Game v Rochester, Part 1

Rink 1, the main rink at the Richfield arena, is poorly lit. There's no other way to say it. It's otherwise one of my favorite rinks. You can walk all the way around it. The sight lines are excellent and there's a scoreboard at each end. But the ceiling is dark wood, and the light fixtures look like flowers in which each petal is a fluorescent light, and there just aren't enough of them.

After the dark and foreboding confines of rink 1 on Friday, the 13th, the occasion of our loss to Cottage Grove, we emerged on Saturday, the 14th, into the brighter light of rink 2 for our second game of the tournament. Our opponents were the Rochester team, who had a similarly bleak Friday the 13th. Unfortunately for them, the 14th was no better, while our luck changed.

Rink 2 has very good light, but only so-so sight lines. The glass is too high, and that means you have to shoot from the top bleacher in order for the camera to see over it. But getting up so high forces you to look down on the players, and the angle doesn't allow you to catch the eyes, most of the time. So I stood behind our bench to make the photos, with many thanks to Coach McCoy.

Hunter nailed beautiful shot from the point, a move that we've seen a couple of other times this season.

There's Gavin, whose speed and puck handling ability often leads our offensive maneuvers.

Jackson had several saves.

Marco reaching for a pass.

Here's Dylan, looking for a pass from Andrew S., and apparently knocking one of the opponents off his feet.