T-Birds Outlast Everett in Shootout
Hello again, T-Birds fans, and welcome back to Bird Watching. Again I have to apologize for the delay between this post and the last one, I was busy during the Christmas break and didn’t find the time to put together some photos for you. No matter now, though, as hockey’s back, I have a day off and photos to show off!
For this edition of Bird Watching, we’ll examine the T-Birds’ shootout win over Everett last week. Rather, we’ll check out the shootout victory over the Silvertips that took place in Kent on Dec. 27, seeing as the teams played to the same result at Everett the next day. On the 27th, the Thunderbirds kicked off the second half of the season with two points that could prove crucial in the playoff race later on in front of a sold out ShoWare Center crowd. Onto the photos!
I don’t get many photos of goalie Daniel Cotton since it’s normally Calvin Pickard between the pipes for the Thunderbirds, so when I learned Cotton recently got a new mask, I jumped at the chance to snap a few photos of it. Hopefully I’ll get to see it in action one of these games, but until then, here’s a shot of the back of it.
Goalie Daniel Cotton shows off his new mask—and assures anyone behind him of his identity— during warm-ups before the game Dec. 27.
Canon 7D, 2000 ISO, 155mm, f/2.8, 1/1600
As mentioned before, the T-Birds and ‘Tips played in front of a sold out crowd of 6,150 that night, the best crowd of the year. I wanted to get a nice shot showing the entire bowl, but unfortunately I don’t have a wide enough lens to get that shot. WPS photographer Brian Liesse did, however, and he was nice enough to let me use the HDR image he took of the entire bowl in this post. Thanks Brian!
Photo by Brian Liesse, Washington Prep Sports
Nikon D5000, 500 ISO, 11mm, f/2.8, 1/60
Right winger Burke Gallimore tries to sail a rebounded puck past Everett goalie Kent Simpson halfway through the first period.
Canon 7D, 1600 ISO, 155mm, f/2.8, 1/1250
The Thunderbirds had a goal waived off in the first period. I didn’t catch the reason why it was waived off, so unfortunately I can’t give you all an explanation, but I can give you a photo of the play that didn’t happen…
Gallimore (top) and center Sean Aschim crash the net and send the puck past Everett’s Simpson. Unfortunately for the T-Birds the goal was disallowed and the score remained 0-0.
Canon 7D, 1600 ISO, 140mm, f/2.8, 1/1250
The game would remain at 0-0 for the rest of the period. Now onto the second!
The newest Thunderbird, right winger Connor Honey, brings the puck up along the boards during the second period.
Canon 7D, 1600 ISO, 35mm, f/2.8, 1/1250
For part of the second period, I tried out a new position right in front of section 107. As well as giving me a different angle than I’m used to for the second, the move gave me less-damaged glass to shoot through (the glass to either side of goals will always be clearer than the glass right behind it as pucks don’t hit the side glass nearly as often) and allow me to use my 70-200mm lens, which provides a better quality of photo. Moving, for this game at least, gave me a good amount of shots, much more than I normally get in the second…
Right wing Branden Troock is knocked over in front of the Everett goal by Everett defender Evan Morden. (Note: this could be the play that earned Morden an interference minor, but I’m not sure)
Canon 7D, 1600 ISO, 70mm, f/2.8, 1/1250
Left winger Marcel Noebels watches as Simpson deflects a shot wide of the goal late in the second period.
Canon 7D, 1600 ISO, 70mm, f/2.8, 1/1250
With just seconds left in the period, Marcel Noebels found himself on something of a breakaway—there was only one defender between him and the goal, but that defender was on the other side of the ice. He fired a shot at Simpson, who couldn’t freeze the puck before Burke Gallimore arrived to threaten the goal…
Everett goalie Kent Simpson tries to freeze the puck before it can rebound to an awaiting Burke Gallimore…
Canon 7D, 1600 ISO, 70mm, f/2.8, 1/1250
Simpson did manage to freeze the puck and stop play, but not before Burke was able to try and knock the puck away from the Everett goalie.
