Stanley Cup in Twillingate, Newfoundland

I wrapped up my Hurricane Fiona coverage and from here had a week left on my landscape photography trip to Newfoundland. It was to conclude in Gander where I would be covering the Montreal Canadiens vs the Ottawa Senators in a pre-season NHL game by Kraft Hockeyville. In those 6 days, I traveled Western Newfoundland exclusively, going as far North as St. Anthony. Attempting and failing to capture the aurora at the Northern tip, but eventually capturing the Aurora in Gros Morne.

As the days went on, I was slowly moving closer and closer to Gander. An hour’s drive here, and hour’s drive there would be a nice way to wrap things up.

On the fourth of October, an email came in from the NHL. The Stanley Cup would be taken on a tour of Twillingate, known for its icebergs. It would commence at 930am on the 5th. I thought no big deal, I’d just keep taking images of Gros Morne and make my way East over the next twenty-four hours…that sure did change. In the meantime a friend had asked, are you going to take photos of the Cup again or skip it. The plan was to skip it, but that all changed when one of the editors sent me the schedule saying be there for 930.

I was about 5-6 hours away from Twillingate or so I had thought, advising my editor of such. At 6 pm, I was off on the road again heading to Gander. Turns out the drive was only 3ish hours. The next morning I was at the starting point at 730am checking things out and capturing some sunrise photos.

At 925am, there were two vehicles at the original starting point and we were asking, are we in the right spot? Sure enough, an email would come in stating the starting point changed.

I arrived at the new location, the wharf, on time. Afterall Twillingate is a small community. A good amount of people had gathered but all were invited. Some members of the organizing committee, some from the NHL and some media.

Thankfully, there were only two photographers. The other photographer was Dave Sandford of NHL Images. Dave is a legendary NHL photographer who made waves in other ways including his work with Polar Bears International or literally his wave images.

At first, I was kind of surprised everyone at the wharf was heading out on the boat. There were no others there. So we all jumped in the boat and off we went.

It was my first time being on a boat in Twillingate. Truth be told, I have an outstanding assignment in Twillingate where I am supposed to capture images of icebergs, which has been a thing for the past two years. I also planned on launching a Newfoundland book this year, but it’s been delayed a year due to me having no photos of icebergs. A Newfoundland & Labrador book without icebergs? Not gonna happen!

So off we went on the boat tour, cruising around Twillingate.

As the Cup toured Twillingate, I was surprised that no one had lined the shores to see it…until we turned around and went under the bridge. There were four people up top looking down. A secret like the cup being in a small maritime community would usually spread like wildfire.

We did a harbour cruise as people started to notice there was a few more people ashore watching. Eventually we passed the Coast Guard who, we weren’t sure had noticed the cup…however as we got further by them, all a sudden they were taking pictures. They saw it.

The tour took us out to the Long Point Lighthouse which I had photographed from shore and we eventually turned around and went back in. I of coursed jokingly suggested we should do it again when there were icebergs. Phil Pritchard chimed in saying it was done before…of course, it was and Phil would know.

We eventually returned to shore and went on a tour to different hot spots within the community including the local school