Flipping the script

but more importantly, they are real.

“You can see the ball rolling around in the play eld,” Kevin said. “Everything that you see that’s going on is actually happening in the world. It’s not virtual.”

Laura grew up with a Donkey Kong video game in her bedroom. Over the past three decades, the couple’s love for games has only grown. If their house at any given time had room for one pinball machine, or two, or 10, it would be used. en, once a year, they would bring their games to the Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown, so they could be played by pinball pros and novices alike from across the state.

“It’s just a once-a-year thing, but we always really enjoyed seeing people play our games,” Laura said. ese moments of connection inspired the McCarthys, as did their growing family. Kevin and Laura took their sons Jack and Zach to play pinball, but the options were limited.

“Most of the places where there’s a signi cant number of good playing machines are bars,” Laura said, describing how Conifer, while abundant with outdoor activities, lacks indoor options that are a good t for families.

So, in 2017, the McCarthys took action.

“Having (the pinball games) sit in our basement just seemed like a shame,” Kevin said.

Blizzard Mountain Pinball opened its doors, and for the rst several years, business was predictable.

“We were just plodding along,” Kevin said. “We weren’t making money, but we weren’t losing money either. And then COVID came along and just blew us out of the water. We were closed for eight months.” e business made it through. Today, it is back to bringing the community fun that spans generations.

During those eight months, Blizzard still had to pay rent. ey fought to stay a oat, ling for grants, and later operating at limited capacity and sanitizing machines between each game.

“One of my favorite things is, especially around the holidays, we’ll see little kids and teenagers and parents and the grandparents all come in together, and everybody’s having a blast,” Laura said. “ e older people remember it from their youth, and the young kids are like, ‘I’ve never seen a real (pinball game) that’s not on a tablet’.”

“As long as we’re making people happy, then I’m happy,” Kevin said. “ at’s kind of the bottom line.”

Thanks to the support of our amazing sponsors every dollar from our race registrations will go directly to support in-home health care across our mountain community.