Canon 7D, 1600 ISO, 70mm, f/2.8, 1/1250
That’s it from the second period. During the period, Gallimore one-timed a pass from defender Evan Wardley into the back of the net for a Seattle goal. It was Gallimore’s 15th goal of the year, and Wardley earned his first WHL assist for the pass. Noebels was given an assist as well. Now onto the third period, where I took my normal spot between the benches…
Noebels maneuvers around the outstretched-reach of Everett defenseman Dominik Bittner for a shot on frame.
Canon 7D, 1600 ISO, 115mm, f/2.8, 1/1250
Defenseman Brad Deagle brings the puck into the neutral zone during the third period.
Canon 7D, 1600 ISO, 115mm, f/2.8, 1/1250
Left winger Chance Lund clears the puck out of the Everett zone in the third period.
Canon 7D, 1600 ISO, 98mm, f/2.8, 1/1250
Honey carries the puck over the center line.
Canon 7D, 1600 ISO, 78mm, f/2.8, 1/1250
By now you’re probably thinking, “Wow, Kyle got a lot of photos of people carrying the puck that night.” You’d be correct: I did get a number of clean shots of the T-Birds possessing the puck tonight. Why? I don’t know, but I always like getting stock photos of those I don’t normally catch in images, so I’m not complaining too loudly. Here’s one more, this time of defenseman Shea Theodore.
Canon 7D, 1600 ISO, 35mm, f/2.8, 1/1250
And in case you were worried about the lack of goalie Calvin Pickard in this post so far, don’t worry. Here he is doing his best impression of a brick wall.
Goalie Calvin Pickard makes a stick save on an Everett shot during the third period.
Canon 7D, 1600 ISO, 135mm, f/2.8, 1/1250
The shot I didn’t get, however, is a photo of the goal Everett scored to even the score at one in the third period. Since no one likes to go home with a tie, how about we go to overtime?
Center Luke Lockhart dives for a puck in the opening stages of the overtime period.
Canon 7D, 1600 ISO, 98mm, f/2.8, 1/1250
Pickard stops a shot from Everett left winger Joshua Linquist.
Canon 7D, 1600 ISO, 150mm, f/2.8, 1/1250
Neither team scored in overtime, so the game was sent to a shootout. The Thunderbirds’ coaching staff, (from left to right) assistant coach Darren Rumble, head coach Steve Konowalchuk, and assistant coach Steve McTaggart, got together and decided who would take the shootout attempts for the T-Birds.
Canon 7D, 1600 ISO, 70mm, f/2.8, 1/800
They decided to send center Colin Jacobs out first, and he vindicated that choice by sending the puck past Everett goalie Kent Simpson. Josh Birkholz and Joshua Winquist for Everett didn’t see the same success, however, and it was up to Cody Fowlie to get one past Pickard in order to extend the shootout. That didn’t happen.
Pickard sends Fowlie’s shootout attempt sailing wide of the net, clinching the victory and two points for Seattle.
Canon 7D, 1600 ISO, 145mm, f/2.8, 1/1250
With the game won, Pickard threw his arms up in celebration as the rest of the team rushed out to greet him.
Canon 7D, 1600 ISO, 195mm, f/2.8, 1/1250
And again, Colin Jacobs and center Tyler Alos found and congratulated each other on the win.
Canon 7D, 1600 ISO, 70mm, f/2.8, 1/1250
That’s it for this post! T-Birds win! Sorry again for the delay in getting something new up on the blog, hopefully it won’t be two weeks before the next post again. If you want to complain about the lack of posts or comment on any of the photos, feel free to do so in the comments section below.
‘Til next time, though, go T-Birds!
