Hockey pays the bills
A view from the arena(s).
Hockey is my second favourite sport. That’s probably the most un-Canadian statement I can make. I was born in Canada so you can’t take my citizenship away for that. I can’t skate worth a dam, so I never played hockey. I can shoot a puck if I am standing on the ice with a stick in boots. But it is fun to watch, and lucky for me I get paid to watch.
Due to geography and circumstances, I am within 25 minutes of three junior hockey teams in the same league, and I cover two of them for my day job. There is a fourth team but it’s in a different league and admittedly I don’t know much about them.
Photographing hockey is a challenge. A range of lighting options are available. Hockey board glass is thick, so you lose at least a full stop of light – more so if it is plexiglass. Glass is marked with bits of rubber from pucks, scrapes from sticks grazing the surface, and often water (I hope that’s water) streaked. Arena staff clean things as best they can, but arenas are big, staffing is few, and polishing the board glass to an unblemished shine for this photographer is understandibly low on the priority list. Much of my time is spent glaring at the glass for a reasonably 6x6 inch section that looks “good enough” to photograph through. Arenas around here do not have those “photographer holes” in the boards like in pro arenas where photographers can stick their lens through the glass. Given the cost of equipment and that my gear is self-funded, I am okay without that pro advantage.
As I photograph in the same two arenas, I did my home work ahead of time. Figured out the colour temperature of the lights, set custom settings for my camera body/lens, and scouted out the best locations to get the right angles are. The real challenge for photographing hockey is getting the action clearly, and getting that goal. Some days it works out, other days you hope for a decent photo of a player you can write about, or that tells a story of some sort.
Last night for game one, I walked into the arena and had missed the first two goals. Early action for the home team. In the time it took for me to walk down to ice level and get the camera out of the camera bag, the home team was up 3-0(!) a rare feat. That was most of the home team’s scoring, the slow starting visitors had caught up by the second period and in the end it was an 8-4 loss for the home team. Unfortunately that is not an unusual scoreline this season.
Hoping for a goal, I usually park myself behind the net. This is the WORST spot for clean board glass. But I do it because I love this angle to photograph from. If it’s a goal, you can get the puck “bulging the twine” and the successful scorer’s face. This photo above, was not a goal, but the blocked shot still works to show intensity at the net. Unlike one-trick-pony “photographers”, I don’t like to stay in one place long though. So after parking at the goal, I move to other places along the boards. Sometimes I’ll stand on something to elevate myself above all the dirt on the board glass. The second arena I photograph in has a walking track. Even though there is netting protecting people on the track from flying pucks, with the right telephoto lens you can blow through the netting as if it was board glass. Aim at the netting straight on, and the mesh pattern disappears. Expect to lose a full stop with that mess too.
Most of the games I go to are on Saturday nights. And like the song says…
…Saturday night’s alright for fighting.
Look closely at the referee’s pants in the foreground, you can see the reflection in the glass. This is another challenge photographing through thick glass. As my photos are for a print newspaper, I know how much I can get away with that won’t translate onto the printed page so that glare is fine.
“I went to a fight, and a hockey game broke out.” – Rodney Dangerfield
Junior hockey is great because it’s two sports in one – hockey and fight night. This photo is from my second game of the night. Different arena, different settings, different glass.
Photographing hockey is fun, but writing about losing teams is not. That’s also why I like covering two teams. One has a perennial winning record; the other not so much.
The one thing I detest about hockey arenas – the smell. Feet. It smells like feet, all the time. My nose-blindness takes six-to-seven months to develop each season, just in time for the end of a season and spring begins.
Hockey photography pays the bills. And smells like feet, but not my feet.
Settings:
Arena 1: White Balance – 5,000K, shutter – 1/800s, aperature f/4, ISO – 3200.
Arena 2: White Balance – 4,000K, shutter – 1/800s, aperature f/8, ISO – 3200.
Gear:
Nikon D7200, NIKKOR 18-55mm f/2.8 lens