Playoff fever rising – schedule issues
Spring is here – which also means that various indoor sports start to have their playoff seasons starting. This is visible in the stands as more and more people are packing into the seats, on the court as players are giving in more in each game to get the win.. and for the self-employed photographer in the problems that the league keeps on altering the dates the games are going to be played on.
Not always easy the scheduling, for teams/leagues – teams rarely in Finland own their venues, so can’t always have much of a say as to what date is available, even if the dates are announced in September when game calendar comes out.. and a dutiful photographer marks those dates to the calendar .. only to see them being changed multiple times, even few days before the game in question. And yes – I know this is an issue that probably only I moan about, if I have next Tuesday marked for game X vs Z in certain league.. it is booked in my calendar there for months, and if it is changed six days before the game it makes probably no difference to the fans.. but for me, it might mean that I will have an empty date there.
Empty dates for self-employed mean.. no pay.
Right now I am waiting to see what the dates are for Women’s Korisliiga finals – I have all five dates (the ones announced at the start of the season!) reserved in the calendar for each game. But I fear that there will be changes that mean I probably won’t make each game.. sometimes that’s just the way the cookie crumbles!
Last week I managed to get to two playoff games, a men’s 1/4 Final in Salo and women’s 1/2 Final in Forssa – lovely to be on the baseline again with the cameras, and made a change from the grind of covering over 50 teams profile images for Superpesis/Ykköspesis.
Both games had great crowds and you could sense that the fans were really up for the games, and so were the players. End to end action and somehow even the photos display that sense that these games just mean more – and even the referees allowed some celebrations after the players hit a nice three pointer (celebration towards the fans… which earlier in the season in a men’s game got a player a technical foul.. was not considered anything except a part of the game this time!! I approve and the camera loves those kind of photos!)
Let’s see how many games in the Korisliiga playoffs I can get to – waiting for the schedule is almost like when you were a kid and waited eagerly to open each window in the Xmas calendar to see what’s behind it.. at the moment (Tuesday 11.04.2023) the only games visible in the online calendar for the games is 12.04.2023 Kataja-KTP (Game 5 in 1/4 Finals) .. as I said, makes it easy to plan stuff 😉
