DANKOCHIK’S DRAFTINGS: Summer sports season, here we come

There’s no week I look forward to more than when I can finally step out of the hockey rink and start taking in some outdoor sports, although it’s a terrible joke this year when we could be on pace to have the first high school baseball games of the season actually not be derailed by weather, I’ll be rushing off to Virden to try and catch the potentially decisive game four of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League finals.

There’s a little bit of a practical preference for the summer sports season. The sun is the best lighting for photos you could ever wish for so to have it beating down when you’re taking high frame rate photos is so much more fun than underneath arena lights that can be lacking.

There’s also a natural desire to be outdoors after a long season inside rinks, but I think why I look forward to getting outside so much goes beyond that.

There’s a smell, a feel even a taste to outdoor sports. Cut grass and chalk, the wind on your skin, even the classic handful of sunflower seeds at a ball game. Just looking at the sky and hoping a rain cloud will skew north or south and avoid the diamond has a bit of magic as well.

While the pop of a loud playoff hockey crowd can’t be replicated, there’s a soul in the echos of cheering across the soccer field, the sounds of players shouting at one another in anger or joy.

So hopefully I can see some readers out at the ball/soccer/rugby/football fields this summer as we enjoy some nice weather and sport at the same time.