In an effort to better document my playing of hockey, I decided to start recording video of my sessions.  The question was: how should I accomplish that?

I could have put my Canon EOS 7D DSLR, which has excellent video capabilities, on a tripod next to the glass, but I wasn’t comfortable with leaving several thousand dollars of camera equipment sitting around basically unattended.  I also considered getting a GoPro Hero and strapping it to my mask, as other goalies have done, but I really wanted to see myself as an external observer so as to critique my technique.  What I really needed was a cheap, relatively robust video camera with decent dim-light performance.

Back at the Goalcrease in Minnesota, my goalie coaches occasionally used such a camera to document my sessions.  Their choice for video recording was a Flip mounted on a tabletop tripod.  Simple and effective — not to mention cheap to replace should an errant puck fly its way.

I saw that Best Buy was having a sale on the base model Flip UltraHD, so I picked one up, mated it to my Gorillapod, and went to the rink in Boise with it.

It was easy to mount the camera on a railing in the stands next to the glass, and the field of view was sufficient to pick up not only me but almost the entire defensive zone.  The only drawback to that setup was that the camera didn’t follow me when I switched nets — a minor inconvenience, since it still gave me about 45 minutes of footage of myself.

I seem to be a bit off on my angle here, but I make a save anyway during a drop-in game.

Video can be a great tool.  I saw many aspects of my play that I want to improve.  Video can also serve as a stark reminder that I am not playing in the NHL.

When I’m in the moment, on the ice, the action around me feels fast and my reactions quick.  When I watch the same play on video, it feels like everything is happening in slow motion.  Am I really skating that slow?  Am I really taking that long to start moving into the shot?  Why isn’t the puck going faster?  It’s almost embarrassing to watch how slow and sloppy everything is.

I have a new appreciation for the patience of those people who have come to watch my games in the past.