26:01):
and make sure that things aregoing okay.
So, I think just a lot of those,a lot of those messages that I
put out there, yes, they are acanned message.
And I think, I think, you know,it can go both ways.
Right?
People can post those and theycan be posting them from the

(01:26:21):
right place.
Right?
From a place of, of, of trueintention and, and whole.
Social media and the internetage, a lot of that stuff that
gets thrown around too is, isfor show, you know what I mean?
They want, they want, peoplewill post that stuff for the

(01:26:42):
likes and, and the reposts and,and just the activity of it,
right?
So it's, it's, I don't know,those posts, I, I, I hope people
see it for the intent that I Andthat I'm resharing or putting
that message out there, but withwith the Internet and the way
society is nowadays, too, it candefinitely be put out there for

(01:27:05):
for lack of intent, I guess, toand more of the give my give my
post a like kind of thing,right?

Alfred (01:27:11):
Yeah, 100%.
I think after reading your post,obviously knowing you as a
person, the word I would use isgenuine.
Your messaging is very genuine.
It's very it's true.
It's authentic.
There's no.
Riff raff, there's no icing onthe cake.
It's, it's, it's real and downto it.
I want to ask if you think, thisis my perspective and I'm

(01:27:31):
curious yours, I think there's,it's like a 50 50 split.
It's the problem with mentalhealth, men's mental health,
men's really friendship circlesand communities.
I think it's 50 percent ego, andwhere that ego comes from I'm
not sure, because I know that mygrandfather never had a big

(01:27:52):
enough ego.
He was always having coffee withpeople, he was always helping
out, he would hear from a friendof a friend, it's like, oh so
and so is replacing their roof,it's like, well I'm off work at
4, I'll be at his house at 4.
15.
Like, you don't need like,without, you're just gonna show
up with tools, and go.
Like, and that was it, andthat's how, so there was no ego
there whatsoever.
Then you have influence.
And I'm going to go with socialmedia on this one because this

(01:28:14):
one bugs me a lot and whenever Isee it on social media, I
actually, I actually cater mysocial media to what I want when
I see influencers or coaches orwhatever and they say, cut off
anything negative in your lifeor just because you have family

(01:28:38):
doesn't mean you need to talk tothem or this, this, this, this.
This one sided messaging thatsays if something doesn't, eh,
if something doesn't sit rightwith you, cut it off.
And that's a fucking terriblemessage because we're asking men
to be uncomfortable.
We're asking you to, to, to dropyour fucking guard and, and tell

(01:29:03):
your friends what you need.
Tell, you know, acquaintanceswhat you'd like.
Tell your wife what you have tohave.
And if you're trying to tell methat anything uncomfortable, or
anything that doesn't, you know,pique your interest or gets you
to your dreams, that you have tocut off, you're fucked.
Because, uncomfortable, hard,difficult, is literally the

(01:29:29):
recipe for making anythinggreat.
If you want to get built at thegym, you gotta go through the
shit.
If you want to go on a, on, youknow, on a, on an epic hike
with, with friends and family,you're going to suffer.
If, if, if you have a friendthat.
You know, lost a job or lost awife or lost a kid or all the

(01:29:50):
above or got a traumatic healthdiagnosis.
That's not going to be a funconversation.
That's going to be fuckingterrible.
And if you've catered your lifeto never having those
conversations, how can, how canyou be there?
I'll do you one

Tom (01:30:04):
better.
It's not the recipe for beingfor greatness.
It's not the recipe forgreatness.
It's the recipe for existence.

Alfred (01:30:09):
Yeah,

Tom (01:30:10):
man.
I like that better to go throughhardships.
Yeah, and respond to them to getthrough if you, if you, if you
just cut out all the negativityin your life, what is your
existence?
Right?
There has to be hardship forthere to be progress.

Alfred (01:30:34):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
Chris Williamson, I quote him alot on my podcast and I follow
him.
He's fantastic.
He has a podcast called ModernWisdom.
Highly recommend it.
But he has a really great, hetalks about like, cold plunges,
working out, you know, therapy,difficult conversations.
And he basically says, he'slike, unchosen suffering is

(01:30:55):
going to happen in life.
And that's kind of what we'retalking about.
It's like, your parents aregoing to die, you're going to
lose your job, your, yourhealth's going to deteriorate,
you know, whatever.
There's things that you cannotcontrol.
And the only way to prepare forthem is with chosen suffering.
That's the only way.
You can deal with that situationproperly.

