Dressage. This is a graceful sport with horses and riders appearing to glide through movements like dancers. But Hockey is a very different matter. Last weekend we went to see a live hockey game in Belleville . Our daughter, Breanne, is the V.P. of Sales and Marketing for the Belleville Senators team. This is a professional American Hockey League (AHL) team. This team is the farm team for the National Hockey League (NHL) team the Ottawa Senators.
Our daughter got us seats right at the clear plastic “glass” at the side of the goal. Front row seats in a fast and furious game!. I wanted to take photos and Breanne showed me the little circular opening in the glass that I could put my lens through. She also said that the game is very fast and I would need to pay attention as a hockey puck could come flying through that circular opening and smash my lens to bits. That was the moment I decided I could just take photos through the glass and leave the opening to the professional photographer from Getty who looked like she could watch where the puck was and take photos at the same time.
There are three periods in each game. In the 3rd period the score was Utica 3 Sens 0 .Then I looked at the goal in front of me . The Sens goalie was gone ! The coach had pulled the goalie and another player would be on. This is a last ditch attempt to get a goal.
And the action went up to the other end, to the Utica Goal.
The Utica Comets won the game but the Sens made them work for it. It was a very exciting game. I know little about hockey but I had a grand time . I have already mentioned how lightening fast this game is. Here is a video to show you that I was not exaggerating.
HorseAddict 
Wise words from pythons flying circus.
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Yes I loved Monty Python!
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Lovely action photos. You bad to concentrate a lot while taking them.
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Thank you. It is much faster than taking photos of horses so that was the first challenge and the other challenge is I had to keep track of where they were and where the puck was so I would know if a good shot was coming up. However I was very pleased with what I got and there were many more good shots that I did not use in the blog post. Thanks for commenting!
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I also had to take action photos for my photography course. I went to the local school hockey day. It goes very fast. Then I also took action photos at skate boarding, wew, those are fast. (I’m just a novice but learned a lot.)
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It is a lot of fun and I bet the skate boarding was fun too. Photography is a challenge but it has great rewards too.
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I love to focus on something or challenges and then go for it full on. The photography course was hard but I enjoyed every moment of it. Those skate boarders move so fast you can hardly keep up with them.
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BRAVO 🎉I think that is the way to go!
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Great action photos from what looks a really fast game! Thank you for sharing your lovely day out x x
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You are most welcome. Thank you for commenting.
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Great shots, Anne! Hockey is fun to watch, especially live.
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Yes it is. Thanks for commenting 🙂
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Great action shots!
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Thanks Robert!
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It is a fast game, even at the youth hockey level. One of our cousins had her three boys play in youth hockey, and came down for the President’s Day Hockey Tournament from the Denver area. The tournament featured teams from Texas to Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. They skate fast at that level too. The hits were hard too. The officials made sure there was no fighting since the teams were all kids.
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To be honest some of the players in the Belleville Sens AHL team look like kids to me. But they are pretty big for kids I think it is just some of them still have very young faces. I think there is less fighting in professional hockey now which is a relief. Thanks for commenting David.
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How FUN!! It is such a fast game and to have the best seats. I love the video too… Too bad the home to team lost, but at least they tried very hard and gave them a run for their money!! I went to one hockey game in my life back in the 70’s with my horse trainer I worked for and he was Canadian and loved hockey. It was a pregame and a bunch of us went together, (I forget what they call the practice game) but fun to watch in person. 🤩
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Yes the sound of the states on the ice and the players shouting to one another and the crashing into the boards makes it much more exciting than watching on TV.
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Great photos of something that is, yes, completely different from dressage. And having read the post title, even before I opened the post, the theme to Monty Python’s Flying Circus came into my head. Still there as I write this! And did I say how great your action shots are?
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Thank you! It was a challenge to get those action shots. I certainly had to up my shutter speed. But it was a lot of fun to be so close to the action.
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For such a fast game, you did great photos 😉
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Thanks Ribana. I had to up my shutter p speed for sure.
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