USA Women's Hockey

I spent an evening last week photographing some of the USA women's hockey team. An article was written about how they are lacking challenging opponents to practice with, and have thus had to start playing local men's clubs and high school teams. Some of these ladies are former Olympians and the others are Olympic hopefuls. Now, I'm not a hockey fan, but it was really fun to see these girls (often much shorter and smaller than their opponent) own it on the ice. They are very fast and precise - the antithesis of me on the ice.

Go Here for the article.

Oh, another observation: The women's hockey bench lacked that awful stench that the boy's bench was putting off. Score one more for the ladies.

Funny / Not Funny

I'm not even sure what to say about this. I think it says enough on its own. Spotted in Iron Mountian, Michigan - in da' U.P.

Surfing On a Lake in December

The thought of it is ridiculous. I don't even like winter. For me winter sports are a necessary evil. The alternative is rotting inside the house, my arms and legs suffering atrophy. Winter sports involving icy water are particularly repulsive to me. However, I have loved surfing ever since I learned how to in my early teen years. I've found that a lot of people don't "get" surfing, but I cannot think of too many things I'd rather do. But then I am used to warmer climes, sunshine and sunscreen - not this masochistic freeze-fest.

I've been assigned to shoot this sport for the last 3 years and finally my calendar and the conditions meshed, so I headed to Northern Minnesota to shoot. As we got in view of the lake I could see huge rollers crashing into the shoreline. I began getting pretty excited. I'm not embarrassed to say that I began beeping my horn and pumping my fists. In surfer vernacular, I was "stoked"!

I was offered the necessary equipment to try this sport for myself. But... my desire to shoot and do the job well combined with the fear of what -6 (that's a minus in front of the six) would feel like outside of my cozy 7 layers of clothing kept me from getting into the water. I'm only a little ashamed. I wish it had been 30 degrees. I could handle that. So for now my dream of riding a freshwater wave remains unfulfilled.

I'll post images and a link to the story when it runs. Till then, stay warm and out of the water- unless you have a 6mm wetsuit and brass b@lls.

Jingle Cross Rock - 2008

I spent this last weekend in Iowa City, Iowa racing with my team. It was the 5th annual Jingle Cross Rock Cyclocross Race. This is the biggest, baddest CX race in the midwest and it pulled racers from as far away as California.

We rented a minivan and drove down in style. Stayed at a really fancy hotel and ate delicious food all weekend. We also raced on a splendid course. It was tough, but really fun and challenging. I raced out of my category - for reasons we'll not mention here - and felt good about where I finished in the pack.

I will be posting a re-cap on another site, so I will leave a link when that is live. For now, here are a few images of the good times. Never thought I'd find myself looking forward to visiting Iowa, but from now on I will!