Arrowminded fun
Twenty players — wearing black face masks and holding empty bows — line up against opposite walls, staring across a playing surface at their opponents. They wait anxiously, leaning forward, bouncing lightly on the balls of their feet.
Finally a whistle blows. They rush forward, snatching arrows from the middle of the arena. Then they make a mad dash to hide behind inflatable obstacles — the only thing standing between the participants and an arrow coming their way.
It’s madness. Arrows fly every which way. Players hop, scoot, dive to avoid getting hit. When they can, the players fire back across the arena, trying to score a direct hit. It’s sweaty, it’s heartpumping, and it’s exhilarating.
OK, they’re foam arrows. But it’s oldschool dodgeball — with a twist.
Jesse Warlick opened Archery Games Denver last week in a seemingly innocuous warehouse in Arvada. The concept is a unique take on a classic PE game: Two teams try to get each other out by shooting padded arrows at each other across a turf arena.
Archery dodgeball is a concept that’s taking off in Canada but is just now reaching the U.S. It’s hooking people, from thirdgraders to CEOS. In fact, Warlick said, his most popular groups have been bachelor parties and corporate outings.
“I think people spend so much time in front of a computer,” he said. “Whether it’s a corporate event, and
you sit in front of your computer all day, or just anybody. You just stare at your screen so much. Adults don’t really sprint. So to get to sprint, and kind of be kids again … you don’t do that all that often, so people seem to enjoy that.”
Warlick worked in investment banking and private equity in New York and Los Angeles, but he always had an itch to start his own business.
“I was 30 years old and had always kind of had that bug,” he said. “So I was like, OK, I’m 30, I have some savings, I don’t have a house, I don’t have a mortgage, I don’t have a family — so everything seemed to align.”
Warlick first played in Montreal last fall and “had a blast.” He came back thinking that this concept could appeal to Americans too. Less than a year later, Archery Games Denver is open for business.
On a warm Saturday afternoon, the arena was taken over by two competing birthday parties. Thirteenyear old Reece Ferrufino and his cohort of crazed middle school friends, and Sarah Carlson, there to celebrate with her 20 and 30something pals.
Ferrufino and crew begged to take on the older group, so Warlick obliged, setting up several rounds of “Kids vs. the World.” They were spirited affairs, with the middle schoolers holding their own, playing like veterans.
There are all sorts of permutations to archery dodgeball. In one version, players who are hit can get back in the game if they catch an arrow shot by a teammate on the other side of the arena. In another version — called Dog Eat Dog — it’s every player for themselves. A total freeforall, with one person left standing.
“My dad found archery dodgeball, and I thought it would be fun,” Ferrufino said with a grin. “None of us had ever done it before. I thought it was pretty cool.”
Ferrufino’s favorite game, he said, was a version called Medic in which each team assigns one player who has the power to “save” a teammate who’s been hit by touching their shoulder for 10 seconds — that’s if they can dodge the volley of incoming arrows.
“I thought it was funny to have a person reviving someone,” Ferrufino said. “That was fun.”