HockeyPhotography.com

One of my favorite BC Eagles* of the last four years, Kyle Kucharski, has signed his first pro contract with the Lowell Devils.

Happy correction:  per Newsday/AP, they were signed by the New Jersey Devils (two way contracts) not the AHL club.

In addition to Kucharski, the Lowell Devils also signed former Michigan State Spartan Jeff Lerg.  In general, I don’t like goalies – if they play for the other team, the @#$%&s try to stop your players from scoring; if they play for your team and let in a goal, they are sieves.  But Lerg is obnoxiously difficult to not like :-) so I have even if he was a meanie and beat Kucharski and the Eagles for the Title in 2007 (despite liking him, I was super pissed off that Matt Greene tried to avoid hitting him – I don’t care how much I might like a goalie, if he is playing well against my team, I want them to run him over and take him out and then I’d feel mighty bad for him post-game).

* Okay, so 90+% of kids that play for BC are my favorites.  Kucharski was great from the fan viewpoint as he always gave it his all and showed that he liked playing hockey and great from the photographer side as his enthusiasm was visible.

or atleast what’s in it – Boston College Eagles senior captain Mike Brennan hoisting the Title after making it to the Finals the two previous years that opportunity.

I want to get in the habit of posting, so trying to do so daily at the start.  Realized I hadn’t yet so went to my favorite picture (also my desktop wallpaper).    I’m not that happy with my images from BC’s celebration – not sure how much of that is due to the actual images and how much is due to how much I wanted to do a good job after the Eagles did such a tremendous job (and then there is how much that affected my shooting – yes, I can be obsessive) – but Brennan was my favorite player and while I’d have preferred he win the Title in all 3 F4 Final appearances, doing so as a senior and as team captain had to be extra special.

The Title WILL be heading back to the proper end of Comm Ave next April.

I was going to tag my previous entry re: the 1998 team when I ran into a pet peeve. Hockey = men’s hockey. No need to put “men” in front. [I know some might quibble about leaving out "ice" but that's the only kind of hockey I shoot or watch so hockey = ice hockey; that other game requires the "field" in front.]

How do others handle it?

In separating my galleries on this website, I haven’t made a distinction between the sex of the players on the ice – collections are by type/year (college vs. international) and team (college or nation) – and have avoided the issue until now.

You could say this is a bit belated, but I have to confess I didn’t cheer for them in ‘98 so this is for the nod from the US Hockey Hall of Fame.  I became a fan of Danielle Goyette of Team Canada as she reminded me of one of my favorite players, Claude Lemieux, so I was rooting for Canada back then.   While I enjoyed watching the Nagano games, I didn’t keep up with the women’s game outside of the Olympics.  Last season I decided to start covering women’s college hockey.  Didn’t start well with lopsided (play and score) games which aren’t fun in any sport unless you are a big fan of the winning team, but then I got the opportunity to shoot Team USA vs. Team Canada in the Four Nations Cup Final.  WOW – that was a great game. 

The strangest thing for me was my reaction to seeing the names on the backs of the sweaters of both teams.  Despite not following the women’s game much, I was far more impressed by seeing those names (on both teams) skating around in warmups than I’ve ever been for any of the male players I’ve shot. 

Two members of that 1998 team were on the ice for Team USA:

Jenny Potter:

and Angela Ruggiero:

I also had the pleasure of shooting team member Katie King who is now the Head Coach of the Boston College Eagles during several games (not yet uploaded) last season including their Beanpot victory.  Go BC!

it will never get started.

I’ve been working on editing my full takes from the 2009 World Juniors Championship (U20 ice hockey) and had to smile when I reached the below image.  The image itself isn’t any good – focus was totally off the goalie or anyone in shot, but my eye immediately went to the Slovakian player flashing some leg at the far left (cropped off the right of the photo, no need to show just how bad it was).   It isn’t particularly unusual to see some skin, but I can’t remember seeing that much leg exposed especially such a skinny leg.

If you see nothing funny in the image, don’t judge – it is after 3:00 a.m. and atleast it got me started on the blog :-).