A Hair Raising Save

As we get deeper into hockey season, I gave my good friend Manny a call to find out if his daughter Florence had any games coming up and if I could show up to take some photographs of the action.  Longtime visitors to the site know that this isn't the first time that I shot some photographs of my favourite young lady goaltender.  However, if you're new here, and because I always love providing links to my other photographs, you can see some of those other shots by clicking here or by clicking here.  This particular evening saw me taking my gear to the Olympia Arena in Longueuil.  It was far from a packed house, as there were only and handful of parents in the house so I had free reign to move around.  I've always believed that the best action shots take place around the goaltender, so it's fortunate for me that it's the position that Florence plays.  The one major problem I had to deal with was the lighting in the arena.  The previous time I got to photograph the action, I was at the Bell Sports Complex in Brossard, practice home of the Montreal Canadiens.  Suffice to say that the lighting isn't the same in an NHL level practice facility and a local arena, though it ended up being better than I thought it would be.  I still ended up having to boost my ISO all the way up to 3200 which resulted in my photographs having a bit more grain in them then I would have liked.  Best of all though, Florence's team won!  That's right, it was the first time that her team got a win while I was in the building, which had me breathing a sigh of relief as I was beginning to feel like my presence at the games might have been becoming an omen of impending bad luck.  The first photograph on the page was taken at  f/6.3, 1/200sec, ISO 3200 at 90mm and the second photograph was taken at f/5.6, 1/200sec, ISO 3200 at 85mm.  Here is some more of the action.

 f/5.6, 1/320sec, ISO 3200 at 85mm

f/6.3, 1/200sec, ISO 3200 at 85mm

f/6.3, 1/200sec, ISO 3200 at 90mm

f/6.3, 1/200sec, ISO 3200 at 180mm

f/6.3, 1/200sec, ISO 3200 at 70mm

There's a brief taste for the time being.  I've got a couple more photographs of some cannonading shots and scintillating saves that I'll share with you in before the season comes to an end.