With slim pickings for something to do for the day, the decision was made to go to a high school hockey state championship semi final game, featuring Liberty High School of suburban Columbus against an all boys catholic high school from Toledo, St Francis.
The Ohio High School Athletic Association rules over all varsity sports in Ohio with an iron fist. One of the ongoing controversies is the competitive balance of the private schools, that can recruit players from a wide area against the public school that are limited, with a few minor exceptions, to their local attendance boundaries. As a result the private school, while making up less than 10% of all of the school regularly win over 50% of the state championships.
Apparently the OHSAA wants to control everything. When I tried to enter the arena with my SLR I was told that unless I had press credentials I couldn’t enter with a camera with a detachable lense, so I went back to the car to leave it behind and bring only my little ‘point and click’.
Then when we went to go sit ‘anywhere’, we chose to sit in the front row along the glass, only to be told the OHSAA didn’t want anyone sitting in the first row because god forbid we bang on the glass.
So with those limitations, here are the results of my point and click day of hockey (oh yes – St Francis won 8-2, guaranteeing another private school state championship since the other game included two private schools).
Enough ranting for one post.
RDZ Photography 