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Laser tag isn't just about bragging rights. Sunday, there was money on the line.
Seven Carmel-area teens took home $250 and other prizes at Laser Flash, a Carmel laser tag facility, during one of 11 regional championships in the Lasertron 2005 World Championships.
"We had to try to win today," said Kyle Kimmerly, 17, a Carmel High School junior and captain of the Unholy Avengers team. "I was here for 14 hours this week."
Three teams of seven competed for first prize by sneaking through a darkened 7,800-square-foot maze. Players earn points by shooting other players' vests with infrared beams.
Teams that competed in regional events can advance in August to Lasertron's first World Championship Tournament in Amherst, N.Y.; at stake there is an estimated $10,000 prize package.
Kimmerly said he probably would spend his winnings playing more laser tag -- a game that has increased in popularity since the first laser tag facility opened in Dallas, according to the International Laser Tag Association.
Carmel resident Peter Murphy, whose 16-year-old son, Andy, is on the winning team, can attest to laser tag's popularity.
He quit his job as a computer chip designer for Thomson Consumer Electronics and opened Laser Flash about two years ago.
Murphy learned about the game when he took his son to a similar facility in Indianapolis.
"I had never even seen laser tag prior to the night that I decided it was the business I was going into," said Murphy, 48. "I was standing around the lobby looking at it and decided that it looked easy enough to do, and I could do a better job of it."
Ben Fernatt, a fourth-grader at Orchard Park Elementary and member of the team that won third place, said he likes laser tag because he hopes it will help prepare him for a career on a SWAT team or in the Air Force.
"I'll start training now," said Fernatt, 10, a member of The Knights Who Say, "Ni." The name comes from the movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."
Kim Glavan's son, Alex, is a member of the Knights.
"The boys have bonded so well and made such nice friends," said Glavan, 48, Carmel.
Call Star reporter Cathy Kightlinger at (317) 444-2609.