Hockey on the Prairies played like it used to be…and perhaps as it should be. There is something quintessentially Canadian about seeing a dad on the ice shooting pucks with his kids on a Saturday afternoon. Better yet, on a homemade rink across from the barn.

One of the unfortunate casualties of the COVID pandemic has been kids’ sports. The boys in the picture, my nephews, are feeling the loss of their hockey season acutely. They LOVE hockey. Actually, they REALLY LOVE hockey. In their eyes, the trouble with summer is that there is no hockey. Both are enthusiastic players and students of the game, always looking for ways to improve. My brother-in-law wisely built the boys a good-sized outdoor rink so they could keep their skills sharp during the COVID hiatus.

I was out taking pictures that afternoon and decided to swing past the farm on the way home. When I saw the boys on the ice I couldn’t resist stopping in to take a few socially-distance pictures. I wanted to capture the story before me – two prairie farm boys out shooting pucks with their dad. I took photographs from several different angles as I tried to capture what was happening on the ice and the context where it was happening. I took a lot of pictures. As it happened, Hockey on the Prairies was the very last photograph I took that afternoon. All the elements came together – the enthusiastic action on the ice, dad watching in the background, and the charm of the outdoor rink in small town Manitoba.

Nikon D750 w. Tamron 24-70 f/2.8