WASHINGTON CAPITALS VS OTTAWA SENATORS - PHOTO ALLEN CLARK
WASHINGTON CAPITALS GOAL CELEBRATION - PHOTO ALLEN CLARK
Offwing Opinion creator,
AOL Fanhouse lead NHL blogger, and
Sporting News columnist Eric McErlain answered a few questions about the state of the Washington Capitals rebuilding plan, whether forward Alexander Ovechkin is the most entertaining player in the league, hockey blogs in Washington and the result of the new media push by Capitals owner Ted Leonsis.
[Q] What does this playoff run mean for the Capitals rebuilding effort,
and what can fans expect of this team next season?
[EM] At the start of the season Caps owner Ted Leonsis said that the rebuild was over and he meant it. Come around Thanksgiving, there were plenty of understandable doubters, but then new head coach Bruce Boudreau came on board and authored one of the greatest in-season turnarounds in NHL history. As to next season, I think Leonsis and General Manager George McPhee expect this team to qualify for the playoffs for many years to come, with the next goal winning a playoff series -- which in this case will be the first since 1998.
[Q] Watching Ovechkin day in and day out, is he hands down the most
entertaining player in the league? What contributes to his success on
and off the ice, and do you have a story or two from the regular season
or the playoffs that expands on that?
[EM] If he isn't the most exciting and entertaining player in the league this season, I really don't know who else might be.
He's really just the complete package when it comes to a hockey player: He's incredibly talented, driven and plays the game
with absolute passion. Best of all, he holds himself accountable for his own play and never takes a shift off.
There are almost too many stories from this season: How about the four goals in the OT win against Montreal? Or the shot that
looked like it was taken from a golf tee that beat Cam Ward in the last week of the season? Then there's the game-winning
goal in Game One of the series against the Flyers where he ripped the puck off of Kukkonen's stick and put it past Biron?
[Q] With the amount of regular season travel, and with a team possibly
having to come out of Dallas, Anaheim, Detroit, SJ, Calgary and
Minnesota, is the West at a disadvantage for the Stanley Cup Finals?
[EM] Considering that the furthest West the Caps traveled this season was St. Louis, I can't help but think that the current schedule format makes for easier living for Eastern Conference teams.
[Q] How many of the Capitals blogosphere did you get to meet while
covering games, or while in the stands this season?
[EM] Between games and other get togethers, I've met plenty of folks, in fact, way too many to remember. The fact is that the team made a decision to reach out to
local bloggers and it's working great. In Washington to understand what's going on with the team you really must read Japers' Rink, On Frozen Blog and the Peerless Prognosticator. Here's something that's hard to admit: There are so many Caps blogs out there now, I simply don't have time to read them all.
[Q] What impact has owner Ted Leonsis had on the NHL and the fan base in
Washington with regards to innovation, adoption of new media, and a
genuine passion emanating from the owners box?
[EM] You can't say enough about what Ted Leonsis has done for blogging locally. From the start, I always said that his reaching out to bloggers was just a natural extension of the way he does business. He's said that there will always be room for bloggers in his press box, and come playoff time when the place was packed he kept his promise, and that included finding a place for the Off Wing Photographers during the playoffs too.
Considering that the Caps already treat bloggers like any other members of the media, there really isn't anything else to do in that area. And the only suggestion I would deign to make would be to please keep it up and spread the word to other NHL and major league sports franchises.
Offwing Opinion photographer and
Offwingphoto.com blogger Allen Clark answered a few questions about the logistics of shooting NHL hockey for a blog in Washington, which other local sports he has been able to cover, what equipment and techniques he uses to shoot hockey, and which photographers have helped him while shooting this season.
[Q] What equipment do you use to shoot for offwing.com and offwingphoto.com? And where can readers find more of the photography from the offwing photographers?
I use Nikon, of the two others one shoots Nikon also and the other Cannon. I have a Nikon D200 as my primary with an old D70 as a backup. Typically I will bring both down to the ice. On the D200 I put on my 70-200 2.8 Nikon lens, this is my primary set-up for nearly anything.
On my D70 I will then put a wild angle lens (11-18, 4-5.6). This is just a fun different thing to do. When the players get near my hole I can stick that lens through the hole and get a different perspective. Honestly, 90% of the stuff is horrible, but that leaves me with 10% of cool stuff that you don't often see elsewhere.
Nearly all of our photos of course show up on www.offwing.com, which was started by Eric McErlain. Last year we started making a concerted effort to expand our coverage to other sports. This led to Eric and I covering the Legg Mason tennis tournament, which is part of the US Open Series. Eric couldn't make it to the early rounds so I was put into the place to do some writing for OffWing. After that Eric urged me to start a blog and some writing, so OffWing Photo was born, a place where we could do more with our photos, experiment a little, and talk about sports photography specifically.
