Hockey Photos Finally!

Unfortunately, the Zombies dropped their second in a row yesterday, 2-1. However, it was a completely different game from last week where they showed up looking like they didn't want to be there. They played really well, and it was an extremely competitive game. The problem this game was the other team's goalie, who stood on his head and kept them in the game. I'd heard his previous 2 games were shutouts so obviously he knows what he's doing.

Lucas had a really good game as well. No goals, but he had 4 decent shots including a phenomenal one from the left side with less than a minute left in the game that had everyone on their feet, thinking it was a goal, but unfortunately, the opposing goalie had an equally spectacular kick save that prevented the tie. I'm still shaking my head as to how it didn't go in. Whatever the case, losses aren't as bad when the team plays to its full potential, and like usual, the kids had a fun time.

Finally, by popular demand (or at least, by my mom's demand), new hockey photos! I took these during yesterday's game. I stood down by the glass all of second period to avoid getting netting in them. I'll probably do that for most future photos since it's a much clearer shot. If I could do it over again, though, I would have taken the camera off auto. It's been a while since I used it, and I now realize I should have used the sport setting since some of them are a little fuzzier than I'd like. Oh well, live and learn. Here you go!

We'll start off with the pregame chat while waiting for the zamboni to finish with the ice. Incidentally, Casselman (Carter) is our current top scorer.

Lucas was the starting center so I felt obligated to photograph the first faceoff. He says he won all of his faceoffs, but I wasn't paying attention so he may be right. You can see why the netting inspired me to move closer to the ice.

Some action shots from around the ice.

I was glad there was some action at the goal near me so I could get these closer-than-usual shots of Lucas.

Fight for it!

And a few more from open ice to close out this installment of hockey photos.

The last one's my favorite. I like the look of him getting ready to charge.

That's all for now. I'll try and get some more next time they are at one of the camera-friendly rinks.

Football Redux

As promised, here are the last of the summer sports pictures. I know I posted a few of them around the time his football camp happened (end of August), but here's the rest as well as some videos. These were all taken on the last day when they had an open practice/scrimmage for the parents to come out and watch. (for a refresher, you can see the previous pictures here)

Here you can see the size differential between Lucas (just to the right of center) and most of the other kids. I'm pretty sure he was one of the youngest kids there, if not the youngest.

Push the other person drill!

Huddling up. The size thing just plain amuses me.

It was hard to get action shots of him, due to the number of the people on the field, but directly in the center of this one, you can see him trying to tackle the runner, who has the stiff arm out.

Resting between plays.

That's him in the backfield, on the far right, ready to go!

I think it may have been a run for a loss, but he did have a rushing play. That's him with the ball on the ground.

More lining up.

In today's edition of Where's Waldo/Lucas, see if you can find him!

In case you're tired of looking, he's in the last kneeling row, on the left side, and he's yelling so you can see his open mouth. I know I posted one of him posing for the camera in the other blog entry, but here's another one since why not?

The videos are going to take a while to process in YouTube so I'll wrap this up here, and add them to a second entry tomorrow or this weekend. See you then!

The agony of...

On Saturday, the Zombies lost their first game, 3-1. I'm not really sure what was up with them since pretty much the whole team played at half speed. The team they were playing against weren't anything special so maybe this was just a fluke. I know the coach is still letting kids try different positions, and some of the kids didn't seem to know their positions (particularly defense) that well so that can probably be resolved in a practice or two.

Since it's been a while, here are some pictures. These are the last of his soccer ones, taken at the end-of-the-season tournament at the end of August. If I want to post any more sport-related ones, I guess that means I need to start taking hockey pictures, right?

(I just realized that Windows 10 makes it pretty easy to crop photos quickly so from now on, I'll try and edit the photos beforehand to center or zoom them on the subject--usually Lucas--better.)

Believe it or not, I did crop this first picture to focus more on Lucas. Suffice to say, the original was not so good.

Fighting for the ball. Lucas and the kid in the next few photos were the most physical players on their team so they had fun scrapping with each other.

You can tell he's winded here.

Soccer Boy!

I just noticed I have a folder full of all his football camp photos so I guess I'm not done with the athletic stuff just yet. I PROMISE I will post those this week. And on the near horizon, I'm going to start working on the summer vacation stuff (Newfoundland and Massachusetts).

Game 2

It's been a great start to the season for the Zombies. They followed up their 5-2 win last week with a 5-0 shutout Sunday morning. Lucas didn't have any points, but he still had a great game with 5 or 6 good chances.

It's amazing to watch the difference between the Zombies and the Coyotes (last year's team). The kids are already playing very well as a team. In particular, they pass a lot when on offense, and almost all of them are aware that they need to play defense. Last year, his team got caught by breakaways ALL THE TIME since all of the kids would be in the opponent's zone. Contrast that to yesterday's game where the other team was only able to get one shot on goal, and the Zombies controlled the puck for nearly 3/4 of the game.

It's possible that we lucked out and played two of the worst teams in the division, but based on what I've seen so far, I think it's going to be a bright season for Lucas and the rest of the Zombies. Pictures soon!

Game On!

The first official game of hockey season is in the books. Although they started off slow, giving up 2 goals, the Zombies than scored 5 straight to take the game 5-2. In even more exciting news, Lucas had both a goal and an assist. His goal was pretty too, lifting it over the goalie on a breakaway. Considering he had a total of 3-4 goals with the Coyotes, this is a nice change of pace over last year.

We were too focused on the game today so we didn't take any pictures, but I'll be sure to get some as the season continues. In the meantime, here are a couple of pictures from a completely different sport that were taken over the summer to tide you over.