Successful sports photography depends a good bit on understanding the flow of the game and the ability to anticipate what comes next. I played ice hockey and soccer, coached them both, and have watched an embarrassing numbers of games. I’ve been around track and field long enough to have absorbed enough to capture good moments.
Field hockey? Not so much.
Strictly speaking it’s not a new sport for me. My daughter played the game all through middle school but the pace of the game and the level of teamwork makes the flow of the game much different at the high school level. A lot of middle schoolers are true novices. Whereas middle schoolers playing soccer, baseball or basketball have probably played a few seasons already. So the game at the middle school level can move pretty slowly.
There are also some quirks to the game that make shooting a bit challenging. The stick is so short that body posture is decidedly different from other stick and projectile sports. Instead of full body extension at maximum effort players bodies are often compact, with backs bent low.
The rules only allow players to play the ball with the “forehand” side of the stick so they often—suddenly—move in a direction that seems counterintuitive to someone who has watched a lot of ice hockey. Or, anything really.
And the rules. There’s an awful lot of subjectively around two rules—the amount of force a player can use to strike the ball into a crowd, and obstruction, or shielding the ball from your opponent, something we actively encourage in just about every other sport. Each of these make it difficult for a neophyte to anticipate the next thing.
Even so, I think I got the moment here.
