Yes indeed. It’s that time of year again. The time where I start flooding the blog with hockey photos for your pleasure. The Mighty Bulls have started their preseason games getting ready for game one of the 2008-2009 season, starting Friday September 12th.

Friday they hosted Troja/Ljungby, a team from the Swedish Allsvenskan division. A pretty intense game ending 2-1.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM @ 300mm, f/2,8 1/400sec, ISO1600. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM @ 300mm, f/2,8 1/400sec, ISO1600. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM @ 300mm, f/2,8 1/400sec, ISO1600. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM @ 300mm, f/2,8 1/400sec, ISO1600. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM @ 300mm, f/2,8 1/400sec, ISO1600. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

This past month I spent three of the four week on vacation, recharging the batteries for the next couple of months which are usually the hardest during the week. The vacation was much needed!

With all the sports I shoot it sometimes impress me that I don’t see more injuries than I do. It’s your typical sprained knee or whatever. I covered a soccer game last night and I was following two players battling for the ball at full speed. The both fell and the ball was put in the net on the rebound of sorts. The players cheered and the opposing player was still on the gras. My first thought was that he was just pissed off that he didn’t prevent the goal. I realized he was favoring his arm and looked to be in quite a lot of pain. The trainer rushed to the field and I heard the injured player say the other guy landed on him.

I checked the entire sequence on the LCD and found that I had indeed caught where his arm is bending kind of awkward when they fell to the grass.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM + 1,4x TC @ 420mm, f/4,5 1/1250sec, ISO200. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

A shot of the player with the trainer behind the net shows the trainer supporting the arm while the player shows just how much pain he’s in.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM + 1,4x TC @ 420mm, f/4,5 1/1250sec, ISO200. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

The player was taken away in an ambulance.

Sunday the local soccer team ‘Avarta’ secured advancement to Division 2 after winning the game against Birkeroed. The advancement is secured with four games left of the season.

They could have secured advancement Wednesday but the game ended with a tie game which was not enough. I spent two hours on the side line waiting for the goal that would bring them to Division 2 and the jubilation shots following the game but that didn’t happen.

It was appropriate that they won the game at home in front of their home crowd.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM @ 300mm, f/3.2 1/2000sec, ISO100. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

click to enlarge

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM @ 300mm, f/3.2 1/2000sec, ISO100. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

click to enlarge

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40 f/4L USM @ 36mm, f/4 1/800sec, ISO100. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

click to enlarge

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40 f/4L USM @ 17mm, f/4 1/1600sec, ISO100. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

click to enlarge

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40 f/4L USM @ 17mm, f/4 1/1600sec, ISO100. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

click to enlarge

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 17-40 f/4L USM @ 24mm, f/4 1/1600sec, ISO100. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

click to enlarge

Around Monday last week I received a phone call.
Voice says: “Hey Brian, our photographer is on vacation. Would you be able to cover the Cup Final thursday?”

Without much hesitation I replied with a “Yes of course!”

The Cup Final is a nation wide soccer tournament where lower tier teams compete with the top division teams. It’s not the National Championship, but the winner gets a ticket to the European UEFA Cup next year. Brondby the local soccer team where I live is so far down the standing they looked to not make it to the European tournaments for the second straight year which is not satisfying what so ever.

Not only did I get to shoot top level soccer (The final was between two top division teams), I got to shoot the local soccer team where I live. And it was played in the National stadium where the Danish National team plays their home games.

Brondby won the game 3-2 after being ahead 1-0, 2-1 and scoring their last goal to make it 3-2 with about five minutes to go.
The fans got so excited. I was sitting in the same end as the Brondby fans and when they scored their second goal to make it 2-1 I almost got bombed with beer. A container hit the dirt right next to me and a spray of beer flew up and soaked my sock and left side of my pants. Why would anybody toss an almost full cup of beer? I’d empty it up instead!!

Anyway here’s a slideshow with sound and photos from the very exciting game! Click the image to launch.

Death in the family has kept my mind on anything else but this blog. Now that everything is back to normal (as normal as it can get) I figured it was time to give a little update on what I’ve been doing..

A couple of concerts, a couple of soccer games, some handball, a demonstration and other stuff is among what I’ve been pointing my camera at.

I made a small gallery with captions in it with some of the most recent stuff I’ve been doing.

Click image to launch.

As promised the other day, here’s the slideshows I did for the playoffs.

It’s a mix of danish and english comments so for you non-danish guys, sorry you wont understand it all.

1st round playoffs - Game 3
1st round playoffs - Game 4
1st round playoffs - Game 5
1st round playoffs - Game 6
1st round playoffs - Game 7

I think this photo sums up everything.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM @ 300mm, f/2.8 1/250sec, ISO1600. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

I’ve made a couple of slideshows throughout the series. I’ll post links to them one of these days…

So the Mighty Bulls lost game 4 and are now down 3-1. I guess everything’s on the line Friday or the season will end way too soon. Here’s a gallery of photos from last night’s game.

As always, click image to launch.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM @ 300mm, f/2.8 1/400sec, ISO1600. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

So three games of the first round of the playoffs is in the bag. Roedovre Mighty Bulls is down 2-1, after getting the first win Sunday. Tonight game 4 is on and I’ll be traveling to Frederikshavn to cover the game. Hopefully Roedovre will take game 4 to equal the standings instead of being down 3 games to 1.

Here’s a shot from Sunday’s game.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM @ 300mm, f/2.8 1/400sec, ISO1600. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)

The local hockey team secured the Regular Season Championship, which means a lot less road games as they’ll have the home team advantage throughout the playoffs all the way to the final - if they make it that far. They should though. At least the semi finals anyway.

After a long regular season I can’t explain how much I’m looking forward to the playoffs. I’m sure any other sports photographer who’s been following a team all the way through the season and into the playoffs, know what I’m talking about.

Everything picks up.. The speed, the intensity, the emotions…. And last but not least.. the importance of every game… Hopefully my photography will keep up the pace!

Canon EOS-1D Mark II n, EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM @ 300mm, f/2.8 1/400sec, ISO1600. (Photo: Brian Poulsen)