(01:31:17):
There's no other way to do it.
You can read as many books asyou want, you can watch as many
YouTubes as you want, you canwatch this, you know, listen to
this pod, you can do whateveryou want.
Unless you've actually gonethrough it.
And the greatest analogy I haveis, okay, you're having open
heart surgery.
Do you want the doctor that'sone month into his job, but
spent 20 years at Harvard?
Or do you want the guy thatgraduated from the U of A that

(01:31:38):
has been doing open heartsurgeries for 20 years?
I want the guy who's done it.
I don't want, I don't want the,the, the Yale fitness expert who
kind of looks mediocre to teachme how to gym.
I want the gym bro to teach mehow to gym.
He's the fucking guy that knowshow to do it.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.

(01:31:58):
So, so there's this conceptgoing around now and I've seen
it so much.
Where everyone's like cut outthe negativity or anything
that's not positive in your lifeand and and meeting your your
Frequency and you get all thesebuzzwords and stuff.
It's like you can't do that.
That's a really really terribleAdvice to take if you're wanting

(01:32:21):
to be a really good friend areally good husband Yeah, a
really good man and just overalla very mature person you have to
go through life difficultsituations Over and over and
over and over and I'm not sayingas if like the first time you do
it You're not gonna crash andburn like You might go through a

(01:32:42):
traumatic event I show up atyour house and I might not know
what to fucking say to you And Imight sit there and be like this
is fucking awkward man.
I really hope Tom is like, okayIt's but then the next time it
happens with a different friend.
Fuck when I was with Tom, Iwasn't really a good friend It's
like so you develop these skillsbecause it is a skill to not
have an emotional knee jerkreaction Which may culminate

(01:33:05):
with somebody taking their ownlife, you have to learn how to
deal with stress, and, and, andfrustration, and hardships, and
loss, and, or, or success.
I mean, the same is true on theother side.
If you get to, if you get to theheight of the mountain too
quickly, and you don't know howto deal with it, that's where
drugs come in, that's wherecheating on women comes in,

(01:33:25):
that's where bad financialdecisions come in.
There's this balancing act, butthe only way to deal with the,
with the peaks and valleys is inthe middle.
You, you, you kind of got to,you know, you can't just enjoy
that.
You kind of got to callousyourself mentally and physically
to be able to deal with thisshit.

Tom (01:33:41):
Yeah, you have, you have to learn, you have to learn how to
succeed and you have to learnhow to fail, right?
And the only way that you get toexperience and, and learn those
lessons is by going through theexperience.
You're never going to learn thatreading a book.
You're never going to learn thatsitting at home and and not

(01:34:02):
having any interaction withanyone or anything.
Right?
It just you have to put yourselfout there and expose yourself to
those, those things.
And you're either going tolearn.
One, how to, how to, how toovercome, how to, how to
succeed, or you're going to haveto learn how to accept loss and

(01:34:23):
failure through whatever ventureyou undertake.

Alfred (01:34:28):
Yeah, I love it man, because yeah, you're, you're,
you're one of the only ones thatI know that speaks out as
publicly about this stuff, andthis is not an easy conversation
for me to have.
Right.
We've, we've shared experiencesat the paintball field, and
we've talked about some of thisstuff and, you know, we've
messaged on messenger and, youknow, our relationship is what,
24 months old and it's sporadicat best.

(01:34:50):
These types of conversations,I'll remember for a long time
that this, this matters.
Just us talking about the ideaand the concept of going through
tough times.
I know if I'm in a bad spot, Idon't have any issues reaching
out, and I would hope the sameis true on the other foot.
That's how it starts.

