When I used to shoot hockey photos
Today my photos app popped up a memory of 14 years ago to the day when I was shooting photos of Le Relais boys hockey action.
By Le Relais, I mean École secondaire catholique Le Relais, Alexandria’s francophone Catholic high school. At this point 14 years ago, I was the sports editor of a local community newspaper that has since gone out of business.
During those years, I was able to attend many local sports events involving high school and community teams, shooting photos and reporting the results on my weekly sports pages
Sadly, as was happening with many newspapers across Canada, the news business declined over the following years, and our local newspaper was not immune. Businesses were opting to switch to cheaper online advertising and free posts on social media, and they didn’t need us anymore. As a result, the number of pages in the local paper dropped, and sports coverage was reduced, eventually to the point that my job as sports editor was eliminated in 2019.
I enjoyed the opportunity to meet many sports-related people in my work over the years locally, and I’m proud to have an archive of photos and sports pages from the 14 years over which I worked at the newspaper.
Now, it seems as though people are largely satisfied with the American-owned, private data harvesting social media platforms, because they appear to be “free,” as their source for “news.”
I do still try to post stories on my sports and community blogs when I can, and I welcome submissions from coaches, managers, organizers, etc. Please reach out to me if you have something you’d like to have posted
But getting back to the photo above, can you identify the player shown? Feel free to post your answer in the comments section below.