Yeah, it's one of the most often discussed aspects of hockey--the fighting. At some point every year or two a big discussion comes up about banning fighting in the sport. If you ask me though, the sport would be lesser without the fights. I'm not trying to say that I like the violence or want to have the world thinking that everyone can solve their problems by beating each other up, but within the context of the sport, fighting must really be understood for what it is, and that's _part of the sport_. Very rarely will a hockey player fight because he's pissed off at another player (though that does happen). More often the fight happens to serve a very specific purpose--to send a message to the other team, to repay a cheap shot that the ref might have missed, or simply to fire up a team that's down and give them some spirit. No matter what the reason, the hockey fight is an integral part of the sport, and I love that though we have referees, they can't see everything at once and the sport still has this mechanism for self-policing.
About the photo: Another of Kelly's photos, this is Sebastian Geoffrion, grandson of Bernie Geoffrion, an NHL Hall of Famer who played with the Canadiens and Rangers for years. Check his story out on Wikipedia sometime, it's a really interesting read!
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
So I went to a fight, and a hockey game broke out!
Sunday, January 18, 2009
New Faces
The Ice picked up a couple new players in the past week. Mike Cichy came to the Ice and made an immediate impact, picking up a couple goals in his first home game.
Thanks to a separated shoulder and a sick kid, John was stuck at home for this game, so all of the Jan 16 photos are courtesy of Kelly.
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Happy New Year!
Yeah, speaking of Zac and his party, there's the man of the hour (and looking quite dapper in his new suit!).
New Year's Eve Party
After the hockey game at Conseco, Kelly and I changed into our party clothes and headed up to Zac's place to ring in 2009! This is at the stroke of midnight.
Max Attack
Okay, it's a cheesy post title, but hey, my coffee hasn't saturated my brain tissue yet! This is yet another of Kelly's shots, one of Max Cook trying a wraparound. He didn't score on this opportunity, but it was a great scoring chance.
Gwiddy-sticks
One of Kelly's photos, a shot of some of the players' sticks lined up in the hallway outside of the locker room.
'Fito
Chris Palifito, starting goalie, during the pre-game introductions. This is one of Kelly's 'signature' shots from Conseco.
New Year's Eve @ Conseco
I've always had a love/hate relationship with shooting Ice games in Conseco Fieldhouse. On one hand, the arena is first-class. Maybe not an NHL-caliber venue, but at least good enough for AHL or IHL. On the other hand, the place is just massive and there's no easy way to get around, so shooting a game there is three hours of climbing stairs and waiting for elevators and running down long underground tunnels.
Still, the lighting is superb once you're tied into the big strobes and have figured out where the fall-off areas are (the regular lights are surprisingly yellow), and as I said, the place is just beautiful.
This is a shot of Sebastian Geoffrion's first fight of the night. He ended up with two fights on the evening.