(01:35:10):
You know, we're saying that youhave to kind of go through bad
experiences.
We're not saying jump off abridge and go through the worst
one you can fucking imagine.
That's not what we're gettingat.
It's just anything that kind ofputs you in a little bit of a
pickle and you're like, that'snot, I kind of feel like you
need to experience that.
You need to take one more stepforward and then the next time
take two.
Like, if you're pissed off atyour boss at work and you're

(01:35:31):
just that catty person thattalks to the guy next to you
like, man, fuck that guy and lala la la.
It's like, go have aconversation.
Be like, dude.
Why the fuck are these policychanges happening or why am I
getting a raise or why are youalways late to work just that
alone that builds your abilityto deal with conflict, not quite
head on better

Tom (01:35:52):
100 percent and it's always easier to, you know, accept or
understand why maybe somethinghasn't gone in your favor or why
something isn't working out foryou.
When you ask the questions andyou get the reasonings right to
not know why something's nothappening for you or why

(01:36:13):
something is happening for youwithout the, without the
background information.
Right?
All you're left with is whateveryour mind can come up to for a
conclusion or a solution.
To the situation, right?
And I, I know from personalexperience when, when I've, you
know, have stuff bothering me orI'm, I'm stuck wondering why

(01:36:37):
something's not working out forme or, or why something's
happening if I don't justconfront the situation or
confront the person and, andjust ask point blank what, what
the deal is, if I'm left to myown devices and just, just
worrying about it on my own and,and trying to think in my own
head, right?
Why something's happening, I'llinevitably always come to the

(01:36:59):
worst outcome or the worstconclusion of that situation
that could possibly happen everysingle time.
And you will always manifestthat poor outcome or that bad
outcome because that's all youbecome fixated on, right?
When you only focus on, on, onthe outcome in a negative

(01:37:19):
manner.
And you convince yourself thatthat's the only way that this
situation or this scenario canplay out.
Guess what?
It's going to play out that waybecause you manifest it into an
existence.

Alfred (01:37:32):
Yeah, when you can't imagine a different outcome,
right?
You're naturally Either notgoing to accept a different
outcome or it's just not likeyou said, it's going to
naturally gravitate to it.
What, what are some ideas orsomething that you might have
that people can do on anindividual personal level to
kind of combat maybe any demonsor lack of assertiveness to
maybe have a difficultconversation.

(01:37:53):
If somebody's hearing this forthe first time, it's kind of
thought provoking.
They're like, man, I've reallybeen in a rough spot since COVID
or, you know, maybe before thenor recently.
Whatever it may be, you know,the oil is losing the Stanley
cup finals.
If that's really weighing onyour mind, whatever, you know,
what, what are some ideas thatmaybe have either helped you or
that you've maybe either seenhelp other people or you're

(01:38:14):
working on yourself that peoplecan do on a personal level.
To kind of build this, you know,we talked about being assertive.
It's not easy.
It's very difficult.
Do you think people just need tojump in or is there maybe some,
some, some mindsets or sometactics or some skills that they
can build?

Tom (01:38:30):
I mean, I know for myself personally, I was never, I was
never the type of person to.
And list help from aprofessional professional
services or utilize, like, youknow, doctors or physicians to
to assist or, you know, get youin touch with with people like,
you know, the psychologists orthe or the social workers or the

(01:38:52):
therapist to.
To, to talk about whatever theissues are, that was bothering
me and, and it was, it wasprobably about seven, yeah,
seven, maybe eight years ago, I,I was having some real issues
in, in my work life and I wentoff work for a while and, and I,
I did, I ended up talking with,with a therapist for probably

(01:39:13):
four or five months to, I just,I, I didn't know what else to do
at that, that point.
You know, I was in such a, sucha bad place in my, in my mental
frame, frame of mind and, and inmy, in my workplace, like, I, I
just, I didn't know what else todo.
Like, I mean, I know my wifewas, was, you know, as helpful
as she could be and as, as, asreceptive as I was to what she

(01:39:35):
was, was telling me, you know,giving me ideas of things of how
to deal with situations andwhatnot.
I really wasn't, I really wasn'tas receptive as, as I should
have been, but I thought maybetalking to.
Somebody I didn't know, youknow, for lack of a better term,
talking to a professional aboutit, you know, maybe that was
maybe that was the step that Ineeded to take to try and and

(01:39:59):
reframe or rework how, how Iwould think about certain
situations and how I wouldapproach them and how I would
deal with them.
And that was, I mean, yeah, theysaid a lot of things that my,
that my wife said.
To me, and I was more contextfrom from a stranger than it was

(01:40:20):
my, my own life.
Right?
But that helped me a lot withwith being able to, you know,
kind of change my outlook onthings, how I dealt with it and
and not, you know, not burythings down and kind of ignore
them.
And, you know, the remove thenegativity from your life and
yeah, just.

