I was in Hershey this past weekend, starting Saturday afternoon for the Bears' 1-0 win vs. the Charlotte Checkers (which I'll discuss later on) right on through the All-Star Skills Competition and the All-Star Game itself; I had a total blast all weekend long, but the best part of the whole thing was... the Battle of the Mascots!

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I'm finally getting the chance to write part 3 of my Photography for Hockey Fans series, and I'll beg forgiveness for the long break between part 2 and now!

When I last wrote on this series, I was asked to cover post-production. I'm going to start by saying that I am using Photoshop CS3 for my digital darkroom, and Adobe is up to CS5 now, so I'm a couple of versions behind, but in principle the techniques will be similar, even if the precise methodology is not.

As I write this, I have spent the last several evenings going back through my hockey photos of the past year plus and adding a watermark with my copyright information on it, in preparation for updating my hockey photography web site (http://www.irockthered.net/) with a lot more of my shots, so as I explain the digital darkroom, I will have plenty of illustrations to refer to.

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We've all heard about the new headshot rule (Rule #48.1), but there are other rule changes this season, too - quite a few of them. And while many of these rule changes are just changes or clarifications in wording, there are a few I consider significant enough to discuss.

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Remember all those rules about framing and composing your shot in the camera, rather than in the darkroom that they teach you in Photography 101?

Throw them out the window. The rest of the article is below the jump; I'll add photos in later to illustrate.

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Sports Photography 101

I've been asked by bigeugene to create a Fan Post about Photography for Hockey Fans, so here goes. I started typing a couple of hours ago, and got rather verbose, so the meat of the article is after the jump, for the sanity of our mobile users.

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The Bears-Crunch game on Saturday night was very entertaining.  The first frame saw the Bears up 1-0 from a Boyd Kane goal (assisted by Patrick Wellar and Keith Aucoin) 1:07 into the game.  Jay Beagle followed that at 12:30 with a beautiful, unassisted, shorthanded goal, extending the Bears' lead to 2-0.  That shorthanded goal would go on to be the game winner.  In the second frame, Alexandre Giroux notched another goal, assisted by Patrick McNeil and Keith Aucoin) and then the Crunch finally snuck one past Michal Neuvirth.  It would be their only tally.

Jay Beagle would answer that goal, assisted by Perreault and Helmer, and then the Bears were off to the races, with Zach Miskovic (assisted by Kane and Greg Amadio) and Karl Alzner (assisted by Miskovic and Perreault) providing the final two goals.

Referee Nygel Pelletier was kept extremely busy in this game, with a total of 31 penalties called, including three at one time (plus a 10-minute misconduct) for Crunch LW Kevin Harvey (roughing, tripping, and charging) at 15:26 of the 2nd frame.  Harvey would return to add another unsportsmanlike conduct charge to his rap sheet in the third frame.

Photos from the game will be below the jump.

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I did a more-or-less frame-by-frame breakdown of the Armstrong hit on Perreault last night.  There is no question in my mind whatsoever that it was a dirty hit, and Armstrong needs a suspension, if the Mike Green hit earlier this year deserved one, whether it was called on the ice or not.

Also, the Zebras in question need to be disciplined for NOT calling this.  See below the jump for the frame-by-frame and discussion.

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Tonight, 7-8 p.m.: Mike Knuble at ESPN Zone in Baltimore

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What a fabulously fun time we all had, watching Hershey make the Bridgeport Sound Tigers look like the Bridgeport Sound Tabbies with a 9-2 smakedown.  Group shots (and photos from warmups) below the jump.  Identify yourself in our fun "ID-by-Number" section!  :-)

I have full-sized copies of the "ID-by-Number" pix without the numbers; anyone who wants a copy can drop me an e-mail at irockthered {at} gmail {dot} com, and I'll send it along.  It's too big to include here, though.  :-)

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A pair of games in the Womens' Hockey tournament yesterday brought all eight teams up to two games played each.  In the first game, team USA handily defeated team Russia, 13-0, with US netminder Jessie Vetter facing seven shots in the shutout; in the second, team Finland defeated team China, 2-1. 

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Blown Game:
a game in which the team scored 4 or more goals, allowed 25 or fewer shots but lost
-or-
a game in which the team scored 5 or more goals and allowed 26-30 shots, but lost.

By these standards, I don't think the Caps have blown it for an entire game at all this season.  That said, fully half of our losses (9 of 18) have been marked by a horrible 2nd frame, both offensively and defensively.  We have lost by more than one goal only six times all season, and half of those, the 2nd frame was the worst.

