Snapshots and slapshots Winnipeg Jets’ official photographer captures the passion from the best seat in the house By: David Sanderson Posted: 12:00 PM CDT Friday, Apr. 19, 2024

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This article was published 19/04/2024 (535 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Before we begin, Jonathan Kozub would like to thank all those who will be wearing the requisite shade of attire when they arrive at Canada Life Centre to cheer on the Winnipeg Jets during this spring’s Stanley Cup playoffs.

As the National Hockey League club’s official photographer, Kozub couldn’t ask for a more favourable backdrop when he’s documenting the on-ice action than 15,000-plus rabid Jets fans, bedecked head-to-toe in their finest whites.

“There’s a reason why the walls of most photo studios are painted white; not only do you get more depth, it makes the images a lot sharper,” says Kozub, who, between the Jets and the Manitoba Moose, his other primary client, has shot in excess of 1,200 professional hockey games, during an impressive 22-year career.

“Here, during the playoffs, it’s like being in this giant white room… it’s absolutely amazing. I say it again and again: Whiteout shots are always the best, especially with everybody in the building being super pumped-up, to begin with.”

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It’s 3:30 p.m., three-and-a-half-hours before the Jets are due to host the visiting Calgary Flames in their third-to-last home game of the regular season.

Sporting dark slacks and a navy-blue shell jacket bearing a Jets crest, Kozub, whose work is regularly sought out by newspapers, magazines and major sports card companies, is positioned in a corridor leading to the home team’s locker room, where he is busily snapping photos of players as they arrive one by one, for that evening’s tilt.

A few pause to smile for the camera but the majority appear razor-focused, offering Kozub’s telephoto lens a perfunctory nod.

That’s fine by him, he says, checking to see which of his shots of forward Kyle Connor turned out the best.

“It’s all about getting the guys coming in, in flashy suits,” he remarks, mentioning a selection of the pics he’s taking will be posted on the Jets’ Facebook and Instagram pages, prior to puck drop.

“The NHL wants fans to be able to get a behind-the-scenes look at their favourite players, and that’s where I come in.”

Kozub, 44, was six years old when he attended his first Jets 1.0 game at the “old barn.” The Los Angeles Kings were in town, he recalls, and during warm-ups, his father encouraged him to head down to ice level to get shots of stars such as Marcel Dionne and Bernie Nicholls, using a Kodak Pocket Instamatic camera his mother had given him as a gift.

To encourage his budding interest in photography, his mom also bought him a coffee-table book packed with photos taken by Bruce Bennett, a New Yorker who’s often called the Wayne Gretzky of hockey photography, for his work covering the NHL, particularly the New York Islanders, starting in the 1970s.

He must have leafed through that book a thousand times, Kozub says, and as his shutterbug skills improved, so, too, did his gear.

By the time he was attending Kelvin High School, he was taking all his own pictures, for whatever science project or social-studies assignment he was working on.

Besides his self-taught hobby, Kozub continued to be an ardent hockey fan. As a Moose season-ticket holder in the early 2000s, he regularly snapped pics at games he attended.

“This was back when the Moose website was largely text-based,” says Kozub, who, at the time, was employed as a driver for Canada Post. He felt the club’s online presence could use a little more pizzazz, and since he had nothing to lose, he continually contacted — “they’d probably say pestered” — the team’s front office, to share his photos.

His persistence eventually paid off. One morning, Barrett Paulsen, currently True North Sports + Entertainment’s director of community relations, reached out to say “tell you what; we’ll let you do a period or two.”

“That was at the beginning of the 2002-03 season, and I’ve been shooting (the Moose), ever since,” Kozub says, with a hint of pride.

Like most Winnipeggers, Kozub became excited when the news broke on May 31, 2011 that True North had reached an agreement to purchase the Atlanta Thrashers, paving the way for the return of the city’s NHL franchise.

Since he had been working with the Moose for nine years by then, he crossed his fingers, hoping to get a call from somebody associated with the reborn Jets.

He was still waiting by the phone on Sept. 18, 2011, when he was informed his department at Canada Post was being terminated, and that he was being let go, effective immediately.

“People assume you’re rolling in dough doing this job, but that definitely wasn’t the case,” he says, noting he is responsible for covering the cost of every last piece of equipment he owns, presently around $25,000 worth, not including lights and such. “So yeah, after losing my post-office job, I was more than a little worried how I was going to make ends meet.”