(01:40:41):
Deal with that.
If I had an issue withsomething, it was, I started to
find it was better for me tohave a conversation right then
and there and have a discussion,whether it was with a person, a
coworker, or just anyone Aboutthe situation that I was in and
just, you know, explain how Iwas feeling about it and why I

(01:41:02):
was feeling that way andlistening to feedback.
Talking about situations, notfor my, my point in the
conversation to talk, buttalking about things to hear
what others had to say andwhether I agreed with it or not,
but to give me to give me anaspect, a different aspect of

(01:41:24):
how I was thinking about thesituation, right?
Because everyone has everyonehas a different, a different
outlook on on things sometimes,right?
And sometimes hearing me.
You know, a different aspect ofa, of a situation or, or
whatever you're dealing with,you know, it can help you help
you think in a different, in adifferent way about it.

(01:41:44):
Right?

Alfred (01:41:45):
That's awesome, man.
I appreciate you sharing that.
Yeah, I've gone to therapy aswell.
Like you, I was super abrasiveto it.
I use the term shrink.
I turned, I would use the termweak, vulnerable, stupid, they,
all they do is talk.
So why am I paying for theservice?
Yeah, I had some issues with mydaughter almost destroyed my
marriage and I'll, I'llsummarize what you probably were
trying to say is when you talkto somebody who has no skin in

(01:42:07):
the game and when they repeatwhat your loved ones were
saying, you know that they'renot telling you what you want to
hear, they're telling you whatyou need to hear.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
So when, when it's, when it'sechoed by somebody who has no
idea what's going on in yourlife, except for the 30 minute,
45 minute conversation I justhad, and they draw to almost the
exact same conclusions.

(01:42:27):
Then you know, okay, my wifewasn't just saying that to talk
me off a ledge.
She's giving me proper feedback.
She's giving me proper advice.
She's giving me proper support.
And that's, I think, where thatbecomes valuable.
Is if you're true and you openup, you know, you put it all on
the line, everything that'sgoing on, that's the key
component there, right?
You have to be honest.

(01:42:48):
You have to put it on the tablethe way you would with loved
ones if you're scared that theyhave a bias towards you.
That's where that comes, itcomes full circle and you're
like, okay.
And then you can transition fromthe therapist, because at that
point, you really trust thatwhoever was giving you advice in
the past is kind of technicallyyour therapist.
If you're telling them the sameinformation, they're coming to
the same outcome.
It's just really nice to havethat reassurance that that third

(01:43:11):
party, no involvement, nohistory, that's what really
makes a difference.

Tom (01:43:17):
Yep.
Yeah, you're never going to growand progress if you're
perpetually stuck in an echochamber, right?
When all you hear is what youwant to hear, you will
completely become stagnant inanything that you're involved
in.
Right?
You need to have you need tohave different viewpoints.

(01:43:41):
And no matter what you're doing,there has to be protagonist and
antagonist, right?
For there to be any, any chanceof growth or change.
I think you have to, if you justsurround yourself with the
people who are going to tell youwhat you want to hear, then,
yeah, you will, you willcontinue to be the same person

(01:44:04):
from that point forward.
Whether it's good, whether it'sbad, but you won't ever change
from that.
You won't achieve more.
You'll probably achieve less.
Right.
If you want to keep forwardprogress in your life, you have
to be able to incorporate peoplethat will challenge you,
challenge you in your beliefs,challenge you in your way of

(01:44:25):
thinking, not, you know, notfrom a destructive point, but
just, you know, keep you on yourtoes, provide you different
input, different aspects,different, different outlooks
on, on anything.
Right?
That's, that's how you, that'show you're going to learn.
That's how you're going to grow.

Alfred (01:44:42):
Yeah.
I think that goes back to what Iwas saying is if you only do the
things that you want to do.
And only here we want to hearthat's, it's not going to get
you anywhere.
Right.
But you know, but that's themessaging nowadays, it seems,
you know, people are so like,So, so for me, and I love that,
and I agree with you a hundredpercent, you know, reach out to
Therapy, I believe Alberta has afree three digit number that you

(01:45:05):
can call to get somebody on thephone.
I know a lot of company benefitscover it.
There's a lot of online, there'sthere's an app, BetterHelp,
sponsoring a lot of podcasts anda lot of, you know, small up and
coming influencers.
There's not a lack of supportout there, so.
Even a phone one.
I've done a phone one once inperson.
I'll always advocate for inperson.
I'm a very, I'm a traditionalistat heart.
I think, you know, seeingpeople's mannerisms, body

