I am currently sitting next to the ice, holding a good photo position, about an hour before the first women's hockey game. Since I am at the Olympics and every minute is precious, I try to take advantage of every second.
It is for that reason that I have my laptop propped up on my ThinkTank bag as a makeshift desk. I just took this photo to show you my glamorous setup.
This is my second visit to the smaller ice rink, and I have to share with you some of the really weird things about this place.
Let me start at the beginning.
This rink is held at a convention center in an area called Rho, and this convention center is HUGE! It is so big that it makes the Las Vegas Convention Center look small. When people get off the train, they have to walk a little while to get to the entrance. You get to this spot and think "I am here!" but no, not even close.
Everyone has to walk more than a mile along this covered walkway just to get to the ice hockey rink and the long track speed skating venue (which are across from each other). What you see here in this photo does not really tell the story, since you only see about 1/10th of the walk. I should also mention that not all the moving walkways work either. It is times like this that I am happy that I walk 7 miles a day at home. There were a couple of writers (who were not exactly in very good shape) who complained loudly about the trek, and said that they would not visit this venue again. Even I have to admit that it seems endless walking to and from the venue.
About half way through the walk, there is an official store, which is fun to visit.
Just before getting to the venue, it is obvious that we are near the end of the trek, as the Olympic Rings make an appearance.
Once I arrived at the venue, I was immediately reminded that this ice rink is built within a convention center, and it was so weird. This is nothing like the beautiful Olympic venues I have photographed in the past. Do you see the ugly plastic "bags" in the background? That IS the rink.
This is what spectators see when they enter the venue! Couldn't they have at least made it a nice plastic wrap with Olympic Rings or something? All of us photographers are calling it the "garbage bag wrapped" arena.
Once people enter the plastic wrapped area, it looks a little better.
This is the press area. Nothing very glamorous, but it works.
They have a concession area on the 2nd floor of the press area, with simple sandwiches and soda.
On the day that I photographed the team picture, I was able to get access to areas not normally allowed to photographers, like this soccer area for the hockey players to warm up their legs.
They had two rooms like this, for warmups and for exercising after the game.
Here is where the Zambonis are kept when not being used on the ice.
I know this is going to be hard to believe, but these are the back sides of the team's locker rooms. Normally the team management will have me come into the locker room when it is all set up, to get photos showing off the room, but not time around. And I heard that the men's locker rooms, at the larger arena, are no better.
This is the "mix zone" where the media can interview the athletes after the game is over.
Here are some of the benches for the photo positions.
I think this is the first time I have ever shot an Olympic hockey game where we have a giant gap between us and the fans. It makes it really easy for us to move around, but I feel very separated from the energy of the spectators.
This is a look down the hallway where the athletes enter the arena and the beginning of each period.
This is a photo of my spot for the first game. I got there about 90 minutes before the game, which turned out not to be necessary, but it gave me confidence, knowing I had the location I wanted, and it gave me time to start writing this blog post.
Here is yet another crazy thing. Look at this photo and tell me what is missing. I can tell you that I did not notice this missing object when I was shooting the team photos. There is no scoreboard in the center of the rink! This drove me CRAZY during the game, because I usually look up to see what is happening on the other side of the rink. I also could not see any of the data, or see what they were putting on the smaller screens facing the spectators.
It is funny that at every Olympics there are crazy happenings that make us frustrated or make us laugh. Sometimes it might be a little of both!
In the next blog post, I will share some of my favorite images from the game.
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