Today’s Shared Links for May 22, 2011

Vancover/San Jose game 4

Another game with lots of penalties of the “oh, what were you thinking?” sort? I’ve already had one friend call the game tightly reffed. I’m not so sure. Most of the penalties called tonight would be penalties if the refs were blind and calling a game in a dark coal mine at midnight. they were that obvious and I can’t see much here that you could say deserved a non-call, even in a hard “let the boys play” world.

For the record, the Torres hit on Thornton was clean, lest there be any wonder where I stand. And I don’t think I would have called Glass for the boarding call, but the league is trying to prevent injuries (especially head injuries) right now — not as effectively as I’d like, but at the same time, being a bit too active in calling forceful hits (hint: the solution here isn’t rule changes, but technology improvements,e specially better protective helmets. and it’s being worked on; which probably defines my position on “banning all hits to the head”. I’m not interested in watching the National Ringette League…)

The Sharks deserved to lose. The Canucks handed them opportunities early, and the Sharks let them bounce off their sticks and out of the zone. Then when the Canucks put on their press, the Sharks sgtruggled, took lots of bad penalties, gave up 3 five on three goals, and that was pretty much it. I was impressed by the late push that made the game a bit interesting, but less than you might think, because the Canucks were in protect mode and not being very aggressive offensively, adn I always wonder if that push would have been as effective if the other team was pushing back instead of just preventing the knock out blow.

The Sharks will deny it, but I think the key issue here is the Detroit series. They look physically tired. Or more correctly, MORE tired than the Canucks are. The penalties are for the most part the penalties you take when you react just that little bit too slowly and then do something to correct before thinking that what you’re doing is a penalty. The too many men was a glide to the bench instead of a skate. Heatley’s high stick could be looked at as tired, too, not being careful at a time you normally are. Beating the wings took a lot out of this team, and the canucks are keeping the pressure on, and the Sharks just seem a bit too tired to compete the entire 60 minutes. A half step slow, a bobble on a pass instead of tape to tape, a beat too lnog setting up a shot, a twitch too slow getting into a passing lane. It’s not mental tiredness because they ARE executing, it’s physical tiredness because when they do execute, they’re missing by THIS much. The puck that Murray blocks is in the net, the pass that Thornton completes bounces off a skate and leaves the zone.

Niemi isn’t the problem; you can only do so much on five on three. But it is a bit insane to only give up 13 shots and have four go in; until you realize 3 of those were on five on three.  Defense is about commitment and exertion, and one could argue the sharks had that in spades, and if they could have stayed out of extreme penalty problem, they played the canucks well. But of course they didn’t, and that’s what matters. And the canucks buried them because of it.

Thornton has let some folks know he’s planning on playing the next game. that doesn’t mean he’s not hurt. t means he’s going to play anyway.  The Sharks are missing Demers more than most people admit, since their game is driven by puck movement and control. I’m convinced Heatley is hurt in some way and is playing through it. We won’t know why until the season ends, but he’s not close to 100%.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this series goes six games, but I believe the Sharks lost the series tonight, and they had the opportunities to even the series and couldn’t. I’m finding it hard to blame anyone for this, though, because if the Canucks aren’t the better team, it’s only because the teams are very even in talent and depth, but the Canucks are the fresher team, and the failure I”m seeing is one of a rapidly emptying gas tank, not a lack of “try” or talent.

And I don’t know what you do about that, unless we can magically create a rain out to delay game 5 by a couple of days… maybe slip into the arena and turn off the airco?

But barring that, I think the sharks will try, but I’m thinking they’ll go down trying. and right now, they deserve to (but not by a wide margin).

 

 

The Sharks: Game Three — Tom Benjamin

The Sharks: Game Three : Tom Benjamin’s NHL Blog :: CanucksCorner.com:

Alain Vigneault refused to comment about the officiating – he didn’t want to get fined, he said. I can’t be fined, but I can’t comment either because I don’t know what a penalty is in this league any more. It appeared to me that the officals used the exhibition season standard, but what do I know besides the fact that I hate games when special teams are on the ice half the time. Either both teams played very poor and undisciplined hockey or the officials chose to ruin the evening.

