For many, Boxing Day was a relatively quiet day. For Thorsten Gohl, not so much.
The Fort Providence-based photographer and physical literacy co-ordinator ended up taking an overnight flight to Ottawa from Vancouver. He had a hockey game to catch.
Gohl was heading to the World Junior Hockey Championship in the nation's capital and has been rinkside snapping shots of all the action involving the teams competing for one of the biggest prizes in the sport.
"Got two hours of sleep in there in the morning," he said, adding that he's staying with a friend in Ottawa. "It was a long day."
So why the World Juniors? Gohl said it was all about taking it in.
"I just really wanted the experience of the World Juniors," he said. "It's definitely big, and especially in the Northwest Territories, there's a lot of hockey going on."
Gohl is best-known as a photographer for a number of sports in the NWT, namely table tennis and hockey. But those are different beasts, as he described it.
And while he's been in Ottawa, Gohl has managed to become a team photographer for Germany, the country of his birth.
In fact, the very day he landed, he went straight into Germany's first match against the United States.
It's Gohl's first time working with a national team, he said.
"It's cool, I (was) working with their media guy," he explained. "I'm trying not to engage too much with the athletes because they have their routines and everything else."
Gohl's main focus was to take pictures for Germany, he said, but he's had the chance to take pictures of other teams, notably Gavin McKenna of Whitehorse, who's leading the Western Hockey League in scoring as of press time.
He added he has his fair share of experiences taking pictures at big tournaments or matches, but it's pretty cool to feel the excitement coming off the young athletes.
"Just standing in the tunnel, the lights come on, the music goes and you see them running out of the tunnel onto the ice, and then capturing that picture is pretty cool," he said. "It's a cool feeling to feel it for them, for sure."
Gohl was on his way back home right before the year ends, but would he ever do this again? Sure, he said, so long as he gets the share this experience with younger photographers in the NWT.
"How can we get them involved?" Gohl asked rhetorically, suggesting there could be a year-long mentorship program, where, at the end, youth could go to a major event like the World Juniors or an NHL game.
After the tournament, Gohl said he'll make some suggestions to Hockey Canada to see what's possible.
Pictures and plans aside, the best part about being there, Gohl said, was reactions he got from friends and family when they see him on camera.
"You get text messages here and there from people saying 'oh, I saw you,' and here's a picture of you just being there on the bench," he laughed. "It's not about me being here, but it's about them enjoying that I am here."
