Shooting lots of hockey in preparation for Milan

Just like the athletes heading to the Olympics, us photographers have to warm up as well. I need to make sure that I am both physically and mentally ready for the challenge. I have been keeping in shape for all the walking and stair climbing that will be coming up in Milan, but more importantly, I need to be proficient at photographing hockey, since that will be my primary sport at the Games. 

As many of you know, I did not photograph the last Winter Olympics in Beijing because of the pandemic (scrapping the trip just 3 days before I was supposed to go). Even though I have been playing ice hockey almost every week for the past 25 years, I have not photographed the sport in quite a while. The sport may not have changed much, but the camera equipment has changed a TON in the last eight years!

Before heading to Milan, I knew that I needed to put the newer mirrorless cameras to the test. I needed to see how the subject tracking did with athletes wearing helmets and visors, and also how well the focus systems performed when shooting through plexiglass. Remember, unlike when photographing NHL hockey where they have holes in the glass for us, at the Olympics we shoot through the plexiglass. 

I started testing the equipment (Canon R1 with the Canon RF 70-200 Z lens) and getting myself used to photographing hockey with the guys I skate with every week. It was a fun time capturing images for my friends and also gave me a chance to warm up on us slower and older guys. :)

I started shooting from the bench with no glass in front of me.

The lighting at the rink is pretty good, but not as good as what I will have at the Olympics. I did have to remember to adjust the exposure compensation (up at least 1/3 stop) to make sure my exposures were correct. I also had to practice capturing the peak of action, which takes some practice for sure.

Keeping the puck in the frame is really important.

I shot everything at f/2.8 and kept my ISO set to 3200 to get a fast shutter speed for all the action. 

I tried different angles to remind myself which ones look best in photos.

I then moved to the side of the rink and started shooting through the plexiglass. This was pretty tough because the plexiglass at this rink is REALLY dirty from all the puck marks. It was tough shooting from this location, but it did allow me to get shots closer to the net.

The one thing I forgot about was, how cold it is in the rink when not suiting up and playing! Assuming that the rink in Milan will be colder than NHL rinks here in the US, I will be wearing a heavier jacket and using photography gloves!

We all have a good time at our skate, and it was a good reminder to me that capturing reaction is as important as capturing the action.

This is Eric and his son Wilson who I have been playing with for years. I took this father / son shot of them. Also good practice, as I will be doing team photos on the ice in Milan. 

And then it was time to photograph much faster action at the NHL level. Thanks to my contacts at the San Jose Sharks, I was granted media passes to a couple of games.  

The first game I covered was the Sharks vs Vegas Knights and this is me shooting through the plexiglass. (Photo credit to Frank Baskovich)

The first image I took was the iconic entrance of the San Jose Sharks through the sharks head. Because of the lights being turned down in the arena, I had to crank my ISO to 6400 to get a sharp picture of Macklin Celebrini (the team's new 19 year old superstar) coming onto the ice.

I started shooting fairly wide with the 70-200mm Z lens. I should mention that I am using the newer Canon RF 70-200 Z lens because it has internal zoom. This means that the lens does not change in length as I zoom in and out. This is critical when shooting up against the boards, because I don't want my lens slammed against the glass if the athletes are going to be crashing in the other direction. I have seen a photographer break his nose and other bones in his face from that scenario. I have also replaced the standard Canon lens hood with a rubber hood. This gives me an additional inch or so of cushion. 

Once I got warmed up, I started tracking the fast action better and shooting tighter. The light was much brighter in this NHL arena, so I was able to shoot all the images at ISO 800. Much cleaner than the higher ISO shots from the practice rink where we play!

Catching key moments is really important, so it felt good to capture frames like this.

I like sitting in the corner of the rink so that I have a good vantage point of the players skating up ice (with reflections in the glass like this)...

...and I also have a good view of the goal crease. 

This photo was taken from more of a side position, but at least 15 feet further up the ice. 

Towards the end of the game, I decided to shoot from a high position. I went back to the press room and switched lenses to the Canon RF 100-300mm lens to get some photos from a different perspective.

I like this vantage point  (at the top of the lower bowl), but it does not bring you, the viewer, into the action as much as the lower position.

On Friday night, I made my second trip back to the SAP Arena to cover the Sharks against the New York Rangers. This time I positioned myself on the side where the home team was shooting twice (which is what I typically do for USA hockey team at the Olympics). 

The Sharks came out on fire and scored three times in the first period, with Macklin Celebrini netting two of those goals. This was his first one of the night.

After the goal was scored I quickly turned to get fan reaction. Something I sometimes forget to do.

