Olympics in Milan: WOW! What a hockey game and what an ending for Team USA at these Olympics!

About 24 hours ago, I was sitting rink side photographing the men's gold medal game against the Canadians. As I mentioned in the last blog post, there was a lot of stress going into that game. Mostly for the athletes and coaching staff of course, and a little for me to make sure I got good photos for the team. 

I knew that, for this game, it was not about the action on the ice, it was about the reaction after it was over. It was either going to be photos showing disappointment or celebration. But little did I know at the time, that we were in for another overtime game that will be remembered for a really long time.

Now I will take you through the game from my perspective (looking through a camera eyepiece).

Team USA was listed as the visiting team, which meant that they were coming out of a different tunnel from the past games. This was good because I liked the backdrop better. As I waited for the team to enter, I moved my focal point slightly to the right, so that I could focus on the goalie in the front position but also have the other players behind him. I framed this shot to include some of the Milano Cortina 2026 banner, the athletes, and the USA fans with the flag.

As always, I looked for good action shots.

I saw Matt Boldy take the puck and break away from the defender. I tracked him and fired the Canon R1 at full 40 frames per second.

He scored the first goal of the game...

...and thankfully he turned to the right and came right by me with this awesome reaction! This was my favorite photo from the game (so far).

Both teams had really good scoring chances.

Connor Hellebuyck deflected this puck and it bounced off of the post. Phew - that was close!

During the second period, the Canadians were playing strong and dominated our team. I did not have a good feeling at that point. I saw Connor McDavid get a breakaway and it was one on one. Connor against Connor.

When a goalie is playing really well, we say that the goalie is really "standing on his head." And let me tell you, Hellebuyck was doing just that!

He stopped shot after shot!

During one of the breaks, I was looking into the camera to see what I had captured in the last couple of minutes of play. When zooming in, I noticed that the puck actually said "GOLD MEDAL" on it. That is so cool! 

I had to do a tight crop of one of the images to show you this.

The Canadians scored a goal in the third period and everything was tied up at one goal a piece. Oh no - another overtime nail biter!

At this point, I knew that the game was going to end with a TON of emotion. One team was going to go crazy and the other would feel the weight of the defeat. But which team would feel what?

The overtime started and I braced myself for either scenario.

And then it happened...Jack Hughes got a great pass from across the ice and scored the game winning goal. I only caught the tail end of his shot and honestly had no idea that the puck had gone into the net, until I heard the crowd go crazy! I also saw his reaction and did my best to keep focus on him as he went wild.

After a couple of seconds, I turned my camera to my left and fired off a bunch of shots of the team going nuts.

It was mayhem, but in the best way for Team USA.

I took as many photos as I could from behind the plexiglass and waited for them to let a select few of us through the penalty box and onto the ice.

I saw the guys grab the Johnnie Gaudreau jersey from the bench and start to skate around with it. For those of you who do not know the story, "Johnnie Hockey" was a great American hockey player who was tragically killed with his brother two years ago. A drunk driver hit and killed both of them while they were bike riding right before their sister's wedding. It was horrific on all levels.

I saw Connor Hellebuyck skate around with the flag and was happy to catch this moment. He was nothing short of amazing yesterday.

The team lined up for the medal presentation. I took tight shots like this with the Canon R1 and Canon RF 70-200mm lens...

and wide shots with the Canon R6 MKIII and Canon RF 24-70mm lens.

I know that all these guys play for the NHL, but you could tell that this was a special moment for them.

They were enjoying every second of it.

I was going back and forth between tight shots...

...and wide shots.

After the medal ceremony, it was time for the team photo. That was awesome as always.

After taking some photos, I saw a couple of the guys skate away from the group and go through the penalty box towards their families. I thought that this was a strange time to break away from everyone.

Then they came back with Johnnie Gaudreau's two kids, and wanted another group shot. I got teary-eyed when I was shooting. What an amazing gesture by the boys!

Here is a tighter shot of them.

Just following those shots, we took a group shot including all the staff from USA Hockey.

A bunch of the guys then left the ice and went to celebrate with their families. I stood on one of the photographer's benches to get this shot...

...and this shot of Charlie McAvoy jumping up onto the railing to share this moment with his father. 

There was a lot more celebrating after this, with amazing moments between the guys off the ice and at the team party. But as usual, those photos are private and not to be shared. Suffice it to say, they enjoyed this evening to the fullest! 