 

To me, the phrase “I don’t know what a penalty is…” is both code and a cop-out. It’s code for “I don’t like how the league calls penalties”, and it’s a cop-out because if people paid attention to how things get called, they would know what a penalty is. But that’s not the point, really, the point is they want to complain that they don’t like how it’s being called. I’m not picking specifically on Tom here; he’s one of many people who use that phrase, and many of them are people who’s salary involves studying this stuff, and if they really don’t know, they’re just being lazy about it.

In fact, they’re just taking a lazy way out to whine about it. Typically in some form of “oh, in the good old days, when real men played hockey…” edited memory of the NHL, where in Don Cherry’s version of the universe, guys try to kill each other for 60 minutes (but with respect) and then salute each other over a beer as they have their teeth put back in.

I’ve been chewing on the whole “respect” thing as its own essay, so no more on that now. Suffice it ot say there’s a whole lotta calling bullshit on some people around the league that deserves its own bully pulpit.

This is all compounded by the fact that referees miss stuff. And referees make mistakes. And since reffing is impossible to get perfectly right all of the time, reffing is by definition going to have some inconsistency to it. This makes it easier for people to play the “I don’t understand game”, by pointing to all of this as proof. Fact is, most of the time, it’s because at the core, it’s human judgement and human perception at work in a massively chaotic situation, so of course there are going to be times when the system fails. Shall we go back to the days of taking that judgement out of the refs hands, like we did in the “toe in the crease” era? Maybe ask Brett Hull that question. or Buffalo fans.

Anyway, my take on the reffing in game 3 — Tom is partially right here. I think the players were expecting the refs to give them more leeway than they did. If you like that interpretation, it’s called “letting the boys play”. if you don’t, it’s called “swallowing the whistle”, and which you choose probably is 90% decided on by whether the team you root for won. I felt that given the first two games and how the physicality was ramping up the refs were worried about it getting out of control and players getting injured; they tried to keep a handle on things by clamping down. The players didn’t adjust to that well, and so we had a bazillion penalties. I felt that the penalties called were good ones and they refs called consistently.

The question I guess whether the referees should have backed off and stopped calling penalties even when they were penalties (“good playoff hockey. He let the boys play! Refs shouldn’t decide games!” quoth the Cherry) or whether the players should have gotten a clue and stopped doing things that the refs were going to call. The players didn’t — and that’s therefore the refs fault. I guess.

Look, seriously — the Canucks lost both Erhoff and Rome. Couture got banged up and left the game. That’s three significant player injuries in one game (“now THAT’s playoff hockey!” chortles the Cherry). One might wonder how many bodies get carried off the ice if the refs backed off and called “playoff hockey rules” that night. When does it stop being hockey and start being rollerball?

So to answer Tom’s question — both teams played undisciplined hockey and didn’t adjust to a very clear message that the referees gave starting early on about how the game was going to be called. And because of that, there were a bazillion penalties. Some argue this is the referees fault, and they should have backed off and called fewer penalties. I think that’s crap thinking, but I’ve argued for years that choosing to not blow the whistle and choosing to not call a penalty that is a penalty decides a game just as much as throwing a guy in the box — it just biases the decision in the opposite direction, in the direction that leads to goonery and the kind of game play we all hated before the obstruction clampdown. So the referee decides the game either way, by calling or not calling. And if you call, you decide the game in favor of skill instead of in favor of the guys who clog and hold and trip.

Frankly, I hate refs that swallow the whistle. I hate the kind of play that leads to. And players, especially in the playoffs, should be smart enough to realize where the referee is drawing the line and not constantly be crossing it, rather than complaining about where the line was drawn. I thought both teams deserved the penalties they got, and that’s not the refs fault. It’s the players.

If the players don’t want to spend half the game on special teams, stop taking penalties. Don’t yell at the refs for calling what’s there.

But you know people won’t. it’s always the refs fault.

(I give the reffing in game 3 a B-. It could have been worse; there were missed high sticking calls that deserved to be called, and yes, I’m saying there should have been MORE penalties called. But within the parameters of the game as the refs defined it, they called it pretty consistently against both teams. Too bad the teams didn’t listen and adjust….)

It’ll be interesting to see what happens in game 4. I expect both teams got yelled at for lack of discipline. I’ll be curious if the refs back off and let them play more, and if so, whether someone leaves on a stretcher. I sure hope not, but part of the reason the refs were calling so tightly in game 3 was because the physicality from both teams was headed into dangerous territory.

Heck, who cares? Let the boys play! If someone gets hurt, that’s the player’s fault, right?

 

 

Today’s Shared Links for May 21, 2011

Today’s Shared Links for May 20, 2011

A “spring” visit to Yosemite

One of the realities of nature photography is that you can only control nature so much — all the planning in the universe won’t prevent some challenges, like a change in the weather. Sometimes you go and epic pictures fall in your lap. Sometimes you go and conditions are such that you just grind it out and hope some of the images are good. And sometimes you sit in the hotel room listening to the rain and wish you’d cancelled….

This week was my spring trip to Yosemite. It’s been a truly weird year weather-wise, in case you haven’t noticed. Spring is late, cold and wet. The wildflower season has been at best, late and erratic. Bird migrations are off as well. All in all, it’s been tough planning around “spring”. But finally, word came out the dogwood was starting to bloom, and I really, really didn’t want to schedule time in Yosemite after Memorial day — as it was, it was clear the park was getting busier and the hotels around it closer to capacity. I finally decided I needed to go, or decide to wait for some other time. So I set everything up for a few nights in the park.

Of course, then I watched the weather, as a late, wet, cold, spring storm decided to hit Northern California and the Sierra. The couple of days prior to my going, yosemite was seeing highs near 70 and plenty of sun. the day before I was due to arrive, the storm moved in and the temps plunged donw into the 40s, and more storms were moving in as the week progressed. There is, unfortunately, a fine line between hitting the edge of a storm and the unbelievable skies that can create for your landscapes and having the clouds move in and close everything down in a sodden grey mass; and many times, you won’t know which you have until you get there and have to haul out the umbrella.

To be honest, I seriously considered canceling. I thought the weather was going to be iffy, but I felt it was worth a shot. So I went, making a later start on Sunday in hopes of trailing the storm and hitting the motel, then driving into the park to scout and see if there was anything interesting to photograph in the late afternoon. I ended up arriving on the Valley floor about 5PM.  The temp was in the high 30′s, and the clouds were pretty heavy., but there were a few opportunities at shots.

Yosemite Falls by Chuq Von Rospach http://www.chuqui.com

I stuck around for a couple of hours, and then it started sleeting. That was enough for me for the night, and I headed out to grab a few last supplies and hit the room for the evening.  I chose not to do dawn patrol because of the temps and worry there might be ice or chain issues on the roads, but I got up early and was in the park around 8AM, to bright skies and a rather pleasant set of views.

Yosemite Falls in Winter by Chuq Von Rospach http://www.chuqui.com

This was the day I knew I’d have dry weather. What I didn’t plan for was for the clouds to build back in as early as they did. By noon, we were back to mostly drab grey, although it did warm up, that afternoon it may have even hit 50. Welcome to “spring”.

My original plan was to travel out towards Hetch Hetchy for birds and critters. The road out was on chain requirements just after Foresta, and Foresta itself was under a few inches of snow. I scouted out there a bit, didn’t go into the chain areas, and finally headed back to the valley. I decided to head out to Wawona (to scout, and for gas) and it was fascinating to see how much snow had been dropped — 6-8 inches and the drive through that area looked like a winter trip. Other than road construction, nothing really caught my eye, so I decided to focus on the valley floor and headed back.

While I was doing that, the clouds were moving in. And so were the crowds. The park was busy, making parking a challenge in places, and to top it off, I was starting to feel like crap, with a headache building and generally feeling like a bug was coming on. On the other hand, the water flow in the Merced was amazing, and the waterfalls were even more amazing. I mentally shifted away from photographing birds and critters and instead decided to focus on the falls.

There are many falls in Yosemite that are only active during spring melt, and which dry up again after a few weeks, so unless you come during this period, you’ll never know they’re there. Some of them are stunning to watch.

Spring Vernal Waterfall by Chuq Von Rospach http://www.chuqui.com

Some of the more familiar falls were kicking, too. Bridalveil was as full and active as I’ve ever seen it.

Bridalveil Falls with the Spring Thaw by Chuq Von Rospach http://www.chuqui.com

And it wasn’t until I took these shots that I realized I’d never photographed Horsetail Falls at all.