I love capturing all the guys fighting for position in front of the net.

As I mentioned, Macklin got two goals.

This was the celebration after his second goal...

One of the more challenging things about shooting through plexiglass, is trying to determine how much of an angle I can take before the glass distorts the image past the level of an acceptable photo. This was me testing that out, and for this photo it was fine. When I turned any more than this, or tried to capture images all the way at the other side of the rink, the photos were unusable. 

I love the way that the puck is perfectly centered on this shot, right in between on the players. I should also mention that I was shooting the Canon R1 at a burst rate of 30 frames a second to grab moments like you are seeing here.

During the second period, I stayed on the same side of the rink to capture the defensive action. As I have mentioned before, getting the puck in the frame is really important (most of the time).

This puck is not in this shot, but I loved the crash of these two Rangers after one of them was checked by one of the San Jose Sharks.

This shot shows the puck behind the goalie, but it was deflected away from the back of the net. 

This shows a really good save by the goalie, with the puck being blocked by his stick.

Here is a photo of me shooting during the third period (Photo credit: Dean Tait)

There was not nearly as much offense in the third period, but I grabbed a couple more frames like this one.

As the game came to an end, I stayed just long enough to grab this photo of the mascot, SJ Sharkie, coming out with the banner. Then I ran back to the press room to switch my camera gear. 

I grabbed my Canon R5 MKII with the Canon RF 24-70mm lens and ran back to the locker room entrance, waiting for them to let us into the room. I took some photos of the interviews, of course with the press spending the most time with Celebrini.

After the interview was over, Macklin and I had a chance to talk for a little bit. As you may have heard, he is the youngest player to ever play for Team Canada (at 19 years old) and he is beyond thrilled with this honor. Having never been to the Olympics, I told him a little of what to expect. Even though I will be photographing (and pulling for) Team USA, I plan on capturing images of Macklin, for him and his family. Regardless of who wins, it should be amazing!

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Photographing the Olympics - It is Stress Time!

Stress is a really weird thing, right? For me, I often feed off of it, but there are times when my stress level goes sky high and it works as a negative. This is one of those times. It is not that I am surprised by this, as it happens about a month before every Olympics. There are just so many things that have to come together before I feel comfortable.

This stress starts with me trying to schedule all the games I need to cover for the team, as well as the team photos, practices, press events, team parties and more. Some of these are on the calendar already, but many are not set in stone yet. I also have promised NBC and others to be available for interviews in between my other obligations, and I will be capturing images of Macklin Celebrini and the other San Jose Sharks who will be at the Games, for the team. Since there are only 4 sports happening in the city of Milan, I am hoping to make time for all of this. 

Then there is the outbound flight, which I sure hope goes without a hitch. Due to other photo jobs that I have here, I cannot fly out a week in advance, and the minute I land in Milan I need to get to work. Hopefully I will be able to sleep a little on the long flight from California to Europe. Either way, here is my plan:

Once I land in Milan in the afternoon, I will get my credentials laminated at the airport checkpoint and try to get to my hotel as soon as I can. In the past, there would be buses to take us to our hotel, but in the last two Olympics that has not happened. Once I get there, I will dump all my luggage and camera gear and find out how to get to the Main Press Center (MPC). Once I find my way there, I will:

* Get my photo sleeve (which is required to photograph at any venue)

* Find the location of the Canon CPS office (for loaner gear and repairs)

* Visit the on-site USOPC office. 

After this, I need to figure out the train system to get to both of the ice hockey venues (which are supposedly an hour from each other). I need to visit both venues to:

* Locate the press rooms

* Meet with the photo management staff

* Get a tour of the facility

* Determine the pre-determined shooting locations

* Find out the venue restrictions

* Get my locker

This will likely take most of the day.

I just found out that the following morning is when I need to take all the team photos for the US Women's hockey team. This consists of the main photo with all players, coaches and staff, and break-out groups as needed by the team. Regardless of how much sleep I have had over the last 48 hours, I need to be ON for these.

The following day (one day before the Opening Ceremony) is the first game for the women of USA Hockey, so my competition shooting starts then. 

Cramming all this together makes me nervous, but there is nothing I can do about it. The biggest stress right now is trying to think through all the unknowns, like:

* Getting access to the Milan Olympic Extranet (which I have been locked out of for the last 3 weeks, and I have been asking for them to reset my account). Without this I can not reconfirm my hotel reservation, my arrivals and departures details and more.

* The transportation from the airport to the hotel

* The quality of my hotel room (which is always interesting)

* The transportation from the hotel to the MPC and both hockey venues

* The condition of the main ice arena (which is way behind schedule), and the press room there. Will it be done?

