Update, March 1, viii:25 p.yard. | Bruce Bennett answers a reader's question virtually how photo agencies are picked for the privilege of having their cameras in or over the net.

Correction appended | Bruce Bennett has been shooting with seven cameras at Canada Hockey Place in Vancouver: 3 at arm's accomplish, with lenses of various sizes; 2 mounted in the rafters, pointing downwardly to the goals; ane clamped to the stanchion that holds the goal-indicator light behind a net; and 1 inside the net itself.

"It's kind of similar playing piano," said Mr. Bennett, who is the director of photography for hockey imagery at Getty Images.

Just Bennett is really more than like a usher than a musician in this production. Months of planning went into the images made at a moment's notice.

[Doug Mills of The Times discussed his preparations for Vancouver's ski slopes on Lens in "Up for the Downhill."]

Getty sent Mr. Bennett to the Vancouver arena in September to scout the location, shoot a lesser tournament and design the Olympic system. Deciding that rubber was better than sorry, Mr. Bennett rigged some cameras to fire with the same remote. This arrangement results in a lot of unwanted photos. The upside: since the cameras in the rafters, within the net and on the stanchion are continued by Ethernet and transmit images instantly and automatically, Mr. Bennett doesn't have to sort through all the results to discover the treasure. His editors exercise.

"I feel bad for the guys who have to go through all that extraneous cloth," he said.

Sports photographers often mutter that hockey is hard to shoot. It'south fast. It's unpredictable. It's played with a tiny rubber disc that you have to track through a scuffed-up piece of plexiglass as it zooms over a frictionless surface at speeds topping 100 miles an hour.

But after 37 years of photographing hockey, Mr. Bennett doesn't seem to notice. "It's become 2nd nature to me," calculation that he would be lost roofing a baseball game.

Growing upwards on Long Island, Bennett gravitated to hockey. He was relegated to the stands, notwithstanding, considering of his late first playing the game and his unease on the water ice. Merging his interests in photography and hockey, Mr. Bennett started selling his pictures to The Hockey News for $iii apiece (published). He was the official photographer for the New York Islanders, Philadelphia Flyers, New York Rangers and New Bailiwick of jersey Devils before he sold Bruce Bennett Studios to Getty Images in 2004.

Mr. Bennett admits that he'due south most as stiff a lensman as he was a skater. How, then, was he able to build such a successful career? "It was more than having good business sense," he said. That's what compelled him to put cameras where they didn't belong.

Mr. Bennett said he realized that "there'southward cypher more than compelling than a proficient net cam photo." The do of putting a standard-sized S.L.R. in a clear, shatter-proof, polycarbonate box is hardly new, only there'due south a reason why these images are rarely seen: information technology's difficult to capture all the elements.

DESCRIPTION Bruce Bennett/Getty Images

"You want goalie sprawled out with player in front end of him with his artillery up, so y'all take the joy and dejection in the same frame," Mr. Bennett said. "It rarely happens."

But it happened on Sunday night when the United States surprised Canada — and the rest of the world. In Mr. Bennett's picture, above, Martin Brodeur, the Canadian goalie, isn't exactly sprawled out. But he is dejected; as dejected equally the U.S. forward, Zach Parise, is blithesome.

"It's No. 1 in my volume," Mr. Bennett said. "Not only is it a large moment in the game and the Olympics, but information technology all came together and it'southward framed perfectly."

After shooting over four,800 games, Mr. Bennett isn't the fan he once was. He doesn't cheer for the Islanders (and wouldn't fifty-fifty if in that location was something to cheer about) or when his land's hockey squad beats the team from the nation that created the game. Information technology'southward not for lack of beloved. He's a announcer, and there's no cheering in the printing box or the penalisation box.

Correction

Mr. Bennett sold his studio business to Getty Images in 2004, not to Gannett, as this postal service originally stated.