Please excuse any typos. Normally I try to proofread everything before I post, but here at the Olympics, time is a commodity. I definitely miss some things. :)

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Olympics in Milan: - Heading to the USA vs Canada Gold medal game!

This blog post is slightly different than most of the others from here in Milan, in that, this blog post is less about the photos and more about the moment.

I am sitting in my hotel room, preparing to leave for the Santa Giulia Ice Hockey Arena for the last time. I will be getting there about 2 1/2 hours early to make sure I get a good shooting location, on the correct side of the rink (where we shoot twice) and with the clearest plexiglass.

The plexiglass has gotten pretty beat up over the last couple of weeks, and the amount of clean spots has diminished. Over the last couple of weeks I have gotten to the rink really early and asked the maintenance people to come polish the glass in front of my spot. That gives me a slightly better chance of getting sharper images.

These guys have been really great in trying to keep the glass as clean as possible, but many of the marks are too deep and can not be buffed out. 

This is a gold medal game and the anticipation is through the roof. I heard yesterday that ticket prices are going as high as $12,000 per seat. That is CRAZY! In the history of the Olympics, the US has never had both the women and men win gold medals in the same year. The men have not won a gold medal since 1980. Will that happen today?

The men had their last practice yesterday and they are ready to go. 

So I sit here at my little desk and write this blog post with a lot of anticipation. Even though this is another huge game for the team, I am a little less nervous than I was for the women's game. Not about the team, the opponents, or the outcome, but more about me capturing good shots for them. I have been doing this for almost 3 weeks now and now I just need to do what I have been doing. (Note: Since writing this paragraph and the time I got to the rink to post this - the nerve levels are way up!)

I am not an inherently superstitious person, but when it comes to hockey, I have that in me. I know that when I am playing a game, I would never say something to my goalie like "Hey, you have a shutout going" or anything like that. That is just not allowed in this sport. For the first game, the men entered from the wrong tunnel for warmups and they have continued that all the way through. I received a new jacket from the team yesterday, but I am not going to wear that because when I wear my older one, we have not lost. I keep my little seat cushion with logo facing the same way. I am somewhat embarrassed to tell all of you that I have even used the same urinal in the bathroom since day one. When things are going right, you just don't mess with that! This is the first game where the US team is considered the visitor, and so their bench is on the other side. I will be shooting on the opposite side of the rink. I don't even like that!

For those of you who will be watching, I hope we are treated to another amazing game, even half as exciting as the women's finals. 

One last event from these Games, and one last chance to capture history!

I will see you all on the glass.

Please excuse any typos. Normally I try to proofread everything before I post, but here at the Olympics, time is a commodity. I definitely miss some things. :)

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• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Costa Rica, Peru, Galapagos, Africa, Iceland and more.

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
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Olympics in Milan: Interview on NBC4 Sports Extra

Over the last couple of weeks, I have done two interviews with NBC. For the first interview, I sat down with David DeGuzman of NBC4 (over Zoom) and he asked me some great questions. That interview has been released and I have the link here for you. 

This is a 25 minute long interview that you can watch by clicking on the image above or clicking right HERE.

I hope you enjoy this.

Please excuse any typos. Normally I try to proofread everything before I post, but here at the Olympics, time is a commodity. I definitely miss some things. :)

__________________________________________________________

• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Costa Rica, Peru, Galapagos, Africa, Iceland and more.

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
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Olympics in Milan: Two HUGE games for USA Hockey in one Olympics!

Not to get ahead of myself here, but USA Hockey is heading to another gold medal game tomorrow. That makes two HUGE hockey games for the Americans in one Olympics, which is a first in a really long time! In order to get there, the men had to beat Slovakia in the semifinal game, and they did that with gusto last night.

As always, I will take you through my images and thought process once again.

And no...I did not make any calls for the refs this time around (referring to the NBC post which has gone viral, showing me calling a penalty at the women's game.) Ooops!!!

The team always wants warmup photos from me. At this point, I am running out of creative ways to shoot these. I hate giving them the same looking images every game. That is so boring!

I remembered that Jacob Slavin usually stretches before the game, staying in one place while everyone else is going around him. I saw that this was happening again, so I quickly changed my Canon R1 settings to f/11 at ISO 100 which gave me a shutter speed of 1/25 sec.  I held on really steady and got this shot. Honestly, it is photos like this that fill my cup. When other photographers saw this shot on my computer after the warmups, they all loved it. That is a real compliment when you are shooting here with the best of the best. Even though this is a warmup shot, it is added to my favorite list from these games.

