A Picture Can Be Worth a Thousand Words, Part 4

Just as a quick editorial note, please don't expect all of the 1000+ rough shots I took that day to be posted. Although I was a tad surprised I had taken that many, once the dust settled, going through them and picking out the ones that weren't blurry or blocked by a passer-by proved to be a rather long process. In fact it was a bit of a task but even between my film work the last few days, I took an hour or so nightly to sift through the shots and figure out which ones I wanted to publish in my Unbalanced/Vocal feed. That being said, I picked out in this particular chapter of the Fan Fest/Training Camp photos several of the shots that were successful in showing the motion and speed at which the players were going. Also, I had to make sure they weren't blurry, which does happen, no matter how amazing a camera one may have. As a habit, I never use auto focus, all photos I take are manually focused. Above are Jack Roslovic and Dustin Byfulglien in one of the two-on-two cycling exercises which assistant coach Charlie Huddy put the players through on that half of the ice.

More explanations are given to the players as they listened to their coaches as to what was expected in the exercise.

Adam Lowry (navy jersey) and Jacob Trouba (red jersey) watch for the puck to be shot at them to start their in-camp battle.

Trouba begins his pounce towards the puck as Lowry starts his very defensive stance. Hopefully goaltender Brossoit can see past him!

Trouba gains possession and goes in toward the net, with Lowry doing his best to tie him up.

Now it is rookie versus veteran as Kristian Vesalainen (navy jersey) and Dustin Byfuglien (red jersey) do battle around the net as Brossoit keeps a careful eye on the battling duet.

Vesalainen goes in to challenge Byfuglien, hoping his slick stick work will be able to beat the brute force of one of the toughest defensemen not only on the Jets, but in the entire National Hockey League.

The brute force from Byfuglien appears to have beaten the younger Vesalainen, but sometimes....

...youthful players are known to bounce back up again and speed away from such hits, as Vesalainen proved in this instance!

Vesalainen really speeds away to fetch the puck and try to score from an alternate angle...

Vesalainen manages to get the puck worked into the opposite corner just before the whistle is blown for the player pairings to switch off.

Another rookie versus veteran duel takes place as Logan Stanley (red jersey) and Matthieu Perreault (navy jersey) are next up. Stanley gets a swift possession of the puck, with Perreault giving chase.

Stanley puts a defensive hand up as Perrault makes a move towards him to try and strip him of the puck.

Literally, Stanley keeps Perrault at a long arm's length while he keeps possession of the puck.

Stanley pulls ahead of Perreault and appears to be considering a spinnerama shot. Reading this play as such, Perreault puts himself into a defensive position to possibly block the shot with his stick.

Both players are preparing for the shot, as is goaltender Broissoit who is trying to see through Perreault to find out where the puck may be coming from.

Another duel, this time between defenseman Ben Chiarot taking on an offensive possession with forward Jack Roslovic taking on the defensive position.

Chiarot sticks to the outside, keeping the puck away from the defensively minded Roslovic. Both kick up the most snow that Manitoba has seen since April!

And Chiarot pulls ahead in the footrace, showing a burst of speed.

In the meantime, some of the players not taking part are chatting with each other, about what, we can only guess.... Maybe exchanging cheesecake recipes?

Of course, they could be discussing something else completely different, but one of the coaches can see the aren't paying attention to the on-ice drills..... Time to blow the whistle, methinks?

Now that the coach has their attention, all the players on that side of the ice take notice of the instructions.

(Note: As I used to teach in high schools not so long ago, I know the kind of looks students get on their face when they are asked to pay attention to class and not discuss what happened on the last episode of Doctor Who, or the look of "I'm not to blame, I'm kicking someone's butt between classes"!)

Jacob Trouba (in red) against Andrew Copp (in navy) do their one-on-one keep away exercise. Copp keeps the puck to the outside and Trouba does all he can to gain possession.

Copp keeps possession of the puck, as Trouba tries to slow him down.

Copp appears to be going for the backhand as Trouba tries to block the shooting lane, also allowing Brossoit a clear view of the puck's future trajectory.

Copp flips the puck past Trouba, even so, Brossoit has a clear view of the projectile coming his way.

Trouba manages to flip the puck back towards Copp off the shaft of his stick!

The two teammates get a good chuckle out of their on-ice battle. It is always great to see teammates being good buddies after such a hard fought duel!

Copp and Trouba remained chucking for a while after their on-ice exercise.

Linemates Adam Lowry (on the offensive) and Brandon Tanev (playing a defensive role) go at in their own on ice, mono-a-mono duel.

Tanev throws his whole shoulder into keeping Lowry away from the net, as Brossoit keeps a watchful eye on the pair, in case the puck squeaks loose.

Tanev decides to use his stick to try and slow down the Lowry freight train whom is pushing the puck along.

Taking a page out of the film Unstoppable, Tanev decides to yank the Lowry freight train back with as strong a force as possible, while Brossoit hopes the pair don't tumble into the net and flatten him by mistake!

(Note: As I am also a film major, I do sometimes make obscure movie references when describing stuff in hockey....and yes I highly recommend this film—not just because Chris Pine and Denziel Washington are in it, but because it's an outstanding film based on real events!)

WHAP!!!!

Tanev starts to grin as Lowry starts to look a tad grim and a lot annoyed.

Tanev gets the puck to safety as Brossoit watches where it has bounced to and Lowry tries to chase it down and try and get past his speedy linemate.

And the footrace is on as the coaches haven't blown the play dead yet, Tanev is in the lead but his long legged linemate Lowry tries to sprint past him....

....tried being the operative word!

The next two sets should be up sometime later this week. As you can well imagine, doing the layouts on each of these stories takes a couple of hours, that is not taking into account the time spent ahead of each article to get the photos edited and the credit/watermark put onto each one. Thank you for your patience!