"I’m industry now. I never get to play.” Many of the founding players and top industry names, the people who helped build paintball from its roots as the National Survival Game, make this declaration. It takes great effort and dedication to run a field or a large corporation--or even a small business--and still get out into the woods and shoot some faces every few weekends. But it can be done.

A chance to get back onto the field and enjoy the game was a major impetus behind Mike “Blue” Hanse, owner of EMR Paintball and Blue’s Crew, starting the powerhouse woodsball team in 2003. “I had the idea for about 15 years,” he says. “I used to be a gun manufacturer and I sponsored a lot of teams. I thought about putting together a true marketing team that would truly market its sponsors’ products and be emissaries for the sport, on and off the field. Meanwhile, I also wanted to have a good time. It was getting to the point where all I did was work and I didn’t play anymore.”

That’s no longer the case, as Blue now runs with his hand-picked Crew, 25 elite paintball warriors and 15 associate members, who are also emissaries for the sport, at more than a dozen events every season.
Blue’s Crew’s “Schedule of Carnage” includes high-profile games such as Wayne’s Grand Finale at Wayne’s World in Ocala, Florida, the Long Island Big Game at Cousins Paintball, the Michigan Monster Game at Hell Survivors in Pickney, Michigan, and EMR Paintball’s Castle Conquest attack/defend game. “I have not found anything quite as insane as Castle. There’s nothing like it,” Blue says.

That is quite a statement from a man whose paintball history spans 25 years. He’s been a manufacturer, distributor, and field owner and remains one of the most recognizable faces in the game. Through it all, he’s been a player’s player, a true paintball personality who remains devoted to woods and recreational play.

While the industry in general goes back to its roots with a renewed emphasis on what we now call “woodsball,” some heroes never left.

Paintball History:

I heard about paintball when they opened one of the first commercial National Survival Game fields down in Virginia in 1983. I was on my way to a business meeting in Washington D.C., driving along in my three-piece suit and tie, when I heard an ad on the radio. I quickly pulled out a pen and jotted down the information.

One of my customers and friends owned a sporting goods store down in Chambersburg, Va., where my other business was based. I asked him for paintball markers, and he had no clue what I was talking about.

I explained it to him, and, in about two weeks, he got a flyer about an NSG Splatmaster. I told him to order four of them for me.

I had an acre and a half of woods that I owned next to my house. I ordered a bunch of paintballs and CO2 cartridges and called up some friends to see if they wanted to try something new. Sue [Blue’s wife] played, too. She hasn’t played consistently, but the first time she played was 1983.

It was a totally different game back then. You’re creeping around, you don’t know when you’re going to get shot, if you’re going to get shot. It was just such an adrenaline rush I fell in love with it.
My business at the time was pretty stressful; I worked a lot of hours. If I wasn’t away on business, I played every weekend up until the late 1980s. We played in a tornado one time, blinding snowstorms, wind, rain… you name it. We played every weekend.

By 1984, I bought 10 more Splatmasters, and then some other markers, and started doing it as a side business out of my basement. That’s when I started Hanse Hollow. From the very start, I had put netting up in the woods, so we had a safe area and a shooting area. As soon as I discovered chronographs, I bought one. By 1987, I was legitimate, with insurance.

I discovered other places that hosted paintball, and started organizing games with them. We used to practice against the All-Americans on 40 acres at Foxhole Paintball. In 1992 I bought Wolf’s Lair, which eventually became the site of EMR Paintball.

How You Got Your Nickname:

In 1988, I was playing down in Paw, Paw, West Virginia, in a bunch of warehouses. There were about 60 players, and I had just gotten my Tippmann 68 Special. I was the only one there with a semi-automatic; everyone else had pistols or pumps. I had ordered a case of blue Nelson paint, as it shot real well with the gun. Everyone else was shooting red or orange.
I just had one of those perfect paintball days. Everything went great. We were playing 40-minute games and we kept splitting up the teams throughout the day. By two-thirds of the way through the day, everybody there had blue paint on them. And that old-style blue paint was oily and greasy and it stained everything. By the end of the day, they were calling me Blue--along with other names I won’t repeat!
From then on, I shot only blue paint. I painted my Tippmann blue with model paint. Vents came out with a blue ref mask, and I bought one and started wearing that. In my corporate life, I had introduced paintball to my Rotary Club--I was the youngest Rotarian in my area--and I was trying to show that paintball is not military; we weren’t out training for war. I started wearing all blue on the field instead of camo.

It just progressed from there, people started calling me Blue everywhere I went and I started using it as a marketing tool.