We also use Photoshelter as a way to syndicate photos of the events we cover to our clients. You can also find us on Flickr which is a great place to network with other photographers and people that love the same sports we do.
[Q] What arrangements did you have with the team to shoot this season,. Did they assign any blogs a photo hole, or was there an open policy if there was space available? Did that change for the postseason?
[AC] This is the second year that OffWing has had both editorial and photo credentials. I am fortunate on two accounts, first I followed in the steps of Eric, who worked hard to lay out a plan to credential bloggers. Secondly both Eric and I were lucky that the Cap's owner, Ted Leonsis, is a former AOL exec and hip to blogging.
The Caps treated us with a great deal of respect. In fact they didn't treat us any different than any other photographer. We were there when the Caps were in last place shooting every game and in the end as division champs. Fortunately, I have had a photo hole for every game that I have shot, there have been times when we did not have a hole for a period or two, but for the most part we have been down on the ice.
This didn't change for the post-season, although honestly I would have totally understood. If Sports Illustrated shows up you give them the the hole...but again, we were always treated with respect and I really appreciate it. I would also like to think that we in part earned the respect in the way that we covered the games.
[Q] In addition to the NHL, there were a number of general sports photos posted on offwing. What were a couple of your favorite NHL photos posted this season, and your favorite general sports photos?
[AC] Here are some of the favorites of photos that I took over the past year. Some I like for the straight photo, others I like because of the situation, where I was in the "wrong place," had the "wrong lens," etc. The adversity that I had to overcome forced me shooting the situation in a different/creative way.
NHL Favorites: 1, 2, 3.
General Photos: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
[Q] Did you get a chance to meet other photographers this season, and who were your favorites?
[AC] Over the past year I have been able to meet a lot of great photographers. I have found that the temp of a particular sport determines to what extent you chat with the other photographers. Hockey is tougher because of the speed and that we are spread around the rink, then crashing to post images between periods. Lacrosse is similar in that play is moving so quickly up and down the field.
So far, soccer seems to be the most social. For the most part the photographers are camped out on the ends of the field and there doesn't seem to be the pressure to file photos during the game. Tennis was also a very social sport to shoot.
Mitchell Layton (www.mitchelllayton.com) is a great sports photographer, he is the team photographer for the Washington Nationals, Washington Wizards, and Washington Capitals, he also shoots for Getty and Sports Illustrated. He is a great person and also very open in giving constructive advice. As the Cap's team photographer he assigned holes for games and was very fair, like Eric's experience we were treated just as well as the other credentialed press.
[Q] Is there a tip or two you have learned this season that would help other photographers shoot hockey?
[AC] Over the past couple of years I have learned a few important things for shooting hockey:
- The camera's built in light meter will likely underexpose because of the ice (in the same way it would with snow). Either correct in camera by increasing the exposure more than what the camera reads or in post processing.
- Use custom white balance. This makes the color of your shots very uniform and more pleasing. With a DSLR, this is SO easy, it is something new to learn but it will make a huge difference.
- A friend who shoots belly dancing turned me onto this trick.....use variable ISO. I will turn this setting on and set the uppermost ISO that I will accept for quality purposes. I put the camera on manual mode and set my aperture wide open (I have a 70-200/f 2.8) and the shutter at what ever I need. Voilà a I did this all season and was very happy with the results.
- OK, this last one is a little crazy, I don't know if anyone else does this or not, I haven't heard or read of it anywhere. I shoot without looking through the viewfinder. When I first shot hockey I was missing so many great shots and was unable to track the puck fast enough. So I started looking down the barrel of my lens just over my camera. I kind of lock my upper body and head so that it moves as a unit (no doubt I look silly).
Shooting this way I can use my peripheral vision to anticipate where the action will take place more easily. I have gotten pretty good at this, and also use it when shooting lacrosse. For me the number of keepers went up and the total number of pictures went down.
Thanks very much to Eric and Allen for taking the time to answer a few questions.
The photographers that have stood out this year in San Jose are of course the official team photographers
Rocky Widner and
Don Smith (Don took a midseason photo of defenseman Douglas Murray checking a forward completely off his feet at center ice that may have been the best of the year), Getty's
Christian Petersen, the AP's
Tony Avelar,
Gary Reyes of the SJ Mercury News, the East Bay's
Aric Crabb who does not come down to cover much hockey with the newspaper consolidation, and
Rob Galbraith who was at HP Pavilion shooting playoff hockey (hopefully the same R.G.), among many others.
[Update]
Ovechkin In Hart Of The MVP Race - National Post.
