Sport through the lens

Year is around and it’s time for IIHF Ice hockey World championships division I, group B tournament.  This time tournament is in Ljubljana, Slovenia, so I have “pleasure” to cover some of these matches.

Marcel Rodman (no.22) of Slovenia during ice hockey match of IIHF Ice hockey World championships Division I, group B between Slovenia and Poland

Pleasure in quotation marks is because in reality it’s not even a pleasure. IIHF destroyed international ice hockey years ago, with making A group much bigger, so now B group, errr sorry division I to be exact,  has teams like Korea, Croatia, Great Britain etc. I play ice hockey for fun (when I’m not around), and I admit I suck at it. But shooting Korea vs. Great Britain match on Sunday, made me think I could actually play for one of those teams. They can hardly skate, when they try to pass, puck goes somewhere and in 99% of cases, noone is able to catch it, and on top of that, their slap shot is on level of mine (read: 50% of times they miss puck, and 90% of other 50% puck is flying like butterfly toward goal). Guys I play hockey with, would beat these teams easily… and we are all hobby players. Just to end this rant, my suggestion for IIHF is to cut A group to half at least (like it was 20 years or so ago), have great A group tournament without teams like Denmark , Norway, Austria, and with a bit luck Slovenia next year. Have kinda decent hockey in B group (with previously mentioned countries), and have C and/or D group for countries where players can’t even skate and pass.

Ziga Jeglic (no.8) of Slovenia (L) and Pawel Skrzypkowski (no.2) of Poland (R) during ice hockey match of IIHF Ice hockey World championships Division I, group B between Slovenia and Poland

Adam Baginski (no.3) of Poland (L) during ice hockey match of IIHF Ice hockey World championships Division I, group B between Slovenia and Poland

So you can imagine how much fun is to shoot stuff like this. If it would be good hockey it would be interesting to come, do my job and on side even watch a bit of it. But this way, I come, get my position, shoot few frames, change my position, shoot few more frames, change position again, shoot few more frames, walk to press center, send photos, and leave ice hall just by the time referee whistles end of first third.

Patryk Wajda (no.4) of Poland (L) and Ales Music (no.16) of Slovenia (R) during ice hockey match of IIHF Ice hockey World championships Division I, group B between Slovenia and Poland

Min Ho Cho (no.6) of Korea (L) and Russell Cowley (no.17) of Great Britain (R) during ice hockey match of IIHF Ice hockey World championships Division I, group B between Great Britain and Korea

It’s just too much to suffer there for another 40 minutes, if I don’t need to, and I have those 20 or 25 photos I need. But good thing is, there’s only 3 more matches on schedule, one today with Great Britain playing against Hungary, and two on Friday with Great Britain playing against Poland, and Slovenia against Hungary. And if everything will go by plan, this last match will decide who will be playing (and most likely also leaving) A group next year.

Colin Shields (no.19) of Great Britain shooting during ice hockey match of IIHF Ice hockey World championships Division I, group B between Great Britain and Korea

Tomaz Razingar (no.9) of Slovenia (L) and Russell Cowley (no.17) of Great Britain (R) during ice hockey match of IIHF Ice hockey World championships Division I, group B between Great Britain and Slovenia

Greg Chambers (no.24) of Great Britain (R) and Ales Kranjc (no.28) of Slovenia (L) during ice hockey match of IIHF Ice hockey World championships Division I, group B between Great Britain and Slovenia

That’s all for today :) More hockey photos can be found in PhotoSI on-line archive, and photos from each match we were shooting can be found on links bellow:

Ice hockey World championships division I – Slovenia vs. Poland
Ice hockey World championships division I – Great Britain vs. Korea
Ice hockey World championships division I – Slovenia vs. Great Britain

Greg Kuznik (no.18) of Slovenia (L) and Matt Myers (no.8) of Great Britain (R) during ice hockey match of IIHF Ice hockey World championships Division I, group B between Great Britain and Slovenia