There are also some stressful things that I CAN control, like:

* What clothes to pack

* What camera equipment to take

* What photo accessories I need

Normally I feed off the stress, but all of this is keeping me up at night. Am I complaining about this? I am definitely not, since I know what an honor it is to be there and to capture the images for the team. But I do look forward to getting there, getting familiar with the surroundings, and getting started!

One more thing...just like the athletes, I am warming up for the Games. Not only am I continuing my multi-year streak of walking at least 6 miles per day, but I have been photographing a lot of ice hockey over the last 3 weeks. This started with the guys I play hockey with, and then shooting at the NHL level, photographing some of the San Jose Sharks games. That is probably the next blog post.

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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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2026 Winter Olympics in Milan: All the pre-planning

We are now about 3 weeks from the start of the Winter Olympics in Milan, which means that starting Feb 6th many of you will be tuning in to watch the Games. The Olympics start soon, but the planning process for me started almost two years ago, and let me tell you, it is not like planning any other trip. I have gotten messages from many of you, asking questions about my lodging and transportation.  I chuckle when I read comments like "you might want to stay at this place" or "can't you take a helicopter from one location to another?" 

Let me start with the key differences between going to the Olympics and a visit to Milan any other time. 

Accreditation

Traveling to Italy for vacation would normally only require a passport and some money, but to work at the Olympics, the first step is to get accreditation (which happened about two years ago). This involves applications, approvals, security clearances and more. I should also mention that there are MANY different levels of accreditation for the Games. I always request the top-level photography pass that gives me access to all events.

Flights

Flights to the Games are almost always booked well in advance, with little room to make last minute changes. As it was this time around, I found out a couple of months ago, that the first ice hockey games start the day before the Opening Ceremony, so I had to change flights. If this had happened now, it would be very hard to find a good flight into Milan. I booked my original flight 10 months ago, as soon as the airlines would allow me to make a reservation. As for trying to get air transportation between the Olympic clusters, this is impossible for two reasons: Taking a helicopter or other air transportation would be impossibly expensive, and even if I had that kind of budget, the airspace will be locked down. I talked to a good friend of mine who has his own private jet and is used to easy travel wherever he goes, and even he could not get that kind of transport for the Olympics. Only select VIPs will be traveling by air between the different clusters. 

Hotels

If you or I were flying to Milan any other time, we could look up different hotels and easily pick one that fits our needs and our budget. During the Olympics, this same criteria does not exist. Firstly, most of the hotels in the city have been booked for years, and secondly the rates are going to be sky high. Much higher than most media people could afford. We are lucky, in that we have subsidized housing at certain hotels which had been designated for the press. These are under the Olympic Organizing Committee (IOC) control, and we cannot contact them directly for any help. So, when someone suggests a certain hotel in the city, I already know that this is not an option. 

About a year ago, I was granted access to the housing portal for these Games and selected my 3 top choices of press hotels. About a month later I got my allocation, and it was none of those three. I contacted the housing group and was able to get a different press hotel located near the main hockey arena. I had to pay them in full about 6 months ago, and now the rooming list and dates are locked in. I hope that the hotel is nice, but I never really know. If you have been reading the blog for a long time, you may recall some of the horrendous places I have stayed in the past, especially in Russia and Japan. I like to have a clean, comfortable and quiet room, but at the Olympics, the location is the most important factor since time is short, and I will be working crazy hours. 

Transportation

If I were visiting Milan for vacation, I would probably rely on a rental car, the train system or maybe Uber. I would be relaxed and in no hurry to get from one place to another. During the Olympics, time is compressed and every minute counts. I need to find the most efficient routes from the hotel to the Main Press Center (MPC) and venues, also remembering that I am transporting a lot of camera gear that is heavy and valuable. Driving my own vehicle is not an option since parking is difficult near any venue, there are also countless security checkpoints which would slow me down, and I could not use the Olympic lanes on the roads. FYI, almost every Olympic city will paint the Olympic Rings on certain lanes of any road leading to a venue, so that only official vehicles can use these. This allows us media to move between venues without much traffic. Then again, I am not sure if I will ever be on the roads, since I may be relying only on the train system. This is still unclear.

Packing

On a typical visit to Italy during the winter, I would put most of my packing effort on my clothing. Since I am not much of a fashion guy, this would be mostly casual clothing, jackets, shoes and packed in a carry-on bag. The weather in the city of Milan should be between 30F and 55F, so nothing too extreme. I will be spending a large amount of time inside ice rinks, so I need to plan for cold temperatures for most of every day.

