The Hellfish paintball team was founded in Bend, Oregon in 2004 when two childhood friends (AriZona and dtr43) learned that the other had recently moved back to their hometown of Bend and had been playing paintball locally.
The Hellfish started with these two playing with other walkon players regularly at a local outlaw ball spot known as the “Kitty Litter Factory” or “KLF”. This place was an abandoned factory complex containing two buildings and a sniper tower, all in a sunken bowl. Due to its uniqueness the “KLF” drew peoples interest a lot more than an airball field or just playing out in the forest would. This place provided some great battles and our stories over beers quickly gained other friends interest in the team and sport. This is when the Hellfish became a team with the addition of SharpTooth and slowly started growing it’s ranks from there. The “KLF” was also where the Hellfish would meet other like minded teams and individuals that would help build our paintball network and eventually lead to travels to out of town games as far away as Southern California and the Canadian Border.
The team name came from Grandpa Simpson’s unit in the war, known as “The Flying Hellfish” aka “The Fighting Hellfish”. We thought that it was appropriate being longtime fans of the show, as well as making a statement that our team is lighthearted and on the field to have as much fun as we can.
Link: The Fighting Hellfish
Looking closer at this submission and the videos I was wowed by the interesting terrain and the “in your face” style of paintball that is common to the Hellfish. So I asked Joe Hite to give us more insight into what it is really like to paintball out in the desert like this
The type of paintball games we thrive on, play and produce can be likened to the military acronyms MOUT (Military Operation in Urban Terrain) or CQB (Close Quarters Battle) due to the places we enjoy to play. Since the early days we’ve always played in urban or “mock” urban environments. Places with buildings, streets, and other manmade objects. In addition we enjoy having a scenario and objectives other than simple elimination or capture the flag games. Playing at the “KLF” was when we first started into this type of paintball. The “KLF” Facility was a perfect simulation of a war torn battlefield due to it’s dilapidated state. The factory that once harvested the raw material used to produce cat litter had long since been abandoned. In the past the place had been used as a backdrop in the post-apocalyptic Kevin Costner flick “The Postman”. Piles of scrap metal, rubble, abandoned cars and other trash were scattered about the bowl floor amongst the two buildings. The buildings themselves were for the most part gutted shells with concrete slabs and a steel frame structure covered in corrugated sheet metal. Areas of the sheet metal were missing all together, pieces flapping here or there in the wind and when you’d get into a firefight the paintballs hitting that sheet metal were loud as hell! One building was small and the other about four times as big and had a multi story “snipers tower” attached to one corner. The two sat on opposite sides of the bowl, face to face. It was intense because you had to use caution at all times playing amongst rusty scrap metal, holes in the ground that were perfect to break and ankle, broken glass and buildings that were literally falling apart. It was the perfect place to go when you wanted some intense action to get the blood flowing!
With the closing of “KLF” and opening of the “HDS” field we had the opportunity to help construct something from the ground up that could give us that same feeling we used to have at the “KLF”. A combined effort of “HDS” club members have now given us just that! High Desert Scenario boasts some of the best urban/CQB paintball that Oregon has to offer. The field itself sits in a high desert valley just East of Bend, OR and looks like it could be a backdrop set in the mountains of Afghanistan. It holds over one mile of trenches, foxholes, bunkers, a road system, and two large urban/CQB areas known as “The Facility” and “The Town” . Containing only five doors, no windows, and one snipers tower “The Facility” is as big as a house and filled with a maze of hallways and rooms. The second CQB area, “The Town”, is just that. A small mock town complete with a street lined on both side by a wall of buildings. Past the street-side walls lies a maze of hallways and rooms. Truly an amazing field that makes for some of the most intense and in your face paintball battles we have ever witnessed!
Playing places like these where you don’t know if an enemy is right around the next corner or just on the other side of the wall from you really provides an intense feeling that we don’t get anywhere else in paintball.
In 2009 the team focused largely on paintball in Oregon as a whole, attending games on both sides of the mountains. We also really worked on our local paintball scene to help strengthen and build it along with re-establishing “HDS” as a field that is known to others beyond our local borders.
-SuperGame 37, the Northwest’s largest paintball game to date. Our leaflet propaganda campaign, the teams we met, the downpour, the 4 inches of mud, even the stinging nettles… such a fun weekend! Dan Bonebrake knows how to throw a hell of a game!
-Helping to build what we think is one of the most tactical paintball fields in Oregon.
-The first full season having “HDS” back open after its 2 year closure and county hearing process.
-Successfully throwing 5 large, organized scenario events at “HDS” and not having one stated issue or complaint. This tells us we’re going in the right direction and we will continue critiquing ourselves, trying to improve the games we throw in order to make them the best possible. Having people enjoy the games we create is probably one of our biggest highlights of 2009 and that makes us want to do even better in 2010.
Hellfish TV was started back in the “KLF” days. The first video was posted online, black and white with a music track and came from shakey handheld footage of a pickup game. Slowly people locally, then out of the area began to take notice of our videos. They were really excited and interested in both the gear and type of paintball we were playing along with the environment we played in. I think we decided to continue making videos to show our paintball exploits because we enjoyed both having a video for ourselves to watch of past paintball memories as well as receiving the positive feedback and encouragement from our growing audience online.
Since the early days of Hellfish TV we have come a long way in our post production, editing, graphics, camera work and just about every other department. Within the last year we have also taken on the first member of Hellfish TV who is not also a part of Team Hellfish. “Silent Warrior” of our brother team, “The Operators” has come on board to help us by providing his great camera skills. His addition has bumped our number of capable camera men to 3, which has already proven to give us a final product that is better than ever.
There are so many great videos that it’s hard to just name a few. Here are a few that have caught our eye for their content and/or production value.
-Big Paintball Maneuvers (Russian):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfbr3B_kvEM&feature=channel
-Social Paintball. Their channel is great:
http://www.youtube.com/user/SocialPaintball
-DQ Films. Not really into speedball but he makes great stuff:
http://www.youtube.com/user/dqECEkidz
You belonged to an organization (that is unfortunately disbanded) … what was the organization and during its existence what were some of the biggest accomplishments?
ORTAC or Oregon Tactical was built of several milsim/scenario teams from around the state that liked to play the same style of aggressive, in your face paintball. These teams would throw games, and attend other commercially produced games as one large fighting force. Each team that was part of it would concept ideas on rules, games, props, etc, and then one team or another would write a storyline and missions and throw a game. It was great while it lasted, but like the saying goes… “All good things must come to an end”. We didn’t walk away empty handed though. We adapted and refined some of the early learnings of ORTAC into the games that we are throwing today. Other ex-ORTAC teams are doing similar things with what they learned as well.
What is on the books for the team for 2010?
We plan to get out there to some places we haven’t played before, and some places no one has played before. We want to make the trip to the Portland area to play our friends, OK Company’s field “The Mountain”, also Team Walkons’ field “The Swamp”. The first weekend of May we’re looking forward to attending SuperGame 39, which hopes to break the attendance record for a NW paintball game again this year. We also will be doing another season of scenario games at “HDS” (games we produce typically happen every other month out there). Attending a couple of private, invite only games that will be held in undisclosed urban environments or complexes is also on our books. In addition to playing and throwing paintball games we’ll still be working on the 2010 season of Hellfish TV for a large number of events we attend or produce.
Who all is on the current roster?
Members: AriZona, dtr43, Sharptooth, MasterMP, Maitri
Now check out one of the sickest videos I have ever seen!!!!