(01:45:27):
mechanics, you know, theirfacial expression, you can tell,
right, you know, right away.
So I like, I would advocate forin person, but I mean, again, if
you're a digital person andthat's what you, that's what
your methodology, go for it.
For me, ultra accountability hashelped kill my ego and a tool
that I used really quickly is ifyou have an ego complex, and

(01:45:49):
when I say ego complex,basically, if you're mad at
somebody for not doingsomething, and I'll use the
example of, let's say you're madat a friend that hasn't reached
out to you in two years or threeyears, or maybe they only reach
out to you on your birthday onFacebook and they wish you happy
birthday and it's that preprogrammed one that it's just
one click and zero effort kindof thing.
You need to write down whatthey're not doing.
If you want them to reach out,if you want them to call, if you

(01:46:12):
want them to email, if you wantthem to knock on your door, and
then you need to circle the onesthat you haven't done, and
whichever ones you haven't done,

Tom (01:46:20):
do them.
Yeah, what's that saying,whenever you point?
That's something there'sforefingers pointing back at you
whenever you any and you'retypically always going to see
the traits in others that youdon't like that.
You usually exhibit yourself,right?
You're going to see those ones.
Those ones right off the hot.

Alfred (01:46:39):
Yeah, because I mean, we're in a digital world now.
So the ability to have even aconversation like this.
You don't have any excuses.
They did like that's, that's notreal, but again, for it to be
meaningful and impactful, youcould, and maybe you are the
person, maybe, maybe you're theperson that's reached out a
hundred times and all you get isone word answers.

(01:47:02):
Or maybe, you know, all you getis, yeah, I'm just, I'm busy.
And it could be something that'sgenuine, a new kid.
I know I have a new baby comingin March for probably the first
six months.
People aren't going to see mevery

Tom (01:47:16):
congratulations.

Alfred (01:47:17):
Yeah.
I appreciate that, buddy.
You know, and that's just a factbecause when you have kids sleep
as a currency.
And you don't have much of it.
You kind of live in poverty alittle bit when it comes to
sleep.
You know what I'm saying?
So, and that, and that's justthe nature of it.
And maybe you are that person.
Maybe you're like, I know I'vebeen that person.
I've reached out, reached out,reached out, reached out, and
eventually you lose gas, youlose motivation, right?

(01:47:40):
I know for me, I just trydifferent methods.
Right?
And eventually, I will getdisincentivized, and it'd be of
no fault to me, if somebody'sjust not genuinely interested.
Maybe it's an ideological issue,maybe it's a, you know, personal
issue, maybe you've moved on,maybe we've grown apart, or
maybe I did something in yourfucking piss.
I don't know, whatever.
But it's certainly not gonna befor lack of trying, and I'm not

(01:48:01):
gonna allow my ego to be thereason why something doesn't
work out, or something'smeaningful.
Because I will tell you this, Ithink as easy as it is to
communicate these days, And aseasy it is to, you know, for
connection, digital world, how,you know, reach out all that
stuff.
I think because of that, andthis is kind of going down to
the foundation of why I think wehave a men's mental health issue

(01:48:24):
and really a connection issue insociety.
It's fucking hard to makefriends nowadays.
It is like, like, likemeaningful friends.
Like I don't use that termlightly.
Like I like when I hear of afriend and I put you in that
column, you kind of have certainresponsibilities in my eyes.

(01:48:44):
Absolutely.
Yep.
Absolutely.
And, and one of my favoritesayings of all time, and I joke
about it at work, cause rightnow there's a bug going around
work and tons of people are sickand stuff, but, and I say it in
paintball, I think it's true fora sports metaphor.
The best ability isavailability, period.
If you're not available to me,it doesn't matter your income.

(01:49:06):
It doesn't matter how fit youare.
It doesn't matter your businessprowess.
It doesn't matter your, ourhistory.
If, if you're not available,you're not.
That connection isn't as strong.
That bond is going to is goingto slowly start to kind of fall
apart,

Tom (01:49:24):
right?
Well, yeah, there won't be anyrelationship that it's, it's
reciprocal, right?
There has to be investment andengagement from, from both sides
for the relationship to work,whether that be a friendship,
you know, relationship, husband,wife, whatever siblings, you
know, there has to be engagementfrom both sides for, for there

(01:49:47):
to be any type of relationshipthere whatsoever.

