12 in 4

Yup. 12 games, four days. That's a whole lotta soccer. While I always shoot plenty of action, it tends to all look alike after so many games, so the real fun is the players' reactions. I should mention that, like last year, we spent the first day hiding under jackets as we tried to tone in bright sun, had slightly more shade the second day under a canopy brought by another photog, and finally took over the press box the third day. Posted in chronological order, purely for my convenience, given the number of photos I'm sharing..

Pro tip: buy some neutral or green shirts for photographing sports, so as to not anger the photo gods and keep your karma in check.

Above: a ref calls offsides after a goal by West. Below, he overturns the offsides call, allowing the point. I was shooting two games on adjacent fields, so I perched at the top of the stands and turned around when I heard cheering from either side.

Never underestimate the ability of a mess of red curls to elevate a photo from average.

Above: Regina star Johnny Rummelhart (what a good soccer name, huh?) barrels past the goalie on the way to his third goal of the game (below). Register photog Chris Gannon had such a good angle on this, from midfield.

The two guys kept going at each other. "Are you guys going to shake hands?" asked the ref as Xavier's Michael Tessmer (8) goes in for the hug.

Points scored in overtime always ellicit the best reactions.