Olympics Notebook: Vancouver 2010

Raining hockey pucks at the Olympics

Molly Riley writes:

Covering hockey at ice level is rarely without excitement but usually without injury to photographers … until the game I was working at last Friday.

I was covering the last of three hockey games in one day from our assigned position in a seat against the glass. During second period a puck that was shot up to the net above the glass dropped straight down and hit me on the leg. I didn’t think much of it and while fans scrambled for the loose puck I thought ‘what are the chances of that happening?’

Then during the third period another puck was shot up into the net and came straight down, this time on my head.

I did not see it coming but knew what it was when it hit, and I thought ‘hmmm I just got hit on the head with a puck…’ It didn’t hurt much but I felt my head and found it bleeding. I cleared my cameras and laptop away, leaned over the isle watching blood drip from my head to a pool in the floor, and signaled for help.