Tagging to Make A Difference

I returned to Gameworks in Denver to tag in support of a great cause and play in the third annual laser tag tournament fundraiser for the Doreen Katz Memorial Cancer Foundation. This foundation raises money to help the children of cancer patients and it is a cause that really hits home with me not only because I lost my own brother to cancer, but also because Doreen was from a town very close to my home in New York and I want to support her husband Adam in his efforts to continue helping kids. It’s also such a fun night and as Adam says “what could be more fun than laser tag?” Of course, he’s absolutely right!

I saw a few familiar faces from last year as soon as I arrived. I teamed up with Brian and Tara, Alex from The Final Word sports radio show (because we radio types flock together!) and Dale to build our team for the night, “The Walking Dread”.

We had some practice time in the arena, a familiar space I played a year ago with a double level design and three bases plus the generator.

Towards the beginning of the event I met a few players who were new to the event, but certainly familiar with Laserforce as they are members at the Loveland Laser Tag site (aka Phil’s Vangaurd…I’m told that spelling of their team name is intentional). I had actually met Trinity (aka Goldfish) on a previous trip to Denver area when she was game master during my visit to Fort Fun…I remembered her because she’s the only game master I have ever seen walking the arena in high heels!

What’s great about this event is that the “teams” are very loosely structured (as the final results were based on individual cumulative scores) so we got to play with several four-man variations of our team all night. During the first game we welcomed Dominick to swap out for a spot and we went back into the vesting room to suit up in the Gen 7 Laserforce gear.

These games were fast, furious and fun as we played team supercharge games all night long. In between we enjoyed a delicious buffet dinner with thanks to Legends of Aurora and had a strategy session during dessert.

46 participants came out to play laser tag while others showed up to enjoy the dinner and the social time, plus there was also a silent auction in support of the foundation and free arcade cards for the all who attended which were enjoyed by all ages! Adam’s main goal for this fundraiser (and every fundraiser the foundation does) is for people to have fun. He lets this be known in everything he does including dyeing his beard pink for the month of October to show his support.

Over the course of the next few rounds we continued rotating players so that everyone had a chance to play as much as they wanted. Josiah (another Loveland player) joined us towards the end.

And at the end of the night awards were given to the top four players based on cumulative score from throughout the night. I came in second place. Congrats to Troy Meissner for first place, Ben Carney took third and Joseph Lee took fourth place.

I thank the foundation for the prize package I received with over $100 worth of gift certificates.

And a very special youth award was presented to Austin, who did such a great job in all the games he played during the event and is a wonderful young man!

This was such a fun night and it’s a very worthwhile cause. This event was the main reason I decided to travel west on this particular weekend and the whole trip afforded me so many great experiences. I can’t wait to return to Denver again next year!