Chicago company closes WhirlyBall’s Colorado Springs location
After just under 10 years of service, WhirlyBall’s Colorado Springs location has closed its doors.
Dialing the Colorado Springs number for the Chicago-based company yielded a note Saturday from an employee telling customers that the location has been closed. WhirlyBall is a game that mixes elements of basketball, hockey and lacrosse and whose players ride electric bumper cars.
“Our last day of service will be Feb. 6. We won’t be able to host your event,” the person on the answering machine says.
The 30,000-square-foot entertainment center opened on the Springs’ east side in June 2017, The Gazette previously reported. The building rests in the Rustic Hills Shopping Center, southeast of Academy and Palmer Park boulevards. It was the fourth WhirlyBall center opened by the Elias family of Chicago.
WhirlyBall was invented in the early 1960s by a Salt Lake City automotive shop owner, who was inspired by watching his son use a hockey stick to whack a tin can while riding a golf cart, Adam Elias previously told The Gazette.
The game evolved to gas-powered bumper cars and now is played using indoor, electric bumper cars that teams ride as they throw around a ball and attempt to score points.