Wheat Kings Rule T-Birds in Cotton Debut
Hello all,
Figures that I have to use that incredibly witty phrase of “Wheat Kings Rule” against the T-Birds instead of in favor. Seattle falls, 4-1 to Brandon
Second of all, Hi. This isn’t Kyle, it’s someone completely different. I’m Brian Liesse. I am the Washington Prep Sports guy for the T-Birds and I work and shoot alongside Kyle all the time. Kyle wasn’t able to shoot the Brandon – Seattle game on Tuesday so you get me. Just a note about me, I am not a hockey expert, so my post, and maybe one or two more in the future, will be more of a layman’s perspective (if any perspective at all) of the game. Never fear though, I shoot football, basketball, baseball and so on so you’ll still get to see photos of the game around the same level of excellence you get from Kyle. So to jump right in…
The big thing about the game is that it was the rookie Daniel Cotton’s debut. He is the back-up goalie to Calvin Pickard. Cotton saved 45 of 48 shots in his debut. That’s pretty good, but it would have been nice to see him debut in a win. Here he is with the spotlight on him before the game.
Nikon D5000 50mm f/2 1/125th
So there it is, my first photo up on this blog. And there is Cotton, standing in his spotlight looking all cool… bird… … … … forgive me, I’m new. So next is a shot early in the game, during one of Brandon’s first thrusts into T-Birds territory. Kyle Verdino does his best to guard the goal.
Nikon D5000 50mm 1/800th of a sec @ f/2
Again, I don’t know a lot about hockey so this is mainly me just showing photos. If it were baseball, WHOOOOONELLY would this be a long post, but it wasn’t baseball, so it’s not long at all. You might also be seeing another peculiarity about me is that don’t like to crop my photos out of ratio like Kyle does with his amazing work so all of these are going to be the same monotonous size, over and over again. Speaking of over and over again, this next one is of Dave Sutter. Now, I say this because I shoot Sutter more than anyone else. Whenever I am editing my photos, there he is, over and over again. So I figured that if he wants to be in my photos that much, I might as well post one.
Nikon D5000 50mm 1/800th of a sec @ f/2
Now it wouldn’t quite be a hockey game without a little aggression and the following is a photo of that aggression showing a bit. This was broken up pretty quickly, as you can see Mr. Smith is on his way there, but it wasn’t the last time tempers flared a bit during the game.
Canon 7D 135mm 1/320th of a sec @ f/5.6
Next is a non-spotlight photo of Cotton. This time, he was blocking the goal during a Wheat King assault (it sounds like a battlefield doesn’t it?). As I said earlier, Cotton saved 45 of 48. He did a good job.
Canon 7D 105mm 1/400th of a sec @ f/4.5
In contrast with the photo of Sutter, here is someone I rarely ever get in my photos, Marcel Nobels. Mr. Nobels was just sort of skating around in front of me during a time out in the second period and I figured I might as well shoot him while I can. Funnily enough though, we do see him again in this post.
Nikon D5000 50mm 1/800th of a sec @ f/2
Time for the funny face photo! Here is Branden Troock trying to get past a Brandon defender with the puck with Mitch Elliot on his left. (Insert funny voice sound here) “I’m going to get you puck, yes I am! (End funny voice sound). I hope to get many a funny face photo from Troock. He is so animated on the ice. I think he brings a lot to the table with that.
Nikon D5000 50mm 1/800th of a sec @ f/2
The last of my photos is a shot of the fantastic threesome of Nobels, Hickman, and Burke Gallimore there in the back. They are all good players that make a great line, the starting line in this case.
Canon 7D 135mm 1/500th of a sec @ f/5.6
Well, that’s it. The suffering is over until the next time Kyle doesn’t make it. If you attend the games, you can see me on the ice before the game. I’m the young guy with long hair. I’m also running around a lot so it isn’t hard to find me.
Time for shameless self promotion. If you liked these photos, you can view the rest of them at http://blphoto.smugmug.com/Sports/Hockey/WHL-Hockey-Brandon-4-Seattle-1/19622475_HsNh8X#1537865330_5q7nqD6. I put the link in because I can’t figure out how to do that slideshow thing that Kyle does at the end of his posts. I put a lot of hockey photos up on that site so check back to see more if you’re interested.
So until next time guys, check back to see Kyle’s great photos, be sure to root on the T-Birds, and have a great weekend (or week depending on when you read this).
Brian
I just realized I signed this post like a letter or email… that’s a bit weird.
seattlethunderbirdsphoto.wordpress.com 