Second Scrimmage v New Prague, Part 4

Henri shot this goal.

Eric.

Andrew S. airborne...

...and earthbound.

Another save for Andy P.

Second Scrimmage v New Prague, Part 3

Jacob.

Andy P. makes a save. The puck is right in front of his stick.

Gavin in a face off. The puck is on the blade of his stick.

Marco.

Second Scrimmage v New Prague, Part 2

More single photos, except for Max D.'s goal.

Wyatt blocks a shot.

Dylan looks for a pass.

Max D. shoots a goal...

...and celebrates (yet again.)

Garrett.

Second Scrimmage v New Prague, Part 1

New Prague has a better team than the score of 7-1 in our favor might indicate. The first period was a tie, and neither team scored. Their offense put some pressure on us, but obviously our offense bested their defense significantly. It was another fun game on a very cold night in the Minnehaha Academy arena.

Hunter.

Max B.

Jackson made a save and the puck bounced straight up.

Jacob enjoying the game from the penalty box.

Matthew

Scrimmage v New Prague, Part 6

Here are the last two photos from the game against New Prague.

Hunter, a strong play maker on offense...

...and finally, Jackson, who played the entire game and did a great job limiting the opponents goals.

Good luck to the team later today!

Scrimmage v New Prague, Part 5

Further highlights:

The Trojan defense tries out a new tactic on Eric, without much success.

Willy watches the puck.

Max, on the left, and Henri, on the right, prepared to defend the goal.

Max D. skates back to the bench.

Scrimmage v New Prague, Part 4

Some single photo highlights:

That's Matthew, Dylan and Garrett lined up during a faceoff in front of the Spartan goal.

This is Matthew moving the puck over the blue line.

Andrew S. on his way in a hurry.

Willy sitting in the penalty box for body checking. He later told me,"I didn't do anything! I was just skating along and stopped suddenly so that he crashed into me!" "Yes, William, but that's called checking." "Really?"

Here's Andrew S, again, just airborne and getting ready for a soft landing.

Scrimmage v New Prague, Part 3

Faceoffs are easy to photograph. The puck floats frozen in the air above the players' sticks, just released from the ref's hand. The players wear looks of concentration, and so does the ref.

Here's Gavin facing off against one of the Trojan players. The puck is just reaching the blade of Gavin's stick here...

...and here a split second later it's ricocheting back up toward the ref.

In these two shots, Max B and his opponent manage to send the puck directly back at the ref.

He seems to be in a tough spot as both of the players in the faceoff turn toward him, and Max D. is right behind him. Those refs almost always come out unscathed.

You may notice a distinct and different color cast to the photos. The first one is sort of sepia. The second definitely green, and the third starting to turn pink. The last one is very pink. All computer monitors are different, but I'm almost certain we owe the color shifts to lights like this:

I'm not sure just what they're called. I think it may be mercury vapor lamps. They're different from the yellow/green cast we're familiar with from tungsten lighting. One way you can see that they're not tungsten is the oscillation across the color spectrum. Tungsten lights are consistent in their color cast. In person, you can't see the oscillating colors because it happens fast and our brains interpolate for us. But it fools even smart cameras with automatic white balance. I could have fixed the white balance in the minimal post processing I do, but the color cast is kind of nice once in a while. It's red and green for Christmas.

Scrimmage v New Prague, Part 2

The team scored eight times, but this is the one I caught most effectively.

Max B. is about to lob the puck net-wards.

There it is, past the opposing Trojan goaltender.

Everyone celebrates! Here's Max D.

And there's Max B with Max K!

Not bad to get photos of all three Maxes in one post.

Scrimmage v New Prague, Part 1

It's always safe to name a team after an ancient and long departed group. Unlike native Americans, who have legitimate complaints about having been turned into mascots for sports teams, the ancients are no longer around, so no one complains.

But why name a team after the ancient Greeks or those who fought with them? (Or only after some of those who fought with them...don't know of any teams called the Persians.) Might have something to do with the extensive documentation of sports, games, and warlike behavior of the ancient Greeks.

Today we had a match-up between the Trojans of New Prague and our own Richfield Spartans. (That's Max K. in the picture, by the way.) The original Trojans may have lived in what is now Turkey. The Spartans came from the Peloponnesus, which is the southern peninsula of Greece. Homer wrote an epic poem called the Illiad about a war between the Trojans and the Greeks, especially the Spartans. That war was called, wait for it, the Trojan War, duh. Today's game wasn't exactly an epic battle worthy of Homer's Illiad, but as in the Illiad, the Trojans got trounced on their home turf, or in this case, ice. In the posts that follow, you'll see some highlights of the game.