Olympics in Milan: The women of USA Hockey are going for the GOLD!

It happened last night. The women of USA Hockey commanded the ice once again with a dominant 5 to 0 win over Sweden. With this tin, they move on to the gold medal game in a couple of days. Woo hoo! 

Let me take you through the game from last night.

I started shooting from the entry area, but this time decided to use the Canon R1 with the Canon RF 15-35mm lens instead of the fisheye lens. Something different. I stood at an angle to get the Olympic Rings in full view.

I zoomed back just enough to get them coming out, and still include the rings and some of the fans.

 

During the warmups, I decided to try something different as well. I saw that Hillary Knight was stretching and staying pretty still, while everyone else was skating around her. I quickly slowed down the shutter speed to 1/50 sec and focused on her. This was fun to have her sharp but the others in movement. 

My new favorite thing to do in warm-ups is to stand right behind the net (behind the glass of course) and get photos of them looking like they are shooting the puck right at me.

In between warm-ups and the first period, I saw all their sticks lined up and thought it would be a fun fisheye shot with the RF 7-14mm lens. Again, something different for the team.

The first period started with me on the offensive side, as always.

I am still looking for the ultimate fisheye shot against the boards. This was close but I want to see more faces, especially from the Americans.

The US scored a goal and I was blocked once again, I turned and fired this shot to get the celebration. I focused on the women closer to me, and even though the farther player is soft, the expression is still obvious.

More action in front of the net.

At this moment, I had Hillary Knight coming right at me. I fired off a whole bunch of frames (at 40 frames per second). I love how it is just Hillary and all the Swedes around her.

Grace Zumwinkle taking a slap shot from the blue line.

Since I am generally shooting at an aperture of f/3.5, it allows me to get my subject in focus and have the others just a little softer. 

During the game, I will often take portraits like this one, so that the team has good shots of ever player.

I was torn during the second period. Do I stay and try to get some goaltender shots or move to the other side for offense? Even though, we were so dominant, I decided to stay to get defense,  I got some good photos, but missed three goals on the other side. Ughh.

I turned and got fan reactions.

I like this shot with the puck right in front of Aerin Frankel.

Aerin delivered another shut out, so I needed some photos of her doing her thing. The team has only allowed one goal (in the first game) for this entire Olympics. Let's hope they keep it that way in a couple of days against the Canadians.

Haley Winn's brothers always make me laugh. Here they are dressed in their American eagle outfits. Hysterical!

In the third period, I was happy to be back to photographing the offense. 

I have been keying in on Hillary Knight, who is about to win her 5th Olympic medal. She is one goal away from breaking the record for goals scored by an American woman at the Olympics, and I REALLY want to get that photo! I was hoping that it would be right here, but it was not meant to be. Hopefully I will be at the right place at the right time in a couple of days.

The game ended and I was able to get a photo though the open door (and not through the increasingly scuffed plexiglass) of the team huddled up.

I was standing by the exit of the arena and saw that Joy Dunne had stopped and was looking up and her family. I quickly raised the camera up over my head and grabbed this great smile. I think this says it all.

Now...let's go get the GOLD!

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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