At the Olympics, most of my stress level is in packing all my camera gear, laptops, accessories, and everything I need to get the photos for Team USA. The clothing is secondary (but still important). Now, instead of traveling with a carry-on bag and a camera backpack, I will likely have a large suitcase for my clothing, a medium sized camera backpack, and a large rolling camera bag. I will be posting a blog, talking about, and showing all my equipment (including some new gear!) right before I fly out.

More to come my friends.

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• 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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2026 Winter Olympics in Milan: The Challenges!!

Well folks, we are now about one month from the start of the Winter Olympics in Milan and there are a lot of challenges ahead, both for me personally and on a much larger scale. In this blog post I am going to share with you all, some of those challenges and how I plan to overcome them (or not).

First, lets start with the biggest challenge of all, the locations which are spread out all over the place, more than any other Olympics ever. This will be the first Olympics that I have covered where I will not be able to cover a wide variety of sports. In the city of Milan, there will be ice hockey, figure skating, short track speed skating, and long track speed skating. Everything else is in Cortina, Valtellina, Val di Fiemme or Anterselva which is between a 4 hour to 12 hour drive each way. This means that there is no way for me to cover any other sports other than what is in Milan. The Opening Ceremony is in Milan but even the Closing Ceremony is hours away in Verona. I will likely miss that as well. 

Then there are the ice hockey arenas. As I have done since 2010, I will be the official photographer for all ice hockey games for the men and women of Team USA. This means that I will be staying at a press hotel in the city center, as close as I can be to the main arena. But there are two hockey arenas in Milan which are on opposite sides of the city. This means that any games played in the second arena will be tougher to get to, and if there are men's and women's games that are at similar times, it will be virtually impossible for me to cover both. In Russian, I could walk from one arena to the other in 5 minutes or less. That won't be happening this time around. I will have to work in both venues and can only rely on public transportation to get around. Just like Paris, there are no press buses available for us in Milan. 

The even bigger is that the Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena, which is the primary venue for hockey is still NOT completed yet. This is really hard to believe, knowing that the planning committee in Milan has had ten years to build everything out. 

Under normal circumstances, the arena would be completed at least 6 months in advance and we would have test events take place to make sure everything is working just right, but that has not happened yet! I have heard that there will be test events in the next week or so, but that is cutting it WAY too close for most peoples comfort. Remember, this is the first time in more than a decade that the NHL players are allowed to represent their home countries. That is a really big deal. They will also be playing on ice that is irregular in size (not NHL size and not International size either).  This is so strange, but a real fact. And lets not forget the women, who are outstanding hockey players, who ultimately will be the guinea pigs, since their competition starts before the men. The first women's game for USA Hockey actually happens the day BEFORE the Opening Ceremony. That would be Feb 5th, which is not too long from now. 

Assuming they get the ice in place and all the seating done, I then wonder what will be skipped. This brings back memories of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, which were played in the "not so finished" Bolshoy Ice Dome. It looked great on television, but I remember staircases that were unusable (missing many of the stairs) and a hole in the ceiling of the press bathroom where I could see the feet of the spectators in their seats. So this leads me to wonder not just whether the ice surface and spectator areas will be completed, but what about the press rooms, underground bathrooms, internet wiring and everything else that we rely on? 

This venue is supposed to be running every day and all day with men's and women's hockey games. 

Another interesting challenge for me will be resetting my body clock. Sure, it is common to handle this when traveling to work in another country, but these games are going to be played at really crazy hours. Since NBC wants to air the USA Hockey games live in the US, many of the games will start at either 9pm or as late as 11pm and run until 2am. This means that for some games I will be working on images in the press room  until 4am or 5am, and then have to make my way back to the hotel using the trains. I sure hope they have black-out blinds at the hotel, but I am guessing that this will not be the case. Time to order a sleep mask on Amazon.

All press hotels are required to feed us breakfast, and this is the one meal where I usually fuel up for the day, but I don't think I will be awake during the breakfast hours. Maybe I can arrange a breakfast box each day but I have no idea if that will be possible. Most likely not. I know...these are small problems, but during the Olympics, time is precious and knowing that I have "known place and time" to get food is a bigger deal than you might think.

The good news is that I will be there and doing what I love, and the bad news is the unknown for which I am about to encounter. I guess this is going to be interesting for all of you as I blog daily and share my experiences (good and bad) once again. 

Upcoming blog posts will be covering the equipment I am bringing, my pre-Olympic preparations and more.

Stay tuned my friends!

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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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