Well, not only did the Jets get in touch at the last moment, a photograph Kozub took of then-captain Andrew Ladd skating onto the ice for the team’s first exhibition game on Sept. 20 — two days after he lost his job — landed on the cover of The Hockey News two weeks later, along with the headline Ladies and gentlemen, your Winnipeg Jets.

“I’m proud to say I’ve only missed three Jets games in 13 years; one because of COVID and two because I was on assignment for the league, covering outdoor games in Denver and Edmonton,” he says.

“I wouldn’t say I ever get star-struck but there are definitely times I’ll think, ‘wow,’ when somebody like Sidney Crosby politely asks if I need a shot of him with his helmet on or off, when I’m taking pics, pre-game.”

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Kozub’s day typically starts at 8 a.m. Even if there isn’t a Jets game scheduled that afternoon or evening, he’s usually playing catch-up, he says, explaining he takes upwards of 4,000 photographs, per game, and he has a week to file them with the NHL, which is technically his employer.

(The Jets pay him to shoot their home games, but that expenditure is covered by the league. In addition to running his own studio, Point Shot Photography, he also has a separate contract with international media conglomerate Getty Images to cover both the Western Hockey and Manitoba Junior Hockey leagues.)

Once he’s done taking pics of arriving players — alternate captain Josh Morrissey is notorious for being the last to pull in — he retreats to an area outside the Matt Frost Media Centre, to double-check specific assignments.

For the Jets-Flames game, for example, the league has requested individual shots of the Jets’ Sean Monahan and Morgan Barron, along with pics of Flames forwards Andrei Kuzmenko and Blake Coleman.

Come game-time, he’s typically at ice level in the northeast corner, below Section 101.

Every rink has small holes cut into the Plexiglas through which photographers can aim their lenses. There is a league stipulation, however, that if a player is within a prescribed distance of those openings, the shooter is responsible for closing them, by sliding a movable piece of glass into position. That’s sometimes easier said than done, Kozub says, uttering “follow me” as he heads to his post.

“In Teemu Selanne’s last game in Winnipeg (in 2011), I was taking pics of him skating up the ice when one of the other (Anaheim) Ducks, Patrick Maroon, rimmed the puck along the boards,” he says, demonstrating how his camera fits through the gap.

“I didn’t react in time, mostly because I was too busy watching Teemu, and (the puck) hit the edge of my lens. It didn’t shatter, but to this day I can’t attach a filter to it.”

Now that he is one of the longest-tenured photographers in the league, Kozub happily dispenses advice to up-and-comers. His first tip is not to beat yourself up if you missed getting a photo of an important moment, such as a timely hit or game-winning goal.

“Instead of being upset, get the celebration afterwards, I tell them, because that’s the shot that’s going to sell,” he says, mentioning how he botched snapping a pic of Blackhawks phenom Connor Bedard scoring against the Jets in December, owing to it being a harmless-looking shot that deflected into the net off a Jets player’s skate.

“Today’s game is so fast that it’s impossible to get everything. What you’re really hoping to capture is emotion. You want to catch a player’s highs, because even though that feeling will be gone in a split second, it will live on for years in a photograph.”

That’s a tough one, Kozub says, when asked if there are any moments from his career that stand out above all others.

Getting the opportunity to meet Dale Hawerchuk in 2017, ahead of his induction into the Jets Hall of Fame was one.

So, too, was covering the Jets-Oilers alumni game that was played outdoors, in tandem with the 2016 Heritage Classic. His action shot of Selanne from that match even appears on the front cover of the Finnish superstar’s autobiography, which he deems as “pretty cool.”

“As for games, the first return of the whiteout in 2015 is right up there,” he continues. “The intro to that game had such a crazy atmosphere that (former coach) Paul Maurice and some of the players had tears in their eyes.”

On a more personal level, he felt honoured last May when former captain Blake Wheeler requested his services to take a family portrait of himself, his wife Sam and their three kids, before they left the city.

“Though it hadn’t officially been announced he wouldn’t be back with the Jets, I think he knew, which was the reason for the session,” he says.

As fans begin to filter into the building, Kozub says it’s hard to argue with friends who continually tell him he has the best seat in the house, game in and game out.

A few years ago Jets management offered to set him up with a workspace of his own, in the bowels of the downtown rink.

His response: “thanks, but no thanks.”

“Right here, this is my office,” he says, settling onto a four-legged metal stool.

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca