What I did during my hockey offseason

TULSA, Okla. – As 2020 recedes and we’re looking forward to hockey again (to one degree or another, depending on the league and the city), I am reflecting on how this year has treated me as a photographer and as a hockey fan.

It started off good. I was fortunate to attend and cover the NHL Winter Classic. I covered the ECHL All-Star game, and also covered the NHL All-Star game. All of that started the year off wonderfully; and then Covid-19 hit and put everything on the skids. Not only was hockey shut down, but it seemed like everything that I wanted to do was also shut down.

With professional sports shut down, I turned to amateur sports, but then that was shut down too. I couldn’t even go to the local rink to shoot adult league hockey.

I wanted to shoot wildlife and landscape, so I looked to travel, but hotels were shut down in a lot of places and national parks were closed. My frustration grew by the day. I would walk into a convenience store (wearing mask according to local ordinances) and the look on peoples’ faces were sad, unhappy, depressed, and sometimes angry. I began to fear that this would eventually be the way I would become too, but I tried to keep a positive outlook, despite the shutdown.

Fireworks at Caney Valley Speedway in Caney, KS.

One of the first things that returned early summer was auto racing in my area. I sometimes had to drive two or three hours to get to a track that was racing, but at least I was doing something I enjoyed, and in most cases, I was easily distanced from other people and reasonably safe outdoors. I even got to shoot a great fireworks display after racing at a track a couple of hours from my home.

The Covid pandemic forced me to look to tracks further from home in order to have something to shoot, and that was a good thing. In most cases, the communities where these tracks were located had strict mask guidelines that were adhered to, but not in all cases. Luckily for me, shooting from the infield at these races kept me away from other people 99% of the time.

I even was able to cover a two night World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series event in Dodge City, which was memorable for me, because I got to watch the best drivers (on dirt) in the world. Believe me; I noticed that they were a little bit faster than what I had experienced on local tracks previously.

Parker Price-Miller pilots his 1,400 pound, 900 horsepower Dietz Motorsports sprint car during World of Outlaws competition at Dodge City Raceway Park in September.

There was minor league spring football that I was able to shoot. They had returned with strict mask guidelines, although I didn’t see that it was adhered to much. However, it was outside and in the heat of the summer, and local covid cases were down at the time.

I took a trip to Colorado to see relatives, and although it still felt like a lot of things were closed, there was still nature to go view and appreciate.

Missing hockey all summer, and not getting an autumn start date for the ECHL, I was lucky enough to find a league in Texas that had a charity game between two teams made up of military veterans. They play in a tier 1 league, so I was grateful to be watching something quicker than adult league and pretty close to what I was used to.

All in all, I managed to have some good experiences despite the shutdown, but I am really looking forward to pro hockey returning. As I understand it, there is a tentative start-up date for the local ECHL team (Tulsa Oilers), which is December 11th. I’m sure that we will be under strict mask rules, and as uncomfortable as it is for me to wear a mask, I look forward to having hockey again and not just watching it on television.

I’m not ready to say that 2020 was a good year. It started off good, but it turned bad, as it has for so many of us. But hopefully, it can end well and give us a few good memories to counter the bad ones.

Contact the writer/photographer: Les.Stockton@prohockeynews.com

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