Alfred (01:49:50):
Yeah.
No, I agree, man.
Well, we're pushing two hourshere, so I think I appreciate
you making yourself available.
Time flies when you're talkinggood stuff.

Tom (01:49:59):
Well, thank you very much for having me on.
I've enjoyed this.

Alfred (01:50:02):
Yeah.
No, it's been great, dude.
It's great to catch up, period.
I just want to, I just want tofirst say that.
Thank you.
These winters here in Albertaare long and shitty.
And we're blessed to have anindoor paintball facility to
kind of connect with, but yeah,it's great to just connect, man.
I appreciate you making thetime, making the effort and
opening up, man.
That's awesome.

Tom (01:50:19):
Well, thank you very much for having me on and yeah,
really enjoyed this.
Hopefully, hopefully everyonewho listens can take something
away from it and, you know, tothose that, those that do, you
know.
When I, when I say I'm there foryou, I'm available.
I'm, I'm always here to, towhatever, be, be in here if, if
somebody just needs to vent orif, you know, maybe, maybe

(01:50:41):
whatever you're going through,I've, I've got some experience
in, we can, we can chat aboutit, but just, yeah, I'm, I'm, my
phone is, is always on andyou're going through something,
just know that you don't have togo through it by yourself.
I don't even have to know, just.
Reach out, reach out.
Just don't feel like you have togo through it alone.

Alfred (01:50:59):
I love that dude.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
And yeah, shout out to thepaintball community.
Shout out to everybody who'slistening to this.
And yeah, same here.
If anybody ever needs to reachout.
What are some socials that yougot here?
Plug them away.
What you got?
I know it's crusaderspb atInstagram on Instagram.
Is that it?

Tom (01:51:14):
Yeah, here, I don't even know what the hell they are off
the top of my head.
I'm so bad at the social mediathing.

Alfred (01:51:20):
We're such dinosaurs.
I love it.

Tom (01:51:23):
Yeah.
Crusaders PB on Instagram.
And then yeah, it's Crusaderspaintball on, on the Facebook.
I love

Alfred (01:51:31):
it.
I love it.

Tom (01:51:32):
All I got going on.

Alfred (01:51:35):
Yeah, no, that's awesome, dude.
Well, shout out to the fam,shout out to the son.
Hopefully you see him out thereat the field this summer.
And yeah, once again, we'regoing to try,

Tom (01:51:43):
we're going to try, I, I heard a rumbling that there
might be a quote unquote kidsclub starting up at Brad Creek
again this year.
So, keep your, keep your eyespeeled for that.
And it's not just for kids.
It's for, it's for just peoplenew to paintball and, and, and
speedball want to try it out.
There's, there's going to befrom, from what I heard, there's
going to be.

(01:52:03):
Something set up this year to,to kind of get that going again
and start driving up interestand, and getting some new, new
faces into the sports.
So I'm sure once that, once thatbecomes official, then there'll
be, there'll be lots of, lots ofnotification on, on the, on the
socials.
So keep an eye for that and comeon out.
We'd love to, we'd love to seesome new people get out there

(01:52:23):
and, and get to learn andexperience what, what we love
doing.
Right.
So

Alfred (01:52:29):
Love it.
Cool dude.
Well, we're gonna close it offthere, man.
Appreciate your time, sir.
You're an absolute stud.
Thank you so much.
And yeah, look forward totalking to you again soon, man.

Tom (01:52:39):
You bet.
We'll see you around.
Thanks, Alfred.

Alfred (01:52:43):
Take

Tom (01:52:43):
care.

Alfred (01:52:44):
Well, that's it for this episode.
Thank you so much for listeningto the Unmodern Podcast.
If you like what you heard andwant to hear more, don't forget
to hit that subscribe button.
Also, like and follow me onInstagram and Facebook at
Unmodern Podcast.
If you have suggestions forfuture guests, or if you're
interested in being a guestyourself, please visit
UnmodernPodcast.

(01:53:05):
com.
Thank you again, and we'll seeyou in the next episode.

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[EP18] "The Sport of Paintball & Men's Mental Health"

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