Pandemic hockey

Last weekend, we went to see some amateur inline hockey games at the local rink. The local senior team was hosting a neighbouring city. It was a best two games out of three series. For the first game, I noticed that the home team had two complete line changes on the bench. The visiting game had just one guy extra. That team was doomed. It was only a matter of time before the team got tired and the goalie couldn't handle the barrage of shots anymore.

It was kind of nice to watch a casual league hammer out a few games though.  In a Covid-19 world, it's nice to be able to sit anywhere in the bleachers, among a bunch of random people in a place that vaguely smells like athletes, and still not worry about getting sick.

In the end, they only played two games since they didn't need the third. The Ravens just had way more players. To be fair, it's easier to make up a team if there's no travelling to another city and three of them are brothers*. 

(*Not the Hansons!)

Taranaki Mountainairs

A couple of weeks ago, we went to see some B-ball action here in Taranaki. It turns out that the local boys didn't have enough left in the tank to finish the season up with a win.

New Plymouth Ravens

A while ago we went to go see the New Zealand National Inline Hockey Tournament, here in Taranaki. Truth be told, I just went to do some sketching. One of the games was actually pretty exciting though. The local, New Plymouth Ravens, pulled their goalie in the last seconds to tie it up and send it into overtime. The game winner was scored by one of the smaller players too. So I came away with this sketch and brought one that I made of last year's tournament to get the colour treatment.

ITU World Triathlon Championships 2014

My attempts to capture the Elite Woman's cycle leg during the first leg of the World Triathlon champs.

I had strategically positioned myself at the top of the climb on Victoria Street as I figured they would be going their slowest here and would be easier to draw, wishful thinking though because these girls were absolutely flying up the hill. My sketches ended up looking more like blind contour drawings as I tried to get them down on paper.

At this stage of the race two kiwis, Nicky Samuels and Kate McIlroy were leading a breakaway bunch of 3 which included the eventual winner, Jodie Stimpson from Great Britain.