By Don Nelson
Perspective and proximity make a lot of difference in how we may view things. That’s one of the lessons I’ve learned, sometimes at physical risk, in covering sports for the Methow Valley News the past few years. I started as a “temp” when former sports reporter Mike Maltais left, but now I’m pretty much the sports staff writer and photographer.
Fortunately, I’m a fan of most sports, or willing to learn about them, but still profess ignorance of more than the basics of soccer, volleyball, tennis and wrestling. I know just enough to generally get things right, but the opportunity for mistakes is always there.
Football, basketball, cross country (skiing and running varieties), softball and baseball I get, in terms of strategy, terminology and predominant physical attributes.
There are seasonal distinctions as well. Fall and spring are pretty much outdoors (except for volleyball), winter is indoors — which is a good thing most nights.
Covering sports gives you access that most spectators — those at the event, and those watching on TV or following on radio — don’t have. You see things differently from the sidelines, hear things people in the stands don’t hear, and have a distinct view of how strategies unfold from the ground level. Football is decidedly different to watch from the sidelines than it is in the overhead view we see on TV. Soccer is much more intriguing and engaging from close-up (I still don’t find it interesting on TV). Tennis is harder than it looks.
Sometimes I get what I call “spectatoritis” — I’m watching the play so closely that I miss the photo. And being that close to the action puts you in the position of sometimes being overtaken by it. I’ve been nearly overrun by football and basketball players, hit by soccer balls, tennis balls and basketballs, and dodged a few foul balls. You have to stand in there and be ready for whatever comes your way.
But I gotta say, nothing can quite prepare you for hanging over the boards while taking pictures of an ice hockey game, which is what I was doing Saturday night during the Apple Puck game between the University of Washington and Eastern Washington University club teams at the Winthrop Rink.
I really don’t know the difference between icing and off-sides, but who cares? I was on the side of the outdoor rink that’s not enclosed in Plexiglas, as near to the action as I dared. Watching hockey on TV, trying to follow a blurred puck, is almost an artificial experience compared to rinkside.
The sounds alone are a constant backdrop — skates skimming the ice with a harsh but musical rhythm, the distinctive thwack of a stick hitting puck, the concussive thump of bodies crashing into the boards and each other, the constant verbal communication.
Then there’s the full-speed physicality of play coming right at you. These guys are flying out there, twisting, whirling, slashing, changing direction in a split second. And they’re doing all those things while skating either backwards or forwards. I read somewhere that studies have found hockey players to be the most physically fit athletes. I believe it. The game is so fast-paced that shifts can change in less than a minute, with players darting on and off the ice with no break in the action.
Goalies are fascinating to watch. They know what’s coming, and that it will be swift, hard and often brutal, that all eyes are on them. When play is headed their way, they are aggressively crouched, alert, wary, shifty, calculating. Angles and positioning are everything in defending the goal. From ice level, you can see the intensity in their eyes as they size up the oncoming mayhem.
But they aren’t just waiting, they’re almost taunting. Goalies are like predators in reverse — their attitude is, “bring it on, I’m ready for the best you’ve got.” They can make the most dramatic stop look like there was nothing to it, then casually shake the puck out of their glove onto the ice. Next.
Predictably, I suppose, I got a little too caught up in my work a few times on Saturday. One errant puck flew by, not really close enough to cause alarm. But I didn’t get out of the way fast enough when a Husky and an Eagle, intent on chasing the puck, smacked into, and bit over, the wall where I was standing with my camera. I was knocked back but otherwise unharmed. The worst of it was, I didn’t get the shot.
