For part three of my Best of the Calgary Hitmen blog posts, this post will focus on the goals and celebrations. Again, these are just a few of my favourite images from these goals, so not all of the goals are matched with the celebrations, so they are below.
Best of Goals:
Jakob Stukel – There were plenty of beautiful Stukel goals this season, but these are two of my favourite photos of a couple of his goals.
The photo below happened in the final game of the season during a shoot out. I love this photo not only because it was the game winner, but because he snowed him before scoring. It was glorious.
Dawson Martin- This goal was Martin’s second goal of the season and I have no idea what happened to make the stick go behind the goalie. I think it was caught up before the shot was taken. Regardless, I still love this photo.
Taylor Sanheim – The first two photos are of the same goal, but one overhead and the other is my handheld from ice level. Same moment, two different angles.
This one was also awesome because his brother Travis had just gone to the penalty box and Taylor scored this shorthanded goal soon after.
Carsen Twarynski – I wish I had been ice level for this third goal of Carsen’s first ever hat trick, but regardless, it made for great photos.
Amazing effort on the goal, but he did not quite stick the landing.
Jordy Stallard
I am not a big fan of shooting from between the benches (in the suicide box) because the sight line to the net can get blocked pretty easily. But thankfully for not this shot of a nice goal by Jordy Stallard while the goalie just lie there and had to watch it go in.
Beck Malenstyn
Pavel Karnaukhov
I don’t even know how this one happened but I love the way it looks.
Other – Here are a couple of other goal photos that I just like. I can’t remember who scored them, but made for good photos.
Best of Celebrations:
Radel Fazleev –Straight up, no question, Radel always had the best celebrations I have ever shot.
The shot below was a shoot out winner.
This photo is my favourite celebration photo that I have ever taken in any sport over eight years.
Jakob Stukel
With so many nice goals over the season, there were definitely some nice celebrations to go with them.
Jackson Houck
I am not entirely sure on the photo below, but I believe he may have been getting a monkey off his back on this one.
The photo below was one of the most exciting photos of the season. Jackson had just joined the team and ended up with the game winning goal with just over 3 seconds left on the clock. It was a great moment to capture.
Mark Kastelic
I love first WHL goal photos. You can never tell who is more excited, the goal scorer, or their teammates.
Dawson Martin
Second WHL goals are just as good to celebrate.
Carsen Twarynski
The back half of the season had a lot more of these celebrations by Carsen. A lot of great goals followed by some great celebrations.
Jordy Stallard
Although Jordy scored the Teddy Bear Toss goal this year, I did not get a single shot of the celebration of it. Thankfully, myself and the other Hitmen photographer were working together on that game to make sure one of us did. So the photo does exist in the Hitmen archives.
Travis Sanheim
I know that Travis had a lot of goals and assists this year but for some odd reason, he always turned his back to the camera when he celebrated, so I have only placed two images in this set of Travis.
Taylor Sanheim
Taylor made the right turn towards the camera after his short-handed goal.
Jake Bean
I feel like Jake got robbed on this celebration. He had just scored his franchise record-breaking goal and the officials called it off.
After review, the goal was good but Jake had already made his way to the bench.
The photo below was from an overtime-winning goal by Jake to beat the Oil Kings in the regular season.
Colby Harmsworth
Nik Amundrud
I love this photo because it is very rare to get this kind of reaction shot out of a goalie. This photo was taken after the last regular season shootout win over the Ice. Nik had stepped in for the injured Cody Porter to stop all of the shots in the shootout.
Tyler Mrkonjic
Layne Bensmiller
Although Layne was traded at the trade deadline, he was still a big part of the team over the past season and always delivered great celebration photos like this one.
Next Up:
Just a couple more posts to go, including my favourite images of the best saves and crashes. Also, there will be a post to show some of the best images of the Hitmen’s 3 of 5 playoff games.
Candice Ward Photography 