* NJD 5, WSH 2 (14-NOV-2009) - bad 2nd frame
* BUF 3, WSH 0 (09-DEC-2009) - bad 2nd frame
* TOR 6, WSH 3 (12-DEC-2009)
* CAR 6, WSH 3 (28-DEC-2009)
* SJS 5, WSH 2 (30-DEC-2009)
* TBL 7, WSH 4 (12-JAN-2010) - bad 2nd frame

And we have lost in OT or in the shootout 6 times.  The other 6 were one-goal games.  Below the jump, I have a game-by-game, frame-by-frame analysis which shows the breakdown of each loss, from the point-of-view of the goalie and his SV%.  This includes losses by all three goalies: Theodore, Varlamov, and Neuvirth, and includes the opposing goalie's stats, for comparison.

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Tonight is going to be Coach Bruce Boudreau's 200th game coaching Washington, and I do hope that he celebrates it with a nice big shiny W.  But he is not the only person with an upcoming huge important milestone to be celebrated.

Most of these involve teams that are not the Capitals, but they are still significant accomplishments that I wanted to point out.  These folks should be awfully darned proud of their accomplishments.

*  Jarome Iginla (Calgary Flames) plays his 1,000th career NHL game on Friday when the Flames take on the Florida Panthers.

* Daymond Langkow (Calgary Flames) will follow suit and play his 1,000th career NHL game on Saturday against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

I am genuinely impressed with the Iginla and Langkow markers.  1,000 NHL games is a huge milestone, and only 248 players in the history of the NHL have ever crossed that mark (of the 5,888 players listed on NHL.com).  Mark Recchi of the Boston Bruins has played in 1,544 games to date, and has the most games of any active player in the NHL today; the closest to him is Rod Brind'Amour of the Carolina Hurricanes, with 1,459.

* Lubomir Visnovsky (Edmonton Oilers) will play his 600th career NHL game tonight against the Minnesota Wild.


* Evgeni Nabokov (San Jose Sharks) has 49 career shutouts, and will try for #50 tonight against the St. Louis Blues.

* Marty Reasoner (Atlanta Thrashers) will play his 500th career NHL game on Friday against the Washington Capitals.

* Teemu Selanne (Anaheim Ducks) is four goals shy of 600 for his career.

* Mike Modano (Dallas Stars) is three assists shy of 800 for his career.

* Alex Ovechkin is three points shy of 500 for his career - this one's been pointed out before.   When he gets those three points, he will be in rarified air, joining Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Peter Stastny, Mike
Bossy, Dale Hawerchuk, Bryan Trottier, Denis Savard and Jari Kurr and becoming the ninth player - and the only currently-active player - to reach the 500 point mark in five seasons in the NHL.


Good job to everyone reaching a milestone soon!

Some questions came up in another post that I can't find about where the shot distance is calculated from. I thought I'd do a bit of research on the topic, and see what I could come up with.

*Distance from the Boards to the Goal Line*

Per the 2009-2010 NHL rulebook, the distance from the boards to the center of the goal line as 11'.

The goal line itself is 2" wide.

Here's a diagram, taken directly from the rulebook:

*Looking at a Recent Goal*

*Nicklas Backstrom*'s goal in the recent Caps-Lightning game is categorized in the Play-by-Play as "GOAL WSH #19 BACKSTROM(23), *Wrist, Off. Zone, 15 ft.* Assists: #8 OVECHKIN(41); #14 FLEISCHMANN(21)"

Here's a picture:

In this image, Backstrom looks to be about 5' in front of the goal mouth (given the 4' distance from the goal line to where the crease begins its curve), and the 6' distance from the goal line to the top of the curve. That, plus the 12' to the boards behind the net, is about 18' distance. However, the image is not precise, given I don't have frame-by-frame access to the sequence, so Backstrom shifting closer to the goal mouth before he actually puts the puck into the net is entirely possible.

So it appears, at least to me, that the distance is measured off the boards behind the goal, and not from the goal line. An enquiry to the NHLOA BBoard produced only a, "we aren't sure on that one" response, so I am enquiring further, and will repost here if any change to this is required.

I've posted my photos here on my LJ... I've got quite a few posted; here are a few examples for your previewing enjoyment! I had a great time shooting the game, and I'm looking forward to the next one; it was a whole lot of fun to get to be "The Press" for once and not have to shoot through the glass - although the lighting at Kettler is abysmal. Lots of pink/orange tint to clean up. I will probably make a final pass through the images and see if I missed anything good; if you know who someone is, please let me know either in the comments here, or via e-mail at irockthered {at} gmail {dot} com! Enjoy!

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The U.S. Women's Hockey Team was announced (several days ago, actually) for the 2010 Olympics, and I have one thing to say...

YAY!!!

Here's a really great article about the team, which features two four-time Olympians in Jenny Potter and Angela Ruggiero. 

Team USA is the defending champion from last year's IIHF World Women's Championship, beating Canada 4-1 in Finland.

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