I then switched back to my normal settings (around 1/1600 sec, f/3.5 ISO 1000) and shot images from directly behind the goalie, while focusing on the shooter.

Before the game starts, they always turn down the lights. I had already finished editing the warmup photos, and was just standing around. At that point, I thought to myself "This is pretty cool lighting...I should try a fisheye shot of this." Again, something different!

Jason Kelce was sitting right behind my photo position, so I grabbed a couple photos of him taking selfies with the fans.

Dylin Larkin took a shot from midway to the blue line and roped one in for the first goal of the game! 

I was still holding my Canon R1 with the RF 70-200mm lens and he skated right in front of me. In pure desperation, I kept shooting even though he was so close to me. Not the best shot, but it still shows the emotion. Keeping in the spirit of shooting things differently...

Here is a photo of Quinn Hughes taking a shot, really showing the bend of the hockey stick. That is some real power in that shot.

Almost a goal, but a nice stop by the opposing goalie.

I always try to follow the skater with the puck OR whoever is wide open for a pass. In this case, Tage Thompson was all alone and thankfully I focused on him hoping he would get the puck passed to him. Sure enough he did, and scored on this play.

He was nice enough to celebrate a little farther from the glass, giving me a better shot of the celebration. 

Photographing this type of emotion is so much fun!

During the first break, I asked Jason Kelce if I could get a photo of him, and he was nice enough to pose for me.

Then it was back to the action, this time on the defensive side for the second period. It was so weird to shoot this game with both teams wearing red, white and blue. All of us photographers (and probably some of you watching this on TV) had a hard time separating the teams. I took advantage of all the red, white and blue in this photo.

Connor Hellebuyck was solid in net.

Whenever we are on the power play and I am on the defensive side, I usually run to the offensive side to try and get another photo of us scoring.

Also directly behind me was Keith Tkachuk, the former NHL player and father of Brady and Matthew (who are both on the team). He was funny and gave me this pose.

The fans were really into this game and cheered loud and hard.

I was shooting during a power play and caught this shot of a broken stick. You can see the stick is facing the wrong way on this big slap shot attempt.

Jack Hughes scored once again for the Americans and put us in full control.

This is the type of defensive photo I am looking for, with the goalie making the stop (and the puck still showing in the frame).

And yes...I finally got a really good fisheye action shot with the Canon RF 7-14mm fisheye lens! I got this during the second period when both players were right in front of me. In this case, it really works with them both wearing similar colors. It almost looks like a two headed hockey player. :)

Brady Tkachuk had a break away in the third period and scored on this play. The shot...

...the goal...

...and the celebration.

I really like the spray of the ice in this shot, with Auston Matthews crashing the net.

One last shot attempt and the game was over, with the US winning with a commanding 6 to 2 victory. It was really nice to have a game where we were in complete control the whole game. Less stress for everyone, myself included!

At the end of the game, I got some photos of the handshakes...

...and all the players looking for their families in the stands.

I was not going to shoot photos of the guys coming off the ice, because I have done this so many times.  At the last minute I decided to do so, and I am glad that I did. I saw a post on social media saying that, unlike many other teams, the Americans did not interact with the fans. I thought it was important to show otherwise.

Right as I was about to put my camera down and head back to my MacBook Pro to download and post, I saw Vincent Trocheck hand his stick to a fan. I quickly raised my camera for a shot. This is not a great photo, but it the first part of the story.

THIS is the photo with some young boy getting the stick. Look at the elation on his face!! This is pure gold to a photographer. Our job is to tell a story and this photo says it all. 

And now...we head to the gold medal game tomorrow. 

Since there is no game today, I am going to head to the MPC, where I have been only one time since the Games began. I need to return my loaner Canon R1 and the Canon RF 7-14mm fisheye lens. I will miss them, but I will have no time to return these tomorrow or Monday before I fly out of here. I still have the older EF fisheye lens and the Canon R6 MKIII for the second setup at tomorrow's game. 

Let's go Team USA!!

Please excuse any typos. Normally I try to proofread everything before I post, but here at the Olympics, time is a commodity. I definitely miss some things. :)

__________________________________________________________

• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Costa Rica, Peru, Galapagos, Africa, Iceland and more.

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
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