2012 World Junior Hockey Final

In the end I only made it to a couple games of the annual two week hockey-fest, despite originally having been allocated more – the unpredictability of the newspaper photo schedule striking again.

Still, I made it to the gold medal final between Sweden and Russia in which Sweden triumphed 1-0 in an overtime thriller in front of 19,000+ in Calgary’s Scotiabank Saddledome.

Sweden’s Mika Zibanejad, right, celebrates scoring the overtime winner against Russia with Petter Granberg in the gold medal game of the 2012 IIHF World Junior Championship Calgary, Canada.
(Stuart Gradon/Calgary Herald)

Personally, the first two periods of the game weren’t very memorable. I had been floating between a few unappealing vantage points – never really finding a good position. The Herald had three shooters at the game and there were only two decent positions for us – the gold medal game, of course, attracting many photogs. Each desperate for a good spot. So I had volunteered to wander for the first two periods.

A more central position opened up during the third period – providing better angles on the action and on what turned out to be the overtime goal celebrations and trophy presentation.

Russia’s goalie Andrei Makarov loses his face mask after a collision during the third period of the gold medal game of the 2012 IIHF World Junior Championship in Calgary, Canada.

Prior to the game Todd Korol, a Reuters shooter based in Calgary, and I had had a brief conversation about covering sports events like this. After graciously accepting a compliment I gave him about some of his work during the tournament, Todd was quick to admit to something most honest photographers should readily concede – all you can do when being assigned shooting positions in competitions like this is make sure you’re ready for anything and see how it goes.

Here are the next day’s special World Junior section front pages of the Edmonton Journal and Calgary Herald with my image:

See more of my images below, or click on any image to view in gallery view.

Russia Viktor Antipin, bottom, and Andrei Makarov, right, have to deal with Sweden’s Johan Sundstrum in front of their net during overtime of the gold medal game of the 2012 IIHF World Junior Championship Calgary, Canada.
(Stuart Gradon/Calgary Herald)