I’m going to say something very un-Canadian. As a spectator, I prefer basketball over hockey. (Although, as a player, I prefer hockey over basketball. But floor hockey over ice hockey — I can’t skate well enough for ice hockey!)
Went to my first Raptors game last night, courtesy of my friend with the tickets. In fact, it was my first event at the Air Canada Centre, which is a little absurd considering how close by I lived when I was beside the Rogers Centre. I passed by it all the time.
We had pretty good seats, although I wasn’t close enough to capture the action on camera as well as I would’ve liked. I’m not a big telephoto-type of photographer — too high-profile for my low-profile preferences — but I would’ve LOVED to have had a fast 300mm lens with me last night. “Fast” is a relative term, however, since most 300mm lenses of the affordable kind have a maximum aperture of around f/4, which is wholly inadequate in stadium lighting, 30 rows up from the floor. I pointed out the lenses used by the official photographers on the floor to my friend, massive lenses that looked large even from our vantage point and required a big set of hands to hold (a tripod just doesn’t work for a game as quick as basketball, not to mention it takes up far too much space; as it is, the photographers have to sit on the floor by the bench).
The Raptors’ defense was porous last night, a point that could not be hammered home loud enough or enough times by the half a dozen or so Basketball Critics sitting behind us. I thought the two men beside me would turn around and pummel them, but I have to give everyone credit for not starting a war on Row 18 in Section 108. It was deafening at times, with every variation on “WHERE IS THE DEFENSE?!?” I have ever heard, with expletives used as adjectives in every possible way.
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