Tracy and I traveled to Philadelphia this year for the Frozen Four College Hockey Tournament, the hockey version of the more well known basketball final four. This year Union, Boston College, Minnesota, and North Dakota faced off for the title. BC did not bring their A game, and was defeated by Union in the first game. Though the score was 5-4, it really wasn’t that close of a game. The next game was a thriller, with Minnesota scoring the game winning goal with less than a second left. The final game was on Saturday night, and Union beat Minnesota and a high scoring affair 7-4. It was a lot of fun going to the games, and so much easier since we didn’t need to get a hotel and could stay with family. Craig and I dressed up as hockey refs and got to dance around and act like idiots on the jumbo-tron several times. On Friday we went to Winterthur gardens to look at all the blooming flowers and plants. It was a fun trip.
Last weekend we decided to go see the RIT Tigers play against Robert Morris. The Tigers hockey schedule was a little skewed this season, so a majority of the home games were in January and February. That has resulted in us going to many games so far this month. We’d never seen the Tigers play Robert Morris, so it was a chance to see a new team.
Unfortunately for the Tigers they ran into a Robert Morris squad that was 10-1-1 in their last 12 games. The Tigers outplayed Robert Morris in the Friday night game, but ended up giving up a late goal and ended up with a 2-2 tie. The Saturday game was a complete blowout, and the Tigers played one of the worst games I can remember. They were just awful, no hustle, beaten to the puck, and terrible even on their own power play.
Tracy and I were both happy to see the Tigers wearing their Frozen Frontier outdoor hockey jerseys. Here’s a few photos from the Friday game.
Mike Rotolo
RMU Goalie Terry Schafer
Talk it out
Zach Lynch
Greg Noyes
Faceoff
As is usually the case, you can see more photos of the game in my RIT Hockey flickr gallery.
This weekend Tracy and I decided to go to the RIT hockey games. There were two of them, Friday and Saturday. RIT won both of them despite having a down year so far. The first game was a 6-0 win, which really didn’t reflect how Army played. RIT got off to a 2-0 lead about minute and a half into the game and never looked back. The second game was closer, 4-3 and Army put on a lot of pressure at the end. Both games saw a penalty shot, one for each team, but nobody scored on either. It was fun, and they were good games. RIT is 12-03 against Army in it’s last 15, so it was the right weekend to go if you like winning.
Along the Boards
RIT Goalie
Playing Defense
Goalie Collision
Skating up ice
Army Goalie
As is usually the case, you can see all the photos I uploaded in my RIT Hockey flickr gallery.
Friday and Saturday we went to Frontier field to watch the outdoor hockey games. This year they set up an outdoor rink at the baseball stadium in downtown Rochester. We bought tickets to the Friday night AHL Amerks game, and the Saturday night RIT Hockey game. With the tickets bought back in October, we had no idea what to expect weather wise in December. We were fortunate to have a cold snow weekend that Tracy and I were both hoping for.
Friday night’s game of the Amerks vs. Lake Erie was great. It was 18 degrees out, and we saw a great game. Lake Erie tied the game up at 4-4 with 0.1 seconds left to go. Then after 5 minutes of overtime it was still tied, so on to a 5 round shootout. Lake Erie took a 2-0 lead after three rounds of the shootout meaning Rochester had to score the next 2 goals without letting any in. They did, and won the game on the 6th round of the shootout, then we even got fireworks! The attendance was 11,000+, and we actually ran into a few friends we knew from playing hockey. It was really cold, and I decided to add more layers for the game Saturday.
Saturday’s game was even more fun. At 16 degrees and in the middle of a snow storm, there was much excitement. Announced attendance was 4,000+, and we were treated to a downright snow bowl. It was snowing so hard the Zamboni could not lay down new ice and was left to try and collect snow off the ice between periods. There were extended commercial timeouts during the game while an army of skaters with shovels tried to keep the ice clear. The game itself was slowed by the snow on the ice. Players were taking shots and sending out poofs of snow. I wore three layers of socks, pants, and fleece, while Tracy went for 8 layers. It was quite cold, and you needed to walk around during the intermissions to keep blood flowing in your toes.
Here are a few photos from Fridays game, and some cell phone shots from Sunday…
Each year the RIT Tigers have a home “opener” downtown at the Blue Cross Arena. Its not really their home opener, but it is one of the first couple games of the season in Rochester. The game is always pretty good, and lately we’ve been getting some pretty neat teams. This year was Penn State, next year is Michigan. RIT lost this game 3-2, but it was pretty exciting. Here’s a few pictures, there’s more in my flickr gallery.
The RIT Tigers made it to the Atlantic Hockey Championships vs. the Air Force Falcons. The two teams were battling for who would get the right to lose to Boston College. Unfortunately for RIT, the Falcons played much better hockey. Unfortunately for the Flacons, they lost to Boston College Eagles in the next round of Division 1 Hockey. I really wanted to see the RIT Women’s team play their championship game, but it was at the same time as the men’s game downtown. I grabbed my camera and headed downtown, only to see the Tigers get shutout 4-0. It was a good game though, and to my surprise the lighting at the Blue Cross Arena was really good for photographs. Here’s a few, more are in my RIT Hockey flickr gallery.
Defense in the Air Force Zone
RIT Goalie Shane Madolora
Air Force Falcons goalie Jason Torf makes a kick save
This fall/winter we went to several RIT Hockey games. Fortunately for us, RIT won the majority of them. At one of the games, against AIC (American International), I brought our camera to take a few hockey pictures. As I’ve mentioned before, I think hockey is a difficult sport to photograph, because you kind of need to anticipate the action otherwise you get photos of guys skating around looking at where the action is. I took photos at this particular game because I liked the AIC Yellow Jackets team logo. Here’s a few shots, there are more in my flickr gallery.
I decided to take our camera to the RIT hockey game Saturday night to try my hand at capturing some images. It turns out there is a bit of skill involved with photographing ice hockey. First off the lighting is a nightmare, and most of my shots came out with a yellowish tint that needed to be addressed in photoshop. Secondly there is a lack of light that makes shooting in high ISO a necessity, and leads to generally noisy images. Third, there are a lot of players on the ice, so many many photos have some other player zipping by or obscuring a arm or leg. Then you also need to anticipate the plays, or else you will have photos of people just standing around without the puck.
It was difficult, but I had a fun time, and shot over 350 photos. I took some time to load some of the best onto my flickr account, and a few here too. RIT played Canisius college twice this weekend, winning the first 8-0, and the second a much closer 5-4. It was fun to close out the season with the tigers, as they honored their senior players, and we got to see the presentation of the AHA trophy for the division 1st place RIT Tigers.