Favorite Paintball Memory:

Paintball has been such a major part of my life for so long. There are so many memorable events, I couldn’t pick a favorite. One memory that really stands out was renewing my vows with Sue in front of 1,500 of our closest friends, players and family at Castle Conquest last year. It almost brings tears to my eyes every time I think about it. There were so many people there who we love and it was such a family moment in paintball. I don’t think I could ever recreate that.

Advice/Tips for Young Players:

Practice. So many people get a fantastic fast gun, and they go out and just shoot a lot of paint. Back in the pistol and pump days, we’d go out and run drills, and we still do.
I’d put up little targets--laundry detergent bottles, anything--and I would run and shoot at them while I was running through the woods. I’d shoot left-handed, I’d shoot right- handed, practicing target acquisition, snap-shooting. Those are the basics.
Back then, if you shot at me, caught me by surprise, and missed me the first time, I’d put two on your goggles. That came from years and years of practice, and I’m still a good snapshooter.

Piece of Equipment You Couldn’t Live Without:

The Autococker SR. It shoots long and flat like Autocockers always have, but it doesn’t have the big moving block, which takes away some of the jolting that ‘cockers used to have.

I’ve always liked ‘cockers because of the long, flat shot, but this is a true electronic, with a fully adjustable trigger. It’s a light marker, and it is fast. It’s easy to shoot up in the 20 bps on semi. I love the gun.

If you don’t have a good marker, you’re not happy on the field. And with the type of run and gun, aggressive style of play we have on Blue’s Crew, we need something that shoots fast and accurate and that we can move with, so we’re not lugging around a lot of weight.

Paintball Heroes:

There’s too many to name. We’ve all grown up together. We’re all good friends. We all went through the hard times. People like Bud Orr, Tom Kaye, Glenn Palmer… the Living Legends game was like going home again. There were a few who didn’t make it, of course, but there were so many of us at the game we called ourselves the Graybeards.

I can’t say any one individual is a hero. They are all heroes. They made the sport happen. All of us put in so much time, a lot without pay, to help paintball grow as a legitimate sport and as an industry.
Field owners, too: Dave Massey at Hell Survivors, Dean DelPrete and Paul Sattler from Cousins Paintball, everybody who worked to make the sport good, to make it safe, and to make it fun for the players, is a hero in my eyes.

In His Own Words:

I can see where Blue’s Crew has gotten a bad rap sometimes, where people say all we do is go shoot. That’s not all we do. The generals have learned to utilize us to great effect. Sean Scott, during the 2008 Long Island Big Game, showed that he knows how to utilize us. If he has a mission going to a certain area, he sends us along to clear that area and then sends someone else to do the mission.
We don’t just go out there and madly shoot. We check in with our general and our commanders all the time. They tell us the areas they need cleared, or they need a fort taken, or there’s a big push in a certain area and they need us to stop the opponents.

Future Paintball Plans:

Blue’s Crew was started as a true marketing entity, and my original goal was to make it one of the top marketing machines in paintball. I honestly feel I’ve reached that goal.

Our newest emphasis is on Blue’s Crew TV. (http://www.bluescrewtv.com) It’s all about action video for the rec ball players. We’re catering to the woodsball, rec ball, scenario and big game players, giving them quality footage put to music. We got some funny video footage on the way to the Michigan Monster Game at Hell Survivors. We just want to make it fun and entertaining.

We’re also continuing to grow what we do with the Blue’s Crew compound and our hospitality suite… We have a great marketing partnership with JT Sports. They are enhancing what we do and we are enhancing what they do. We’re working together, and that’s where Blue’s Crew is going. We will continue to grow, and video will be a big part of it.

Behind the Gogs:

We have two dogs that we love. Our favorite place to go is Chincoteague, Virginia. We have a little place down there and that is where we go to get away. Chris ["Deuce" Hanse, Blue’s son] and his girlfriend and the Crew all go down there. We love to fish, and out on our pontoon boat down in Chincoteague is heaven. No cell phones, no computers allowed. We like fishing, we like to hike, and we love our animals.

The biggest thing I would have to say to everyone is “family.” It’s all about family: Personal family and paintball family.

The Quick and Dirty

Birthplace: Jacksonville, Florida
Hometown: Hallstead, Pennsylvania
First time playing paintball: 1983 in Virginia
Current team: Blue’s Crew
First paintball gun: Splatmaster
Current paintball guns: Autococker SR
Primary Sponsors: JT Sports / Worr Game Products / K2 and EMR Paintball Park
Honors/awards/command: Members of Blue’s Crew do not run missions, take command roles or accept awards. But Blue was a key player in the 2008 Living Legends game held at CPX Sports in Joliet, Ill., and leads the attackers or defenders every year at Spring Castle Conquest at EMR Paintball.
Home field: EMR Paintball
Region: The Crew travels to events across the East Coast and Midwest, as far South as Florida, and as far North as Canada.

« Back to Profiles.