If you know Hockey, then you how fast the players skate.  Even faster is that little black puck they chase after.  Now think of following it through a camera lens.  It creates a challenge to photograph, and then add to that low light and safety glass.  Photographers are always after that great shot.  We prefer to not have anything between the lens and the subject.  Like safety glass.

Slap StickFast action hockey I was presented an opportunity to shoot from the box.  No glass for protection.  It was great, till three players slammed into the rail right in front of me.  Wow!  It was fast!  It was loud!  Hockey sticks pointing every which way, the bang from them slamming into the rail, the grunts from the players and the scream of surprise from me.  I was just fast enough to fall back and land on my back pockets all the while protecting my camera.

It was time to seek protection of the safety glass.

I did a lot of moving around shooting from mid ice to the nets.  I took lots of shots, lots of angles.  So, if you ever want to have a good subject to photograph, I suggest Hockey. 

Light it always a challenge at indoor sports.  I shot this photo at  f4.5  1/200 sec with a 1600 ISO.  I had to go high with the ISO in order to get a fast enough shutter speed.  It’s a trade-off.  More grain or more blur.