Horsetail Falls, Yosemite by Chuq Von Rospach http://www.chuqui.com

Unfortunately, I kept feeling worse; by 3PM, I was exhausted. Almost fell asleep twice parked and watching the falls to judge how to image them. Ultimately, I decided I wasn’t doing myself any good and pulled the plug. On the way out, however, I saw the clot of people that signposts “critter!”, and in the middle was the ranger, which usually means the critter is a bear. So I found a place to park, grabbed the binocs and camera, and headed back to where everyone was clustered.

California Black Bear feeding by Chuq Von Rospach http://www.chuqui.com

Meet “White 1″, a 28 month old cinnamon black bear — not all black bears are black, but this color is fairly rare in Yosemite. He was busily foraging for grubs in the fallen tree. Ryan the ranger was thrilled — as he said “I have a wild bear doing wild bear things, and everyone is behaving so I don’t have to yell at anyone”. And then he pointed to one person who was busily running through the meadow “well, except him, but he’s a pro”.

@yosemitesteve hunting bears by Chuq Von Rospach http://www.chuqui.com

That was @yosemitesteve, who films for the park and does the awesome Nature Notes series available on Youtube. If you haven’t discovered them yet, do so — check out his one on Frazil Ice.  And kids, don’t try that on your own… I ended up with the “wrong” lens on the camera, the Tamron 28-300, which is unfortunately really soft at 300MM, as you can see from that image. I’ve also posted a few more on flickr for your amusement. If I’d been thinking more carefully, I should have swapped to my critter lens, but didn’t. And when I went back to get it, of course, the bear ran off just as I attached the big lens to the camera body — of course. So all I have are some rather soft pictures as a great practical example of why I try NOT to use that lens beyond about 150mm except in an emergency (and this came up over on the Stack Exchange photo site, and I ended up chiming in on it).

Photographing a bear qualifies as an emergency. As bears go, it’s a rather small animal, being quite young. But still — I wish I’d grabbed the other lens. But still — being able to just watch an animal like that for a while totally made the trip for me.

After the bear skedaddled, I got back in the car and headed back to Mariposa for the night (Having your hotel room an hour away creates tradeoffs, which I talked about on my Wednesdays in Review). It was at dinner that I suddenly realized I was exceptionally thirsty.

So a nice meatball sub and a liter and a half of water later, I headed back to my room, already feeling better.

Dehydrated. Which explained why I felt like crap. And honestly, I know better, I really do. I’ve known since high school that I dehydrate early and often, and when I’m travelling, have to be careful — the air in most hotel rooms is fairly low humidity, and I tend to lose a lot of water in my breathing. And even though I thought I was taking in enough water, I evidently started the trip a bit dehydrated, and it spiraled. So sometimes, even if you think you have details covered, they get away from you (another truism about only being able to plan so many details; the one you miss messes with you). I actually have a protocol for staying hydrated on the road; for various reasons, I didn’t follow it properly, and it caught me. (yes, my life is an endless mental checklist of things I’ve learned not to forget over the years — and which I sometimes forget anyway). That’s a lesson learned — again.

I was asleep before 9PM, and slept 11 hours. And woke up thirsty. And woke up to rain. Which I expected. The new storm moved in overnight, and things looked ugly. I still felt somewhat ugly, and I’d decided the night before that if the weather was bad as expected, I’d cut the trip short and head home, because there was a 2nd, bigger storm chasing that morning storm into the area. The chances I’d had much good photography in those conditions was minimal, IMHO, so I decided to cut and run.

I drank another two liters of water on the drive home; it wasn’t until I was within 10 miles of home that my body started telling me my hydration levels were fine again (do I really need to explain how you can tell? No, I didn’t think so).

So some thoughts on the trip. Instead of the planned 2 full days and two partial days, I got one full day and a few hours the afternoon before. Instead of spring weather, I got late winter blustery and dull grey skies (and sleet). I took a total of 350 images, a percentage of that was pieces for HDR generation. My ding rate was about 10%. I ended up putting about 50 images into my primary library including HDR material, with a total of 27 “keeper” images. the rest went into my retired library (technically good, but overlapping the keepers and not as interesting, but there if I want a different take of need them in some way). I drove 620miles, and I spent about $500 on the trip.

Was it what I planned? Not remotely. Did I come back with some good images? Yes. Was it worth it? Just to stand and watch the bear for a while, absolutely freaking totally yes. Despite being disappointed at having the wrong lens handy for the pictures, I don’t care. Much.

Would I do it again? Yes, but without the dehydration; that impacted the day a lot more than I realized until later (I don’t know about you, but when I get dehydrated, I get slow and tired, low energy, a headache, grumpy and a bad attitude; so I didn’t push myself into doing as much as I would have if I felt better. oh well). Part of that is practical; I wasn’t going to reschedule my time off at work again. I wasn’t going to push my Yosemite trip out past Memorial day. Staying home instead was an option, but hell, a chance to go to Yosemite?

But I do wish I’d hit more spring than late winter. And it’s a bit annoying that a couple of days after I pulled out, the rain is gone and the weather is heading back into the 60′s. This storm was perfectly timed to annoy me.

Still, when you’re doing nature photography, it’s important to remember nature doesn’t always cooperate. And just roll with it. (and drink plenty of fluids).

And I ended up with zero shots of dogwood blossoms, after all of that. Because they were gonig to be a big part of the 2nd day of photography. oops. well, next year.

And that may be the important lesson of a trip like this (other than “drink that bottle of water NOW, and open another”) — a place like Yosemite, you don’t visit once and have a finished portfolio. Too much to cover, too many different things, too many different looks — adding images every trip is how you do this, over time and with some patience. And in the final judgement, the images I added weren’t the ones I’d planned (except the chapel image, which I’ll write about tomorrow), but they were the ones that deserved to be added based on what was going on when I got there. And with that, I won’t complain about a little sleet and a headache. After all — Yosemite? Or going to work.

Easy answer.

 

 

 

Today’s Shared Links for May 19, 2011

Sharks after game 2. Now what?

I’ve been pondering what to do with the Sharks after game 2, what they need to do after what happened in Vancouver.

Part of me wonders whether simply coming home — last change giving them the advantage in match ups and the face off advantages — will be enough. I can see them winning both in San Jose. But I’m not convinced.

I throw out the score of game 2. After the breakaway goal (how did he get THAT open? No sharks in the same time zone) the game devolved and the Sharks lost focus. How badly they got beat doesn’t matter, just that they did.

My first (and twitter) reaction was that ben eager is shoved into the press box. McLellan’s quotes indicate he thinks otherwise, and to a good degree, I understand his position. Eager’s enthuisiasm and energy is a positive. If he can be channeled to not be quite so cement-head (his penalties were deserved and stupid) the Sharks need that energy. I guess we could also use someone that the Canucks might decide to waste some energy on, but I don’t see that happening.

I’ve seen a few people bitching at Niemi for a bad game, I don’t see it. the team exploded in front of him, I don’t see that there was much he could do. I specifically told Laurie at one point in the game “I just can’t see Nabokov playing anywhere near this well for us” — and I think that’s true, much as  I was always a fan of him.

It could well be the Canucks are just a better team. As good as the Sharks are — so are the Canucks. Look at the regular season. And right now, the Canucks are playing well and with confidence. The Sharks play well and with confidence SOME of the time. At other times, they look like someone snuck Worcester into the uniforms. To a good degree, both teams are playing to the way they played in the regular season. The question is whether the sharks will get on that roll or not again. Part of the game 1 loss was fatigue from the Wings series. Game 2, the credit goes to the Canucks for simply outplaying the Sharks until the Sharks system collapsed. And then burying them. (for folks who want to focus on blaming the sharks, sometimes the other team beats you. honest).

This is obviously vancouver’s series to lose now, and they deserve that. I feel it’s not that the sharks are playing badly, but the Canucks are clearly playing better. Can the Sharks turn that around? Yes. Will they? Unclear. If the Sharks don’t win both games in San jose, it’s over. If they don’t win EITHER game in San Jose, it’s obviously over.

Right now, my feeling is Canucks take this in 5 games, confidence factor 70%. If the Sharks don’t win game 3, they won’t win the series. and if they don’t, it’s hard to see it as a Sharks failure instead of being a Canucks success, unless you simply want to blame the sharks anyway…

(and hat tip: for an interesting canucks perspective, check out long timer Tom Benjamin who’s been at this since long before blogs existed.)

 

Page 60 of 222« First...1020304050...57585960616263...708090100110...Last »